OUR TIME

US, 1974, 88 minutes, Colour.
Pamela Sue Martin, Parker Stevenson.
Directed by Peter Hyams.

Nostalgia chords seem to be able to be touched anywhere these days. Films are vividly re-creating the look and atmosphere of the past. They are also making films now that make moral comment on the past and the present by making comparisons about behaviour in both periods. These are the films like American Graffiti and That'll be the Day, where they make comparisons with the youth cultures. Our Time is akin to these films. It takes a group of students in their final year at High School in 1955-56 and presents their emotional problems and asks us to make comparisons with the attitudes of young people now. This film seems especially geared to girls. The central problem is that of pregnancy (not of love) and the consequent seeking of abortion. Thus the centre of the film is fairly grim even though the colour photography seems to give the past a glowing aura (or is this the effect of the haze of memory?). The involvement, emotionally, of a young female audience could mean that this film would repay seeing and discussing.

1. To whom did the "our" refer? The youngsters of 1955? Where are they now? For whom was the film made? Modern audiences or for the nostalgia of that particular age group? Why?

2. How well did the film portray its past? How much nostalgia did it have? Was it real or was it sentimental and over-nostalgic? How well did the film recreate the times, the manners, the sets? The use of colour, the aura and special glow about the scenes and characters? The film as a memory rather than as a portrayal of reality? Hence the use of colour and aura?

3. How real was the film? Does memory play tricks and make things better and worse? The glow of memory and the sombre aspects of memory? Was the film successful in these nuances of memory and nostalgia?

4. How interestingly portrayed was life at the school? The structure of the film in the life at school during that final year? The details of school, the personalities there, the proportion of discussion and portrayal of sexual questions? The centrality of the abortion issue? Did this make the film seem real or out of proportion? Did it give an adequate treatment of the final year at school? Or the highlights as seen then or as remembered?

5. How attractive were the girls in themselves? Their friendship, Muffi and her plainness contrasting with the heroine's attractiveness? As seeing them in their school and family background? Lateness for assemblies, the religious overtones of the service at assembly, meals, picked on by the prefect, talking in rooms etc.? The focus on sex, dates, the week-ends, the dance? How feminine were these discussions? How real were they?

6. The role of the boys in the film - at the dance, at the week-end with Peter, the sexuality at the back of the van? The facing of responsibility, the portrayal of adolescent sexuality?

7. Did the school then explain the emphases or did it provide a background for them? How adequately was this portrayed? The formation given in the school, the classes, the staff, lack of communication of staff and parents?

8. How did the film become desperate when it showed the crisis? The reality of adolescent sexuality and accepting adult consequences? How frightening is this for young people?

9. How well did they handle the abortion crisis? Did they consider it adequately? The consequences of the abortion on all of them? The details of the plan, the raising of the money, the types that they met - the driver the woman at the door, the smooth talk of the medical student? What impression did this make? Backyard abortions and attractive and horrible people? Did this distract from the abortion issue itself? What stand did the film take?

10. Did you expect Muffi to die? Was this too much for the film or was it in proportion? The dramatic and emotional impact for the characters and for the audience? As a comment on the morality of abortion?

11. What human values did the film stand for? What stand on right and wrong? What were the implications for the future? The final graduation sequence and the comments on the girls growing up and having families?

12. Was this film made for feminine audiences or masculine audiences? How would girls respond differently to this film from boys? Especially in terms of pregnancy and abortion?

13. Was the film a good one or was it merely a commercially enjoyable one?