Dicks, spit and smashed windows. That’s what Sanyi and his older brother Viktor, less than twenty years combined, leave on the walls after their passage. Childhood games are not devoid of damages. KIX starts with the same boundless energy seen in the boys ; the editing is fast, the rushes multiple, and the camera shakes all the time since the director is skating while filming. Mirroring the children's playful creativity, Dávid Mikulán experiments with framing. There are fish-eye and upside down shots, daring cuts. But the show is stolen by the two children he met on the street. They grab the camera, shout into it, make it their own to film their best skate tricks. Maybe we could put them on YouTube? These miniature street terrors are both extremely entertaining and exhausting to watch, as the thought that they could hurt themselves or someone else is never far. And yet, despite the thousands of possibilities for disaster, no one seems to get hurt or crushed. All that’s left is pure adrenalin.
But one can't play games and pull pranks all day long. There are a thousand obligations: school, family, fighting off exhaustion and hunger. At some point, they have to get off the streets and go home. But to Sanyi and Viktor, the streets are more home than home. If we quickly grasp this from the ease with which they make it their own, we don't understand why until Dávid invites himself into their house. An apartment at the end of a courtyard, decrepit walls, a small room where the entire family — children, parents and grandmother — all sleep in the same bed. While they have plenty of time to play, there's no room, not even a desk, for studying. Given this reality, the film takes on a more social layer where social determinism now weighs on the shoulders of the two turbulent children. The camera’s gaze does not drastically change, but we sense the directors feeling more and more responsible for these kids, as they get closer to the family.
Sanyi doesn't skate anymore. Now he likes to smoke while he works out, and the streets are less his thing than they used to be. Like all teenagers, the bed has become his main habitat. As KIX was filmed over more than ten years, its rhythm changes with its protagonists. There's none of the effervescence of the beginning, none of the big philosophical thoughts about the harshness of the playground. Older brother Viktor no longer plays with the camera and Sanyi has also lost some of his playfulness. He also starts to get into serious trouble, not going to school and picking fights. Visually, the film settles down, with steadier, more conventional shots. We enter the boredom of teenage years.
But something lurks within the film and bad omens accumulate. Foster care might take away Sanyi, Mikulán makes him promise that he won’t become a “junkie hobo” and yet the teenager continues to break more and more rules. Little by little, even good news — a loving girlfriend and a renovated house — seem to be hiding something from us. Childhood excitement is no more, these are serious times. Fear sets in. Will the balance between sheer amusement and real danger finally break ? Starting as an innocent jest, the film eventually transcends the fallacious issues of fate and will to reflect on responsibility — whether individual, familial or societal. Without providing any concrete answers, the directors of KIX leave us in a haunting sea of what ifs.
Pauline Ciraci
