lastofthepirates Reviews

Big Voice (2015)

Has music every touched your soul? How about an educator or mentor?

[10/10 · 18 August 2016]

Has music every touched your soul? How about an educator or mentor?

Big Voice masterfully uses the art of documentary to remind us of the the power and importance of arts education. We experience a school year with the struggles and joys of students in their challenging high school choir. Their teacher/director, Jeffe Huls is tough but inspirational, serious yet fun. The dramatic turns of the film are weaved together with a masterful skill by director Varda Bar-Kar that reminds us just how very much we actually had on our shoulders in high school. Music and art and aspiration adds to that load for the students here, but they more importantly provides an escape, a passion and camaraderie unique to the choir room.

Documentary so often excels as a catalyst for important discourse. See this movie, share it with others, and then discuss the importance of music education in schools with all who will listen. Budget cuts and apathetic politics have been threatening and dismantling arts education for years.

Help to use this film about inspiration and education as a tool to educate and inspire.

I love this movie.

There Is a New World Somewhere (2015)

A beautiful, humanist road movie

[10/10 · 18 August 2016]

Li Lu has crafted a beautiful, humanist road movie, replete with lovely locations and photography and music. The wonderful lead performers, Agnes Bruckner and Maurice Compte, live in characters that you know or have known; people who you have held or yelled at or followed or lost. They say what you would say, or what has been said to you, or what you wish you'd said.

For me, it brought to mind those wild, impulsive decisions we make when we seek a life of creative passion, that romantic idealization of dropping everything and starting over down a new road carrying nothing of our old life. When twilight fades and you're still you, you've gained a new perspective, some personal insight. Melancholy is a gift.

This is so rarely well-portrayed in film, focusing more on heartbreak or fantasy than personal growth/realization. Here Lu gave me this experience again, with care and depth, and without judgment or cynicism.

Please see it. Support independent film and the people who tell stories we can touch.