Coming of age stories have a way of drawing people in, perhaps because it is a time both perplexing and universal. When carefully documented, it can also be a time of great honesty, which explains the potential of
Frontline's latest offering
Country Boys. Documentary filmmaker
David Sutherland makes us work for this one - it airs for a total of six hours over three consecutive nights. But the reward is to understand, by looking at the lives of two teenage friends, what life is like in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky. Through them, we come to see what is universal to all of us, and what is unique about this time and their place. The timing is all the more appropriate in view of last week's news reports that brought so much tragedy and heroism to our living rooms from the coal mines of another Appalachian state - West Virginia (see
Bill's Journal 1/08/06).
Coming of age stories have a way of drawing people in, perhaps because it is a time both perplexing and universal. When carefully documented, it can also be a time of great honesty, which explains the potential of Frontline's latest offering Country Boys. Documentary filmmaker David Sutherland makes us work for this one - it airs for a total of six hours over three consecutive nights. But the reward is to understand, by looking at the lives of two teenage friends, what life is like in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky. Through them, we come to see what is universal to all of us, and what is unique about this time and their place. The timing is all the more appropriate in view of last week's news reports that brought so much tragedy and heroism to our living rooms from the coal mines of another Appalachian state - West Virginia (see Bill's Journal 1/08/06).
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