Before the movie starts there is a note to the effect that none of the camera work has been speed-ed up. Once the kids start dancing, you know why this is mentioned.
The film starts with historical footage of the Watts riots in 1965, and then the Rodney Kind riots of 1992. Things are ablaze. People are getting beat up.
And then enters Tommy the Clown who is a hip-hop clown and I guess celebrity in Watts/South Central. He is a sweet man who has taken in kids who's parents are in jail, abandoned them, etc.
The dancing in this film is amazing, to be sure...you will wonder how people can move like that, so fast, so crazy, particularly when you see a 4 year old girl or a 300 pound woman do it.
But what was more astonishing was the kids in the movie. These kids have a right to be the most angry, aggressive, horrible kids ever. And yet they are generally thoughtful, generous, and very wise.
I realize some of this is in the editing, but a 20 year old kid who takes care of his siblings while Mom is in jail until she gets her act together is quite a human being, and most of these kids come across like that.
They dance as an expression of their anger, as a way to create family, and an alternative to the gang families that pop up in the void of traditional nuclear families in places like South Central.
Yes, at the end there is a scene with a bunch of them dancing in slow-mo and it looks like they've been oiled up and their hair is fabulous and you know, so what? David LaChappelle has a background in photography, and if anybody deserves to pretend to be supermodels, it's these kids.
Great great movie.
The film starts with historical footage of the Watts riots in 1965, and then the Rodney Kind riots of 1992. Things are ablaze. People are getting beat up.
And then enters Tommy the Clown who is a hip-hop clown and I guess celebrity in Watts/South Central. He is a sweet man who has taken in kids who's parents are in jail, abandoned them, etc.
The dancing in this film is amazing, to be sure...you will wonder how people can move like that, so fast, so crazy, particularly when you see a 4 year old girl or a 300 pound woman do it.
But what was more astonishing was the kids in the movie. These kids have a right to be the most angry, aggressive, horrible kids ever. And yet they are generally thoughtful, generous, and very wise.
I realize some of this is in the editing, but a 20 year old kid who takes care of his siblings while Mom is in jail until she gets her act together is quite a human being, and most of these kids come across like that.
They dance as an expression of their anger, as a way to create family, and an alternative to the gang families that pop up in the void of traditional nuclear families in places like South Central.
Yes, at the end there is a scene with a bunch of them dancing in slow-mo and it looks like they've been oiled up and their hair is fabulous and you know, so what? David LaChappelle has a background in photography, and if anybody deserves to pretend to be supermodels, it's these kids.
Great great movie.