In KIX by Dávid Mikulán and Bálint Révész, we follow two brothers, Sanyi and Viktor. They met Dávid while skating on a sunny day, their friendship taking a funny and enjoyable form, while the story develops in the years that go by. I felt as if the audience in the screening I attended were amused by the antics of the boys, and I was too, enjoying their cheek and their way of not caring about anything, laden with a puerile anarchist wisdom, barely explained by a kid in voice-over. But this sensation does not last as the children grow into their teens.
As they grow up, the concern of the spectators increases. The style of filmmaking also becomes a little more classical, and instead of sharing the camera with the protagonists, it stays firmly in the filmmaker’s hands. Throughout the twelve years of shooting, we see their relationships changing, and Viktor, the eldest brother, decides that he doesn’t want to be in the film. As it is a documentary and the subjects are people with free will. Sanyi’s charisma and bids for attention take center stage. But there are also displays of behaviour that began to border on the impertinenent. But, is the presence of the camera really like an impartial witness, or does it change anything in Sanyi's motivations?
We also get a glimpse into the family situation by understanding the deep poverty they live in. The whole family sleeps together in the same bed (grandmother included!). There is the exhausted mother that gets to work early in the morning each day, and works two or three jobs at the same time. Almost forgetting she’s raising a third kid, Timi, who becomes a part of the film's landscape. There’s no hot water in the apartment until the next renovation. In the meantime, Sanyi is sadly transformed into the stereotype of a “problematic” teenager. An adolescent with whom we had empathy at some point; but as time goes by, we start to dislike what the child who was so funny at the beginning is becoming. At least, in his big messy adolescence, he becomes conscious of the pattern he has grown up in. He says that he will not be educating his future kids the same way he has been raised, a mark of sensitivity and lucidity in all the chaos.
Nevertheless, we can’t be surprised to see Sanyi staying out of the house as much as possible. He’s in the streets, an escape from the realities of home, distancing himself from responsibilities like trying to improve his grades or taking care of his little sister, Timi. Even so, he is still criticised by those around him for his lack of involvement in his studies and his lack of seriousness. But as A room of one’s own by Virginia Woolf states: How could he even adequately study in a 28-square-meter apartment shared with five other people?
KIX is a portrait in which we come to understand how children are shaped by the environment and conditions they grow up in. It illustrates how having a bed and a house to rest and learn in is something that not everyone can afford. It is our responsibility as a society to ensure that every child has everything he or she needs to grow up healthy physically, but above all, mentally. It is our responsibility as a society, because we know that despite the parents' best efforts, poverty cannot be sold to get rid of it.
I was amused by these two boys at first. But then my feelings became more and more complex. Those mixed feelings shifted from concern to fear of something serious happening: a point of no return in Sanyi's life. But as far as the film goes through Sanyi’s teenhood dramas, we understand that Sanyi would have loved to return to his childhood; to keep on skateboarding, running to the city limits while the responsibilities of an early adulthood pursue him pushing him to those limits.
Carla Aubert
