Gareth Evans

With a soundtrack to die for and a cast of unknowns who exploded into stardom in the years since, Richard Linklater’s Dazed And Confused is the epitome of a coming of age, ensemble piece.

With its free form structure, as a teenager, it opened my eyes to what cinema could be. The idea of spending time in a film just “hanging out” with its cast of characters felt unlike anything I’d seen. Yet through its eschewing of traditional narrative storytelling, it becomes a vivid, realistic portrayal of teenage life where anything can happen and both story and characters go with the flow, improvising as the night goes on.

The more time I’ve spent with Dazed and Confused, the more I’ve felt an affinity grow for the film itself. When I revisit the film now, which I do often, some thirty years on - it all starts to become a part of my own nostalgia. Almost like a snapshot memory of youth that I yearn for. Maybe it’s the blind optimism and idealism - akin to listening to the songs that spoke of a time without real world responsibilities creeping in. There’s a magic to it that is utterly irresistible.

Doesn’t matter that I’m a child of the 80s, that window into the nostalgia of youth is open and all about what you bring to it personally. And in Linklater’s film, it’s so fully realized that, with each viewing I find myself recognising the rhythms of friendship as if they existed as friendships of my own, the anecdotes and jokes become in-jokes. A cinematic familiarity is formed.

Dazed and Confused is a film that embraces you and wants you to have as good a time as it’s cast who, buoyed by the excitement of it being their last day of school, look ahead to the promise of summer.