BOYS IN THE TREES

At the turning point between childhood and adulthood there is a twilight zone, where emotions become stronger, fears become greater, and worlds become more permeable. Halloween 1997 in Adelaide, Australia: modems are dialing up, Bush and Marilyn Manson are on heavy rotation, and Corey and his skater gang are cycling through the suburbs, always in search of the next kick, joint, beer. When they run into the outsider Jonah, it’s not long before he is lying on the ground. It is a decisive moment for Corey too, who realizes that he is actually tired of those kinds of alpha-male actions. So he turns his back on his gang and wanders with Jonah through the night, in which fantasy and reality first dance around one another and then entwine. Nicholas Verso’s coming-of-age fantasy, clearly compiled from some of his own memories, is darkly romantic and visually vivid (camera: Marden Dead): fleeting youth and its even more fleeting moments, all the monsters and demons hidden in them, are captured in a dark fairy tale of a single night that will change everything and everyone forever.