Sounds Like Teen Spirit

Tagged: “Unmissable”
Source: UK Film Poster, Postcard and UK theatre trailer
Location: Manchester Cornerhouse
Accompanied by: Andrew and Johno

Line re-action: I’m not sure how familiar you people reading this are with the Cornerhouse cinema, but they show a lot of world cinema and “arty farty” flicks, which I’m grateful for, but I’m not, however, grateful for the pretentious attitude from the staff that comes when viewing films there. So, as you can imagine, my expectations of a good re-action were low. Thankfully I was surprised as a cheery young lady was serving me. I delivered the line with confidence, she responded so confidently that she sat back a little in her chair, saying, “I believe so! I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve been told it is.”

Film Review:

The following review is more of a joint review from Johno and myself, as we shared the exact same views on this film. It’s as if we shared one brain while watching it.

The synopsis is dead simple; a documentary about the junior Eurovision song contest - a song contest that I had no idea existed until I saw the trailer for this film. Even if this film wasn’t tagged as “unmissable” I’d have still paid to go and see it, despite the other tagging of “feel-good’ which is, to me, a sign of cheese. It’s a film in the same vein as the documentary, Spellbound.

Before seeing this film I’d seen an interview with the director and producer who said that the idea of a junior song contest is hilarious, but would it be enough to make a full-length documentary out of? In truth - no. It wouldn’t, which is why they padded it out by following certain countries and giving us their back-stories.

We start off in Belgium where they’re holding the contest to see who shall be presenting them in the overall finals. It’s here we get to see the disturbing act known as The Dolton Sisters who wouldn’t look out of place in The Shining. There’s something un-nerving about seeing young girls dressed up like dolls.

Once we have a winner there, we’re introduced to the entries from Georgia, Bulgaria and Cyprus. Now my first fears were that I wouldn’t like any of these kids and would find them all to be annoying little brats. But my cynicism was proved wrong and each of these kids was funny, sweet and endearing. The Belgium entry, (a band called Trust) featured a 14-year-old pianist (no way did he look 14!) who can play at a classical level and a drummer who has an eye for the ladies and likes to put rice on his drums when drumming. Georgia’s entry was a 13-year-old girl who was determined to put Georgia on the map. Bulgaria’s entry was a girl band (Bon-Bon) who’s main singer felt that by representing her country would bring her father back home, who divorced her mother years ago – how tragic is that? And the Cyprus entry was a young lad who wanted to sing opera and who’s sister was so happy she cried when he was announced the winner to represent his country in the finals.

Before I delve into the high points (it’s always best to try and finish off on a positive I feel when there’s something positive to say), I’ll discuss my, or rather our, nit-picks.

As far as documentaries go it was very formulaic, which isn’t a problem at all, but one of the major gripes we found was the narration. For a start the guy narrating really didn’t have a voice for narrating, it was far too weak. Secondly, the narration wasn’t constantly prominent. There was a bit at the beginning, then the film was allowed to speak for itself for 40 minutes or so, and then there’d be more narration. There was just no need for narration at all, especially when parts of the film were told via text.

The major gripe about the film goes back to the point about them having to pad it out for a full film. For some unknown and strange reason they decided to inform us about past wars in Europe and how there’s blood on many of the countries hands, but since this competition has started there’s been less blood spilled. What the cupcakes has that got to do with anything?! It holds no relevance to the story of the film at all.

The most bizarre part of the film comes about halfway through (I think) when we are following the girl from Bulgaria in a wood (I’m aware of how dodgy I’ve made that sound). She’s telling us about a magical place she has written a song about while surrounded by the snowy, picturesque woods. Suddenly the song begins to play and we are treated to a montage of her in the woods; like a mini music video. What makes this scene standout so much is the use of split screen and kaleidoscope effects, just totally out-of-place with the rest of the film’s style. I’m not sure what they were trying to achieve here. Maybe they were trying to be tongue-in-cheek and poke fun at the low-budget style euro-pop videos; I have no idea. It was just a weird scene.

As for the good points of the film, as already mentioned, the kids are endearing and many sweet quotes occur. Every time Belarus are shown I guarantee you you’ll laugh - from the dodgy clothes, to the somersault in the hotel reception to the walking up human stairs in their performance! Sadly there wasn’t nowhere near enough coverage of Belarus. I can’t even recall hearing their song.

There are many laugh-out loud moments, especially Russia’s entry of a small blonde girl donning a tux! And Portugal’s entry looks too funny to be taken seriously; a little fat, greasy kid donning a white suit. He looked like the love child of Marlon Brando, but Marlon Brando in his fat era.

There’s an eyebrow rising moment when there’s a bit of a hoo-hah over the choice of uniform change midway through competition favourite Ukraine’s entry. Even I was shaking my head when the costume change was unveiled.

The best part of the film is the actual event, which is a shame I guess as the aim for the filmmakers was to add to this, but sadly, the final is the most entertaining and most humours part of the film. You really do start to feel the tension a little, along with the funniness of these kids’ faces going from one extreme emotion to the other.

Overall it’s a good film, with a lot of heart and many funnies, but is letdown by bad filler (past wars in Europe) and unnecessary narration. Johno raised the point of what makes this documentary worthy of having a cinema release; surely it’d work much better in a 60-minute format for a channel 4 documentary? And I have to agree. It’s a good film, but the bad parts are a real downer on the film, but the good stuff is well worth seeing. All three of us left the screening with big smiles on our faces, discussing many scenes, which can only mean it is worth seeing.

Verdict: Admirable