It must be a generational thing that Dazed and Confused avoided me to the extent that I ever heard of it. It looks like a cult movie for either those who graduated high school around 1993 (when the movie was made) or for those who graduated around 1976, the era the movie is set. Neither was my era a I graduated right between in 1986. Not to mention that I did in Hungary, where high schools in general, but the one I went to in particular (as it was a somewhat “elite” school) provided different social milieu compared to what was depicted here. The jocks, the drugs, the hazings, the central role of sports, the cliques – I didn’t experience any of these, although I am sure some of these elements of teen culture were present in my native country too.
On the other hand the more general themes are the same everywhere, struggling with hormones, wanting to party all the time, wanting to impress the others, budding love, using the newly acquired knowledge pieces and piecing them together to new patterns to look smarter, learning to handle relationships, the primeval appreciation of music and attributing more significance to it than other age groups do. These are definitely things I could and did relate to. It could have been my story. And that is one key to its success.
The other is to have a great cast. The funniest aspect of the movie for me was to see actors I knew only as their slightly older selves, from later movies such as Adam Goldberg (the Hebrew Hammer), Milla Jovovich (The Fifth Element), Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, Joey Lauren Adams (Chasing Amy) and many more. Watching this movie after I had seen them in later works was like peaking into their own high school. I wanted to keep remind myself that this was just a movie. After a while I gave up as I was having way too much fun.
The film @ IMDB. (Summary from there: The adventures of incoming high school and junior high students on the last day of school, in May of 1976.)
