One of the many challenges with documentaries is that it is not possible to control the course of events. As a filmmaker, deciding to accompany someone with the camera and just hoping that it will be interesting requires a certain amount of boldness.
The film about Amber would actually have been a short film about the strong friendship between the two queer teenagers Sebastian and Amber. A bit into the filming, Sebastian and Amber's girlfriend Charlie fall in love with each other, the friendship ends and the filmmakers instead choose to continue with just Amber and do it in the longer format.
It will be a story about a young, non-binary man on the verge of adulthood.
It's both good and bad. Amber is in many ways wiser than Yoda and quietly states in conversations with trans care that it is the norms of the outside world that have primarily created gender dysphoria, not Amber herself. In the same calm way, it (the = Amber's self-chosen pronoun) analyzes its emotions in a sober way without remaining untouched for that reason.
Although Amber is an incredibly interesting, complex and wise person, a slightly too heavy burden is placed on Amber's shoulders. At the beginning of the film, the friends are strengthened by each other towards the world and towards the camera. Touching pictures show the two odd birds at school graduations, when they giggle in the bathtub or just comfort each other. The relationship is self-evident and so strong that it seems to crack.
When the friendship ends, Amber gets lost and exposed, both in life and in the film. Despite its exceptional insight, it is also a teenager who parties, puts on make-up before a party and laughs in front of the mobile camera. Part of life, of course, but the party documentation gets too much of a place in the film and does not feel fair to Amber.
When Amber gets a place to talk thoughtfully and really, it's incredibly interesting. About the grief over his dead father, the love for the mother and the astonished new love in Olivera. Olivera is trans, but comfortable in her body and the one who without saying much gives Amber all the strength she needs.
Despite the unnecessarily long party and tram cuts, Always Amber is connected as an aesthetic whole. The photo spreads in all directions but the editing is rhythmic punk and the soundtrack signed Shitkid is precise.
I still miss that short film that never happened. But it's life, it's never as imagined. Sebastian and Amber will probably do just fine anyway, as incredibly wise and free young people as they seem to be.