Recent Watching: 24 Frames and The Wonder Years

Last night I watched a movie from the late Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami called 24 Frames. The Criterion Collection summarizes the movie as follows:

For what would prove to be his final film, Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami gave himself a challenge: to create a dialogue between his work as a filmmaker and his work as a photographer, bridging the two art forms to which he had dedicated his life. Setting out to reconstruct the moments immediately before and after a photograph is taken, Kiarostami selected twenty-four still images—most of them stark landscapes inhabited only by foraging birds and other wildlife—and digitally animated each one into its own subtly evolving four-and-a-half-minute vignette, creating a series of poignant studies in movement, perception, and time. A sustained meditation on the process of image making, 24 Frames is a graceful and elegiac farewell from one of the giants of world cinema.

If you are looking for a traditional narrative movie, this is not the picture for you. But, if you have an interest in experimental movies, I would recommend it.

In contrast to this experimental movie, I have also recently been watching the new reboot of The Wonder Years. 

Here is what NPR television critic Eric Deggans has to say about the show:

What I love most about this new Wonder Years is how it balances coming-of-age moments which are universal for middle class Americans – bullies at school, wanting your crush to notice you, struggling not to embarrass yourself at a Little League game – with stuff that was specific to Black families like mine.

Deggans goes on to talk about the importance of foregrounding the African-American experience>

One big reason changing the races of characters in a series reboot can make sense is because the adjustment can reclaim a bit of cultural space – allowing people of color to tell their own stories in a fictional world where they had previously been rendered invisible. (Though it is interesting that series star Fred Savage also serves as an executive producer for the reboot and directed the pilot episode.)

That's the real reason I enjoyed the new Wonder Years reboot so much. Here, I'm not the one trying to imagine how people like me would fit into a narrative set at such an important time.

And, just maybe, the rest of America might learn a little more about its history by seeing those pivotal moments from a perspective different than their own.

The episodes are each a little more than twenty minutes long, but I feel like each one so far has been a fulfilling experience. It is good to see that, at least occasionally, network television can produce a quality family show.