"The Choir" world premiere at the Sydney Film Festival

"The Choir" opened at the Sydney Film Festival yesterday in a simultaneous world premiere with an event in Los Angeles. By a twist of fate, I went to see it along with my lovely wife and another friend. Twist of fate in that it was the one film that both drew our attention in the write up, and was shown at a time we could attend.

It is a feature length documentary about the choir at Leeuwkop Prison in South Africa. In order to make it an engaging narrative, it focuses on two main characters - Jabulani, a youngish guy convicted of housebreaking with intent to steal, and who joins the choir to escape the worst of the prison environment; and Coleman, an older guy convicted of armed robbery who is the choir leader. Other members of the choir are occasionally brought forward from the chorus; however building the story around Coleman and Jabulani gives the documentary a human element for the audience to connect with.

In a way, it is a fairly typical narrative of redemption. The choristers are all in prison for transgressions against society - not one claims innocence or wrongful conviction. Coleman, for example, describes candidly his oddly gentle technique for holding up a bank - with a roll of toilet paper. Jabulani also describes his induction into life as a criminal, starting with his mother's arrest for stealing. The redemption comes through Coleman's leadership of the choir, exhorting his charges to behave themselves and be good - naturally to rehabilitate for their eventual release from prison, but also so that the choir has a fighting chance at the biannual prison choir competition, where choirs from around South Africa challenge for the honour of being the best.

It is a pretty stark film whose eye roves over depictions of violence, poverty and desperation that I'm very fortunate never to have experienced personally. Against that backdrop, the characters in the film claw back their humanity through the music and experience of the choir. It is moving, without being saccharine.

We (the audience at the showing) had a bit of a treat, as one of the producers was on hand for a QnA session after the movie. Here, we learned that it took a year of negotiations with the South African corrections to allow the cameras in - they didn't want to look bad in front of the world; it was one guy with a camera doing the shooting and that the amazing sound was the work of a talented sound engineer working from those tapes; and both the main characters are still on the outside and doing well.

The depths of poverty and violence are profound. On a couple of occasions the film takes us on a tour of Jabulani's home turf - haphazard shacks, unemployed people all around, children playing with broken appliances at the side of the dusty road and cooking on an ancient gas stove are all repeated emphases of just how meagre their lives are. Jabulani recounts the different wounds he's sustained - stabbings, gunshot wounds, and a scar from a crowbar attack by a rival gang - and how he has shot in self defence; all in a calm tone in much the same we we in Sydney resignedly recount the different delays on the public transit system.

I have three friends whose life stories begin in South Africa; and their stories of the hazards of life there are incredible to me, a small town Canadian lad who lived the myth of unlocked doors day and night. Those stories - a locked gate inside a house between the living and sleeping quarters (to discourage thieves from going any further into the house); ducking for cover on the way to school - are brought to life in this documentary.

I Am Legend, starring Will Smith, and a German Shepard

We rented and watched I Am Legend last night.

ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

As far as cautionary tales against the genetic modification of viruses to treat diseases go, this one is rather bland and boring. After fiddling a strain of measles so that it cures cancer, in 10,009 of 10,009 cases, the world is overcome by the wonder. But, and no one saw this coming, the virus mutates (who'd'a thunk!) so that it turns people into hairless, slavering, light-intolerant grey ... well, in the movie they're called 'Dark-Seekers,' but for all intents and purposes they're just zombies with a bit of problem solving ability.

The scariest bits of the movie were sudden rattling noises as Will pulls the steel shades at sundown in his zombie-resistant lair, and that's just because they always come in a sudden scene-cuts from something quiet.

The best part of the movie (incidentally, proudly brought to you by Ford MoCo and Apple!) was chasing deer through New York while driving a GT500, and Sam the German Shepard. I liked Sam...

But, to recap. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

And now for something inflammatory

Well, you can't be inflammatory if no one's reading. So what the heck?

Another tidbit that caught my eye is from Barry Gewen in the NYT's Week in Review, giving a quick rundown on Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji. Both women are "two of the most prominent and outspoken critics of what they and others see as “mainstream Islam.”" (copied that straight from the article). They're both copping threats and other sorts of crap for standing up and calling shenanigans; one as an atheist and one as a practicing Muslim.

I am nowhere near anything resembling familiar and involved with the multilayered issues that are no doubt at play. But come on, folks: just 'cos someone is arguing with you and, goodness me, thinks you're wrong, doesn't mean you go around threatening to whack them! Be nice, listen to what they say, make your point and if neither of you convinces the other in the end, have a cup of tea after a stimulating discussion. By all means, go hang out with people who agree with you, and certainly revel in feeling right about your point of view together. But you don't go putting together a posse so that the person you were arguing with needs round-the-clock protection.

That's just bullying. So: good on these women (and everyone else who stands up and says "Hang on a second, let's think a little bit differently about something") for hanging tough.

And this reminds me of a third thing that got my attention today from the IHT by Andrea Elliott. Long (6 page) story short: great idea for a school in NYC where Arab or Arab descended kids go with kids from other ethnicities, learn all the normal school stuff plus become fluent in Arabic, and on graduation are ready to apply for elite colleges (borrowing heavily from the first paragraph). But then the nutters (all around the table, from what I can make of it - not just the right wing paranoics or the lefty bleeding hearts) got hold of it, and the whole thing fell down into a stupid mess of ideologically motivated screwing around with and cherry picked soundbites, all carried along by reactive fear. Think maybe if everyone, instead of running around calling each other names, had sat down, said "You know, I'm scared of x because of y. Can you put my mind at ease here?"

Now the place has been open since September, and apparently is an absolutely useless environment for kids to learn anything - it sounds more like an understaffed juvenile detention centre.

Bloody people. Novel ideas are a little too scary, aren't they? I guess education looks like indoctrination, if people you're scared of are doing it.

Dudes around the world: Chill out, wouldja? Notice that the people who aren't scrapping all the time normally are in a little better shape - more teeth, less bruising?

Counting backwards

A while back, a certain very good professor friend put me on this blog. I had a read and promptly chucked into my Google Reader feed list, and every now again I thrilled to tales of HLS, the Brownie, the Eclaire, BB, Blaze and the humble author himself.

Ordinarily, the tales are entertainingly perceptive. Today, waiting for a bus in the biting Sydney winter cold, the story nearly moved me to tears. I'm not going to tell you the story; I wouldn't do it justice.

He's taken a profoundly personal story, and shared it completely freely. I have no idea how long it took to write, perhaps a couple of days. But it reads like it was just meant to be - so smoothly that about a third of the way through I realised I was cruising through the prose and had to stop, go back to the start and really read it.

It's not often something in the thousand or so items that dribble through my newsriver makes me do that.

Thank you, Magazine Man.

To the three people left who look at this...

September 14, 2007 marks my last post. More than seven months have passed, and now I wonder if I can recapture some of the fun I experienced tossing bits and bobs into the WWW.

And I would have been writing for four, but we have farewelled probably my most loyal reader. Fair winds.

Well, here goes. I came across a couple of things today that caught my attention.