High School
This review
of Frank Wiseman’s movie “High School” is heavily influenced by the fact that I
have been watching it and am writing this review from a hotel room in China.
This mean that I do not have the Book at hand and that I cannot use Wikipedia
(or Google for that matter) to search out information on this movie. My upload
will probably have to wait till I am back in Europe.
I seem to
recall from the Book that “High School” is considered a criticism of the
educational system, that students are taught useless things in a dysfunctional
environment.
Well, I had
a hard time recognizing that. It rather seems like a fairly objective portrait
of the everyday life at a regular high school with all the various thing that
normally goes around at such a place. It was almost boringly normal. In small
clips, each of a few minutes, we see scenes from the daily life at the school.
Classes being taught, students getting advice, some getting detention, shows
being staged and so on. There are no direct connections between the various
vignettes, no characters carrying through, except that the principal shows up a
few times. They are just scenes from the school.
None of the
scenes are particularly condemning. The teachers are trying to teach. The
students are what students normally are. Some has a rebellious streak, which is
common enough. Some teachers are prone to droning which is also common enough.
There is no cruelty on display. When a teacher states that only in the
dictionary does “success” come before “work”, it is just stating the obvious in
an attempt at motivating the class.
The only
part I resented was the discussions with the counsellor on how much parents
could afford to pay for college tuition and how that limited the options. Where
I come from this is very bad style and access is based on merit and nothing
else, but I understand that in the reality of this high school this is standard
practice and the issue is treated matter of factly and not as an item of
particular concern.
The purpose
of the movie I can only see as a time capsule, documenting a high school in
1969. It is curious to watch, many things actually being much the same as they
are today, and at the same time different as it is rooted in its time.
Maybe I am
missing a bit of drama or something controversial. Eventually it started
getting boring watching daily life play out. But then again, it is comforting
to see that daily life can play out without big drama and that people are just
people at any time.
Considering
how unexceptional this is, I am just wondering why it is on a list of 1001
movies you have to watch before you die.
I've been looking for this movie and am not finding it through none of my usual sources. Even buying the DVD does not seem to be an option since it's only in Region 2. I tend to like this kind of hole-in-the-wall documentary but maybe I shouldn't regret having to miss it!
ReplyDeleteMy TV is broken. This accounts for my absence from Flickers over the last few days.
I may be able to provide you with a version of it. It was part of a package of 14 documentaries by Wiseman. Let me know if you want it. It is not bad, it is just sort of passive.
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