VLUER FILM LIBRARY / FILM · MEMORY · CULTURE
ISSUE 001 — 24 SUMMER FRAMES
Endless
Second
Summer
A film guide to the summer holiday you get to live twice: once as a child walking towards an unknown future, then again as an adult looking back through the light of the screen.
INTRODUCTIONThe Summer
You Live Twice
A summer holiday happens only once. Or so we thought.
As children, summer was the stretch of time in which something was about to happen. You travelled to a town you did not know. You pedalled much further than usual with your friends. You crept into the school after dark. You fell for someone for the first time. You acquired a secret your parents did not know about.
Then adulthood arrives and summer comes back in another form: in films. The cicadas, the sudden shower, the pool, the den, the festival, a grandparent’s house, the walk home at dusk. Put any of them on a screen and a summer you thought had disappeared returns without being asked.
For a child, summer moves towards an unknown future. For an adult, it turns back towards a past that cannot be recovered.
The same holiday holds two completely different landscapes. Endless Second Summer is a guide for spending, through cinema, the summer you lived once as a child and now get to live again as an adult.
01 / ADVENTUREGoing Somewhere
Unknown
Summer’s basic shape is adventure. You go where you do not usually go, beyond the reach of your parents, and keep a secret that belongs only to friends. For a child, a few stations down the line or the other side of a river is a fully formed outside world.
As an adult, the direction reverses. The question is not how far you can travel, but what you can return to: an old neighbourhood, a family home, a friendship, a place that no longer exists. Adventure turns from movement towards the future into an act of looking back.
CHILD’S VIEW / I WANT TO GO SOMEWHERE UNKNOWN
ADULT’S VIEW / I REMEMBER WHAT I CANNOT RETURN TO01 / 24Stand by Me
1986 / FILM
YOUTH · ADVENTURE
Stand by Me
CHILD’S VIEW /
Railway tracks, woods, danger and a secret. Going somewhere your parents do not know about with only your friends is enough to make the world enormous.
ADULT’S VIEW /
The ache is not the expedition but the fact that the four boys cannot remain the same friends forever. Friendship has an ending; you only learn that later.
02 / 24The Goonies
1985 / FILM
ADVENTURE · ACTION
The Goonies
CHILD’S VIEW /
A treasure map, caves, traps, a pirate ship. It is every summer-holiday daydream rendered at full volume.
ADULT’S VIEW /
The adventure starts because the family may lose its home. Adult economics waits behind all that childhood treasure.
03 / 24Kikujiro
1999 / FILM
ROAD MOVIE
Kikujiro
CHILD’S VIEW /
Unknown towns, a strange adult and people met by chance turn the holiday itself into a huge adventure.
ADULT’S VIEW /
It may be Kikujiro who is being saved. Accompanying a child through summer brings an adult closer to his own absence.
02 / HORRORWhen the Dark
Gets a Body
Summer and horror are natural companions. A school, shrine or park that was ordinary in daylight becomes another place as soon as it goes dark. You cannot see; you do not know; so you imagine. For children, summer darkness is an entrance to the unknown.
For adults, the fear changes quality. You remember an old playground, a childhood friend, a grandparent’s home. There may be no ghost there. What remains is time you cannot get back.
CHILD’S VIEW / THERE IS SOMETHING IN THE DARK
ADULT’S VIEW / THE SCARY PART MAY BE THE IRREVERSIBLE04 / 24School Ghost Stories
1995 / FILM
HORROR · ADVENTURE
School Ghost Stories
CHILD’S VIEW /
The school ruled by teachers and rules in the day becomes a complete alternate world at night. Scary, yes. But exhilarating.
ADULT’S VIEW /
It is not only the monsters that come back. It is the child-only time in which you could slip into a school after dark.
05 / 24Coraline
2009 / ANIMATION
HORROR · FANTASY
Coraline
CHILD’S VIEW /
You want to be noticed more. You want kinder parents. Then you find a world that promises exactly that.
ADULT’S VIEW /
Growing up is not only leaving difficult parents. It also means leaving the parent who promises to grant every wish.
06 / 24ParaNorman
2012 / ANIMATION
HORROR
ParaNorman
CHILD’S VIEW /
A frightening, playful adventure involving ghosts and curses.
ADULT’S VIEW /
More frightening than a ghost may be the way a group expels whoever seems different. A ghost story becomes a social story without asking permission.
07 / 24Typhoon Club
1985 / FILM
YOUTH · DRAMA
Typhoon Club
CHILD’S VIEW /
School routine breaks and you do the things you normally cannot. The release is irresistible.
ADULT’S VIEW /
Sex, loneliness, violence, bodily change: adolescence was a horror film in which you became someone you did not yet know.
03 / YOUTHThe Brightest
Useless Hours
Summer holidays are free — at least on paper. No school, no uniform, whole mornings to spend however you please. But adults rarely leave an empty space empty: cram school, homework, entrance examinations, club activities. Adult society sees blankness and immediately tries to fill it.
That is why youth cinema glows whenever it escapes management, even briefly. The time that did not seem useful becomes the time you cannot replace.
CHILD’S VIEW / ESCAPE THE RULES FOR A LITTLE WHILE
ADULT’S VIEW / USELESS TIME SHINES THE BRIGHTEST08 / 24Our Seven-Day War
1988 / FILM
YOUTH · ADVENTURE
Our Seven-Day War
CHILD’S VIEW /
A film that really acts on the phrase “leave us alone”. A disused factory becomes a den; a world without adults appears.
ADULT’S VIEW /
Even the ability to rebel for freedom was youth. As an adult, building somewhere to run to is difficult in itself.
09 / 24Linda Linda Linda
2005 / FILM
YOUTH · MUSIC
Linda Linda Linda
CHILD’S VIEW /
Doing something with friends matters, even if you are not brilliant at it and even if it has no obvious purpose.
ADULT’S VIEW /
The time that seemed to lead nowhere becomes, later, the thing you cannot get back.
10 / 24It’s a Summer Film!
2021 / FILM
YOUTH · SCIENCE FICTION
It’s a Summer Film!
CHILD’S VIEW /
You make a film that belongs only to you. You turn the summer holiday itself into a work.
ADULT’S VIEW /
Finishing a film also means finishing the small community that made it. Youth becomes memory from the moment it is completed.
11 / 24The Children Don’t Understand
2021 / FILM
YOUTH · FAMILY
The Children Don’t Understand
CHILD’S VIEW /
Family, love and adult affairs are still difficult to understand. You proceed anyway, without understanding everything.
ADULT’S VIEW /
Children see adults more clearly than adults expect. Sometimes it is the adults who are the ones failing to understand.
04 / LOVEWhen “Let’s Play”
Turns into “I Like You”
A child’s first version of liking someone is very free: I want to walk home together. I want to sit next to you. I want to talk a little longer. Then, as you grow, another meaning enters the room — dating, girlfriend, boyfriend, kissing. Someone who was a friend yesterday is suddenly viewed through the word romance.
The body sets off slightly ahead of adulthood, whilst feeling is still catching up. Summer makes that distance shrink very fast.
CHILD’S VIEW / I WANT TO PLAY TOGETHER
ADULT’S VIEW / I MISS THE PERSON I WAS WHEN I LOVED12 / 24The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
2006 / ANIMATION
ROMANCE · SCIENCE FICTION
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
CHILD’S VIEW /
Once a friend confesses, the old relationship changes. You do not know what to do, so you want to turn time back.
ADULT’S VIEW /
There was a time when liking someone could change the architecture of the entire world. That sensation is what returns.
13 / 24Moonrise Kingdom
2012 / FILM
ROMANCE · ADVENTURE
Moonrise Kingdom
CHILD’S VIEW /
Without asking adults to explain it, they decide they are in love and build a two-person world.
ADULT’S VIEW /
You can also see the adult value system that treats a child’s romance as something that is simply too early.
14 / 24Tennen Kokekkō
2007 / FILM
YOUTH · ROMANCE
Tennen Kokekkō
CHILD’S VIEW /
You do not know whether it is love or simply curiosity. Romance is still dissolved in ordinary life.
ADULT’S VIEW /
Not a grand event but the time when you were just a little conscious of somebody becomes precious.
15 / 24Call Me by Your Name
2017 / FILM
ROMANCE · YOUTH
Call Me by Your Name
CHILD’S VIEW /
A slightly older film in which love means feeling, body, desire and the experience of learning yourself.
ADULT’S VIEW /
What you miss is not only the other person. It is the self who could fall for somebody with that degree of openness.
05 / SCIENCE FICTIONThe World Still
Has Secrets
When you were a child, the world was full of things that had not been explained: aliens, the future, strange creatures, unfamiliar towns, things adults did not tell you. Not knowing made them exciting. As an adult, you look for the answer immediately. You search, explain and classify. It is useful — and the world becomes a little smaller.
CHILD’S VIEW / THE WORLD STILL HOLDS A SECRET
ADULT’S VIEW / THE WORLD HAS LOST SOME OF ITS SECRETS16 / 24Penguin Highway
2018 / ANIMATION
SCIENCE FICTION · ADVENTURE
Penguin Highway
CHILD’S VIEW /
The world is full of questions. Instead of fearing them, you want to investigate.
ADULT’S VIEW /
Scientific curiosity and curiosity about an older woman sit together. Body and universe are both still mysteries to the boy.
17 / 24Juvenile
2000 / FILM
SCIENCE FICTION · ADVENTURE
Juvenile
CHILD’S VIEW /
The very best holiday: only you and your friends know the world’s secret.
ADULT’S VIEW /
As children, it genuinely felt as though something might be happening somewhere. You miss the feeling itself.
18 / 24Dennou Coil
2007 / ANIMATED SERIES
SCIENCE FICTION · JUVENILE
Dennou Coil
CHILD’S VIEW /
Only children know the world adults cannot see.
ADULT’S VIEW /
The forest and abandoned school have been replaced by the depths of a network: summer darkness has gone digital.
19 / 24Close Encounters of the Third Kind
1977 / FILM
SCIENCE FICTION
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
CHILD’S VIEW /
The wonderful shock that aliens might truly exist.
ADULT’S VIEW /
It is difficult not to explain the unknown straight away, and to let it remain unknown. Perhaps this is science fiction adults need most.
06 / FAMILY & HOMEThe Place You
Thought Would Wait
Summer holidays have somewhere to return to: a grandparent’s house, the countryside, relatives, the familiar table. As a child, you assume all of it will be there next year. Adulthood corrects you. Houses change. Parents age. Grandparents disappear. The shape of a family changes too.
The same homecoming therefore means something different. Family does not only belong to the present. One day, it becomes memory.
CHILD’S VIEW / FAMILY HAS ALWAYS BEEN THERE
ADULT’S VIEW / FAMILY, TOO, BECOMES MEMORY20 / 24Summer Days with Coo
2007 / ANIMATION
FAMILY · ADVENTURE
Summer Days with Coo
CHILD’S VIEW /
You find a kappa. You become friends. It is the greatest summer incident imaginable.
ADULT’S VIEW /
Media and society begin consuming the secret. Adult society intrudes on the child’s protected world.
21 / 24Mai Mai Miracle
2009 / ANIMATION
FAMILY · YOUTH
Mai Mai Miracle
CHILD’S VIEW /
An ordinary road or wheat field becomes another world through imagination alone.
ADULT’S VIEW /
You miss more than a Showa-era landscape. You remember the self who could find a story in a landscape at all.
22 / 24Rainbow Fireflies
2012 / ANIMATION
YOUTH · FANTASY
Rainbow Fireflies
CHILD’S VIEW /
River play, a festival, friends and first love: the ideal summer holiday.
ADULT’S VIEW /
None of it exists any more. The film holds a first summer and a second summer at exactly the same time.
23 / 24Summer Time
2019 / FILM
FAMILY · YOUTH
Summer Time
CHILD’S VIEW /
Simply a summer holiday at Grandad’s house.
ADULT’S VIEW /
In the background, family finances and relationships are quietly changing. The circumstances invisible to children start to show.
24 / 24Still Walking
2008 / FILM
FAMILY · DRAMA
Still Walking
CHILD’S VIEW /
A child cannot fully know what the adults are carrying between them.
ADULT’S VIEW /
Aging parents, family regret, words that went unsaid: the idea of “next year again” grows heavy when it is no longer guaranteed.
07 / ENDLESS SECOND SUMMERThe Future That
Had Not Been Lost Yet
Put these films beside one another and two kinds of summer appear.
For children, summer moves towards what is not yet known: you have adventures, enter the dark, rebel against adults, fall in love, learn your body and search for the world’s secret.
For adults, summer moves towards what has already been lost: friends, an old house, parents and grandparents, first love, time spent with no useful purpose at all.
That is why the same film changes with your age. Stand by Me is, as a child, an adventure to find a body with friends; as an adult, it is the knowledge that the friends who made the adventure will never return to the same relationship. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is, as a child, the panic of not knowing what to do with someone you like; as an adult, the memory of being able to fear change that deeply. Rainbow Fireflies is, as a child, the perfect holiday; as an adult, the knowledge that the perfect holiday is gone.
Films do not change. The audience does.
The first summer was the one in which you ran towards the future without knowing anything. The second summer is the one you watch again through film after learning that everything ends.
Adults are not drawn to summer films merely because the past was fun. Back then, there were places we had not gone, people we had not met, someone we had not yet fallen for, and an enormous number of futures we had not yet chosen. What adults may miss is not only the past. It may be the future that had not yet been lost.
A summer holiday happens only once. But inside a film, you can go back one more time.
Endless Second Summer.
There is no homework on the second summer holiday. Only a small amount of nostalgia.
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VLUER FILM LIBRARY / ISSUE 001