Children's Media Response: #4

God Bless The Child (2015) is a hybrid documentary/fiction film following a family of five children living through a summer day without the supervision of a parent.  This film, made and directed by the  quintet of children's own father, is a really interesting documentation of the children and the way they interact with one another and survive one another.  Throughout, there is a clear and prevalent love experienced and shown by each one of the kids, and despite their lack of parental attention and care they still seem to endure together.

I really liked our discussions of documentation in class last week.  I feel, that this is where we veer away from talking about media FOR children and start talking about media ABOUT children.  I would say this film is for adults, as it plays on the nostalgias of childhood and showcases the joy and sorrow of childhood, presenting its audience with a clear and abundant love for kids and what they are.  Each child in the film is, essentially, perfect in their own unique way.  The things they rejoice in are good, the ways they love are good.  They exist and thrive in goodness and in indulgence.  The eldest, Harper, is shown as a mature mother.  She takes the role of mom when their own mom is not there, and she represents the adult viewer in the film.  She has grown up and matured too early, and the way she interacts with her younger siblings holds the weight and sadness of an adult, but is still holding the young hope of a child too.  She is shown by the filmmakers with as much love as she shows her siblings.

I have found that the preservation of childhood is something that we are interested in discussing in this class and that almost every piece of children's media holds to be important.  It's almost as if we are all trying, in some way, to figure out this weird limbo in our minds where our memories of childhood exist.  It feels as if everyone is trying to get back or try to understand or relive some piece of their past.  This film is clearly getting at some statement of what children are and how precious childhood is.  It points a finger at those who are young and have untainted personalities and minds and says, "isn't this what we want? Isn't this what we need to get back to?"  I felt the filmmaker's own love for his children in this film and a melancholic desire to protect and preserve them in the way they are and were.

Documentation does that.  It gives us the ability to freeze time and keep people the way they are forever on a strip of film or digital file.  It allows us to hold on to something that eventually becomes shrouded and obscured.  And because of this, we can have films like God Bless The Child, which not only serves the purpose of being a showcase of childhood and goodness but also the documentation of a family, and how they once were.