Celebration of childhood

BACK when I was the age of the pre-teen heroes of new film Son of Rambow, the only contest open to us involved guessing how many jellybeans filled the jar.

Rambow's central duo are determined to win no less than a short-film competition.

However, unlike the Plymouth Brethren upbringing of Rambow's central character, we certainly weren't deprived of popular culture in the form of radio mysteries, television sitcoms, Saturday matinees and the ubiquitous jukebox.

All this leisure deluxe shaped our expectations of the world that we were so desperate to join and, once there and disappointed by its injustice, so eager to change.

Our barrier was a sense of isolation and, apart from our classmates, there was no way to make contact with a wider world of like-minded kids.

However much we admired them, we knew that the sassy kids of Our Gang and Just William crumbled when challenged by adults and nothing that we read or saw inspired the confidence to believe that our ideas mattered.

Flash forward through the sudden permeable membrane of youth culture and, with no small thanks to technology, the tables turned.

Liberated by an era of disposable income and cross-cultural influences, defying parents and teachers slow to acknowledge a changing structure, young people increasingly call the cultural tune.

Society struggles to balance an encouragement of its youth to express themselves, while trying to tether them "for their own protection" and a fear that the tiny taste of freedom will stimulate an appetite to bite the hand that feeds.

Never trust anyone over 30, we used to chant. Now, we're the suspect ones, ever wooing Generation X. They're right to be wary - we want their money.

Though they're unevenly distributed throughout the country, local governments, educational and sports bodies seek easy grant money with child-centred schemes. The media maniacally devotes itself to capturing an ever-younger consumer market.

How prophetic was Barry Shear's 1968 Wild in the Street, led by a 22-year-old US president who advocates a voting age of 14? And, before you tut-tut, Pitt was PM at 24.

A corporate world largely baffled by new communications networks beckons children with old media paradigms. They exploit inherently curious youngsters of whatever class to play, to test, to discover, to hone a competitive edge. To win.

And that makes Son of Rambow all the more remarkable. Aside from the contest driving its story and sharing multiplex space with family entertainment which equates problem solving with physical dominance, here's a genuinely fresh comedy full of heart and charm, advocating co-operation.

What lingers is the knowledge that children still want and need to face the world by seeking their unique voice, the thing that defines them.
They've absorbed more than we expected and have understood how to tame technology to tell their own tales.

Thirty-something writer/director Garth Jennings knows full well that the changing market not only buys films about the new breed of tech-savvy kids, it's seeking movies by them, too.

It will come as no surprise to learn that Jennings, too, began making films aged 11. It sure beats counting jellybeans.