Adolescence and transgression

This is a fascinating full length documentary about the infamous Norwegian black metal scene, which, beside the actual music, is a scene of church burnings, suicide, murder and prison sentences. What fascinates me most about all this is what can happen to a person during adolescence, this window of time in a person's development where he or she is not quite a child and not quite an adult, but still has the characteristics and abilities of both, and the possibilities to take life into any of millions of radical and transgressive directions.

For most people, this is a 'phase' that runs its course and then they enter the 'normality' of adult conformity. But some people stay there, way into their teens, their twenties, sometimes their whole life. I am fascinated by these people. These are the people who have the potential to become great artists -- or, just as easily, cult leaders, conspiracy theorists and mass murderers.

At the moment I kind of see adolescence as the transgressive and 'magical' (for better or worse) period in one's development where all windows and possibilities are open, when values are questioned and new values formed, when everything is possible and anything can happen. It is what drove two adolescent girls (portrayed in Peter Jackson's wonderful 1994 docudrama Heavenly Creatures) to both experience the most magical aspects of life but also to commit the horrible crime they did. I also think it is what transforms some well-off, well-bred Norwegian boys into what they become, as shown in this documentary.

Or maybe I'm just full of it. In any case, if you have the 90 minutes, this is an interesting documentary to watch.

via Coilhouse.