Girls Rock!
Grade: B
Meet Laura, Amelie, Misty and Palace. Go see the new documentary Girls Rock! and you’ll join these feisty young ladies for five days of music lessons, songwriting, self-defense classes and a little bit of catfighting at Portland’s very own Rock ‘N’ Roll Camp For Girls.
Filmmakers Shane King and Arne Johnson capture a week in the life of the camp in this amiable and occasionally poignant documentary. Under the tutelage of queer Sleater-Kinney veteran Carrie Brownstein, Gossip vocalist Beth Ditto and other camp counselors the girls form bands with names like the Screaming Monkeys, P.L.A.I.D. (People Lying Around in Dirt) and the Juicy Tanglers. Over the course of the week each band writes a song and stares down stage fright in order to perform in front of 750 people.
In addition to comprehensive interviews with the four showcased campers, King and Lewis include observations from the girls’ family members and running commentary on the significance of the camp from the counselors and the camp founders. Though Girls Rock! raises extremely relevant and provocative sociological issues, its biggest flaw is often failing to probe beyond a glossy presentation of these topics.
When filming the camp scenes King and Lewis wisely stick to simple editing and camera techniques and allow the girls to provide all the fireworks. When they present statistics about teen girls, however, they kick into ballistic mode, accompanying the factoids with screaming music and 2000 mph montages of old educational films and computer animation.
We learn statistics such as, “Four out of five girls in 8-11th grade have been sexually harassed by a schoolmate.” And, “In 1970 the average age for girls to start dieting was 14. By 1990 it was 8.”
To their credit the filmmakers proceed to discuss some of these societal ills with the campers, but ultimately their coverage of serious issues feels inadequate. They devote too much time to relatively inconsequential band squabbles, time that could have been spent giving the documentary the intellectual edge it would need to be a standout film.
None of the campers or counselors discusses their sexuality in the movie, though there is a strong hint that 15 year-old Laura – a Korean who lives with her adoptive parents in Oklahoma – may be a budding lesbian. After forming a death metal group with a few other girls she demurely asks one of her new bandmates, “Will you be my life partner?”
Grade: B
Meet Laura, Amelie, Misty and Palace. Go see the new documentary Girls Rock! and you’ll join these feisty young ladies for five days of music lessons, songwriting, self-defense classes and a little bit of catfighting at Portland’s very own Rock ‘N’ Roll Camp For Girls.
Filmmakers Shane King and Arne Johnson capture a week in the life of the camp in this amiable and occasionally poignant documentary. Under the tutelage of queer Sleater-Kinney veteran Carrie Brownstein, Gossip vocalist Beth Ditto and other camp counselors the girls form bands with names like the Screaming Monkeys, P.L.A.I.D. (People Lying Around in Dirt) and the Juicy Tanglers. Over the course of the week each band writes a song and stares down stage fright in order to perform in front of 750 people.
In addition to comprehensive interviews with the four showcased campers, King and Lewis include observations from the girls’ family members and running commentary on the significance of the camp from the counselors and the camp founders. Though Girls Rock! raises extremely relevant and provocative sociological issues, its biggest flaw is often failing to probe beyond a glossy presentation of these topics.
When filming the camp scenes King and Lewis wisely stick to simple editing and camera techniques and allow the girls to provide all the fireworks. When they present statistics about teen girls, however, they kick into ballistic mode, accompanying the factoids with screaming music and 2000 mph montages of old educational films and computer animation.
We learn statistics such as, “Four out of five girls in 8-11th grade have been sexually harassed by a schoolmate.” And, “In 1970 the average age for girls to start dieting was 14. By 1990 it was 8.”
To their credit the filmmakers proceed to discuss some of these societal ills with the campers, but ultimately their coverage of serious issues feels inadequate. They devote too much time to relatively inconsequential band squabbles, time that could have been spent giving the documentary the intellectual edge it would need to be a standout film.
None of the campers or counselors discusses their sexuality in the movie, though there is a strong hint that 15 year-old Laura – a Korean who lives with her adoptive parents in Oklahoma – may be a budding lesbian. After forming a death metal group with a few other girls she demurely asks one of her new bandmates, “Will you be my life partner?”
posted by Stephen @ 9:39 AM
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