Soundtracks of a Student Life: Revisiting Three Films from Postgrad Year

I am not a fan of films or TV series. But I must admit there are a few exceptions that left marks at certain points in the past ten years. Sing Street, Billy Elliot, and Stand by Me are definitely among these exceptions.

Everington in Reality

Let me talk about Billy Elliot first. My first touch with the film was actually the stunning musical at the Victoria Theatre during the Easter break of 2015. It was the very first musical I watched in the UK. Although I am a music lover, the most thrilling part of the musical is the dance of Billy. I would say the same thing even today. When I watched the musical for the very first time, it was almost impossible to imagine that any child actor or actress in my homeland could possibly show that level of skills and naturality on a global stage.

After I started my study for Master’s degree in North England, the film came back into my head again—County Durham is where the story was set and where the movie was filmed. “Everington” is just Easington Colliery!

In spite of the busy schedule as a postgrad student, I still found an afternoon in late November to pay a visit to Easington Colliery with a Latin American friend who was a fan of Billy Elliot. Except the sad fact that Billy’s terrace had been replaced by a meadow, we successfully found all the venues and buildings in “Everington”—the club where Billy learned boxing and ballet, the street in which he danced, and the worker’s pub where Billy’s father had a pint with his fellows, etc.

Drive It Like You Stole It

As a music lover—although I was born in the 1990s, I love the pops and rocks from the 80s—I was immediately mesmerised by Sing Street. I watched it for the first time sitting in my flat near the river of the town. It was probably the late March 2019.

The music, characters and plots hit an amalgam or a junction of many parts of my mind and soul at the time—I was piano player at my high school for pop music (and am still one today), an absolute dissenter from other kids learning the piano in my country; but the authoritarian and slavery-like education system would not allow a high school student to do music.

When I was watching Sing Street with my laptop, I was imagining a teenage life in a parallel universe (I was indeed reading an undergraduate textbook on quantum physics and multiverse that week!). At the mean time, I was in a sports team of the university, and must train for regional matches at certain nights of the week—that was something out of the imagination of my younger self because my disbelief in my sports aptitude would not have led me to the identity of “student athlete”.

My own experience pulled myself closer to the protagonist to some extent. And one more important life task then: I was preparing for applications to PhD programmes—would I possibly enter a new subject to explore? And would I even move to a new country to start an academic career? The ideas were both fascinating and terrifying.

Some information on the internet said that the final scene of the movie, where Conor took his “girlfriend” crossing the strait for their music career in London, was his hallucination or imagination.

I do agree that the film would be tragically artistic with such an ending. However, I would rather believe that Conor, with his “girlfriend”, is really sailing for their dream.

Stand by Me

I decided to watch this film again because of the shocking news about the murder Robert Reiner. I think the first time I watched it was sometime early March of 2019, still in my flat near the river. The protagonists in the film “enjoy” a kind of adventure that I could never imagine when I was a child or teenager—of course, that social culture was never allowed to exist back in my homeland. At that time, I was discussing a possible PhD programme based in Oregon, US, and hence this film was kind of a 101 class for American culture.

Since the first time with the film, I have always been touched and lectured by the classic line at the end of it:

I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?

Unlike the author, I met my best friend at my late teens and especially early twenties after I started my higher education in the UK. After I watched the movie for the very first time, I imagined whether I could have been through so many unforgettable adventures, predicaments and victories if I had never met those people? When I was watching Stand By Me for the second time, almost 7 years after the first time, I was still excited about the thrilling but wonderful time I had around 2018-2019.

More Thoughts

I always mate songs and films to the time I listened to and watched them for the first time. When I hear and watch them years later, I can still recall the events and memories in my life around that time. And I can also feel what I felt years ago. And also the people I met and connected.

The melodies of the songs and the scenes in the movies always raise the question to the deepest of my mind: do I still have the dreams and ambitions I had years ago?