WATCHING this Los Angeles- centered film has left me with some mixed feelings. Being from Los Angeles, my mother was six months pregnant with my younger sister when the '92 "riots" occurred. When I've talked to her about it, it's always been her recounting frantically how much she didn't want to bring another child into the world. The subjugation of youth within the film is starling. The victimization of D-Fens's daughter, the boy who oddly knows how to shoot varying weapons (and is also playing by a freeway...), and even the child at the pool that literally had D-Fens's blood in her palm are all chillingly violent. The ending of the film implies that the party, or the expectation thereof, is over for Los Angeles. Suicide-by-cop via a childhood summertime toy and soft pastel balloons that have lost their flight paint a picture that isn't sane. We too sink with the helium, absorbing the weight of man's inhumanity to his fellow man.
And Adele never got her party...
-- Hailey Hannan
(images: the children of "Falling Down" via www.aveleyman.com, site of movie & t.v. captures)
Not to be "that guy" Miss Hannan, but Adele did get her party in the end. However, her Mom still had to give her the bad news about her father when all is said and done. I digress... When people think of Los Angeles they often forget to think about the children that live there as well. It seems like they would cease to exist in a city of hustle and bustle. Even I act surprised when I drive by elementary schools in the Watts area. It should be remembered that kids are an essential part of the city still. However, it can be saddening to think of the many that are swept into the somewhat dark realm of the city (whether it be by choice or not). For the kids by the freeway it appeared that their involvement in the city was leisure and carefree. But for Adele she was simply carried along on the sinister ride that involved her mother and father's maddening discontent with LA.
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