Poverty Is Not an Accident

Poverty Is Not an Accident
Nelson Mandela

Friday, May 21, 2010

MOVIE: "Ballast"

You are reading http://livinginthehood.blogspot.com

This is a hopeful, encouraging, empowering film about the sorts of people whose lives have been too long silenced.

Speaking of silence: The sound engineer needs to be worked over for totally screwing up what could have been a really good film, but I'm giving it 4 stars for acting, lighting, script and honesty, even though I could barely hear the actors.

The problem with the dialect is the SOUND. Every word is understandable, WHEN there is decent audio. These actors were not miked correctly. Did they have a boom? A shot gun? Did they use anything besides a cell phone to record this? It's terrible! The motorcycle is so loud, it scared me, so I know the fault is with sound engineering and not with the streaming medium. But I had to literally hold my breath for dialogue at times, with speakers four inches from my ears, at full blast.

It didn't need a sound track; that would have ruined this. Besides, with the above mentioned audio issues, I couldn't have heard a thing, anyway. What the heck kind of music could one put to this, anyway?

Emotional repression is a fact of life among the rural poor. I can imagine that would be especially true at times for African Americans, who have a heritage of silently sucking up what the cold world has offered. This family is seriously traumatized. They act out in their grief in self destructive ways.

But, slowly, they turn themselves back toward the light, toward hope, toward initiative, toward study, toward love.

I'm very happy for these people. They didn't let the trauma permanently poison them. They won!

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