Step. (PG.)
Directed by Amanda Lipitz.
Starring Blessin Giraldo, Cori Grainger, Tayla Solomon, Gari McIntyre and Paula Dofat. 84 mins
Step is a kind of urban, self aggrandizing cheerleading; or maybe it is the musical Stomp without the dustbin lids. In American High Schools troops of girls perform percussive, clappy dance routines, in competition with groups from other schools. I'd never heard of it before and might reasonably have expected a documentary on it to explore the form a little bit, but this is a maddeningly incurious documentary. It knows the story it wants to tell, and doesn't have any interest outside of the creating a powerful assertion of sisterhood and triumphing over adversity.
These flies spent a year on the walls of a Baltimore school that specialises in taking girls from disadvantaged backgrounds and trying to get them into college, following their step team. The film has dual aspirational narratives: will the girls get into college, and will they win the big step competition, after years of failure.
Race is an essential element in the story. It starts with rioting after a black man is killed by police; the girls chat about whether they would've been Martin or Malcolm back in the day; their routine co opts Black Lives Matter themes. The black lives here matter only in so far as they can provide material for the desired narrative. Other than the patience with which the material was accumalated, the film isn't very different from all the contrived “reality” narratives out there. The film skims over the surface of the situation, and often the cameras seem to have missed important moments so we'll suddenly hear about a conflict in the group and wonder where the hell that came from.
The lives of the people on screen certainly seem worthy of exploration. The teachers are inspirational, furiously pushing their students on with a rod of iron and boundless affection. Even I might have amounted to something under their guidance. Among the students, Blessin is the stand out as she is the driving force behind the team and the one with the star charisma. Her talk is full of all the hard work and dreams she wants to fulfill and the hard work she will do to fulfill it. But she is the one who is struggling to keep with the programme, the one who can see the cracks in the facade.
Admirable as its desire to provide aspiration role models for the disadvantaged is, with its repeated assertions That You Can Do It, Work Hard, Don't Give Up On Your Dreams the film is just pushing the old empty slogans of the American Dream; the Dream that has proved so unattainable and unfulfilling that it has turned White America's brains to mush, prompting them to vote for a hirsute windbag in the hope that he will stop Them from taking It away from them.
Directed by Amanda Lipitz.
Starring Blessin Giraldo, Cori Grainger, Tayla Solomon, Gari McIntyre and Paula Dofat. 84 mins
Step is a kind of urban, self aggrandizing cheerleading; or maybe it is the musical Stomp without the dustbin lids. In American High Schools troops of girls perform percussive, clappy dance routines, in competition with groups from other schools. I'd never heard of it before and might reasonably have expected a documentary on it to explore the form a little bit, but this is a maddeningly incurious documentary. It knows the story it wants to tell, and doesn't have any interest outside of the creating a powerful assertion of sisterhood and triumphing over adversity.
These flies spent a year on the walls of a Baltimore school that specialises in taking girls from disadvantaged backgrounds and trying to get them into college, following their step team. The film has dual aspirational narratives: will the girls get into college, and will they win the big step competition, after years of failure.
Race is an essential element in the story. It starts with rioting after a black man is killed by police; the girls chat about whether they would've been Martin or Malcolm back in the day; their routine co opts Black Lives Matter themes. The black lives here matter only in so far as they can provide material for the desired narrative. Other than the patience with which the material was accumalated, the film isn't very different from all the contrived “reality” narratives out there. The film skims over the surface of the situation, and often the cameras seem to have missed important moments so we'll suddenly hear about a conflict in the group and wonder where the hell that came from.
The lives of the people on screen certainly seem worthy of exploration. The teachers are inspirational, furiously pushing their students on with a rod of iron and boundless affection. Even I might have amounted to something under their guidance. Among the students, Blessin is the stand out as she is the driving force behind the team and the one with the star charisma. Her talk is full of all the hard work and dreams she wants to fulfill and the hard work she will do to fulfill it. But she is the one who is struggling to keep with the programme, the one who can see the cracks in the facade.
Admirable as its desire to provide aspiration role models for the disadvantaged is, with its repeated assertions That You Can Do It, Work Hard, Don't Give Up On Your Dreams the film is just pushing the old empty slogans of the American Dream; the Dream that has proved so unattainable and unfulfilling that it has turned White America's brains to mush, prompting them to vote for a hirsute windbag in the hope that he will stop Them from taking It away from them.
