Our Song

I reflect back to the days when I held my boyfriends hat to smell him into existence in my time alone when I was 16. The little moments of this film are so accurate and right on pace with what is going on in the minds and hearts of young girls during those coming of age teenage years. Now at my age I want to preach to them about their decisions and how life during those times are not as important as it all seems in those moments. That if they can be patient in their youth and wait to experience the hardships of life both external and internal that life would be so much sweeter. But then again young people today are faced with some variables that I never had to deal with a youth.

The three main characters well played by all three actors (Kerry Wahington - Lanisha, Anna Simpson - Joycelyn and Melissa Martinez- Maria) give us the very believable depiction of a piece of reality for young girls living in impoverished situations. They have impoverished family lives all being raised by single mothers with expectation of Lanisha whose father is present but not actively supporting her day to day. The have impoverished educational systems and lack direct contact with achieving role models. These situations powerfully affect them and is their reality but all this is of no great depressive concern to these young women in their day to day. They except their plight and focus on the same things young girls all over the world are concerned with. Finding true love in a male, having good friends that you can depend on, gaining some respect/love and responsibility from parents and enjoying life. This is were this film cross the race, age and gender gap imposed upon it by its characters and the setting in which it is stamped.

The Director and writer McKay explains on the DVD how each of scenes got into his head, by just observing young people of that age that lived in those types of neighborhoods. Plus you add three up and coming actresses who are not so far removed from that time in their own lives that you get a real good synergy of reality and acting at its best. The one thing I know about (African Americans and Hispanics) is that there is always a spiritual family member or neighbor that is in the foreground or near ground believing in a better day and better life and future in spite of the present situation and is role modeling that to some extent. This was never touched in the movie in order not to preach and I understand that but it also narrows the culture to having no hope in anything other than themselves.

The HOPE FACTOR: I now think about my future and where I have come from and say as Lanisha did ` Today is a good day.' Yes poverty still exists, racism, sexism, and any other ism that we can added. Yes some of each of these young girls actions perpetuate the isms and are self-destructive, everything around them is impoverished but NONE of those actions past or neither present nor their environment leaves them without hope for a bright future. I was left with saddened hope of each of the characters and a deeper desire to be a role model in the life of some young girl on the edge of making a destructive decision. I suppose that is the value of film it should not only entertain but cause each of us to think, reflect and then act in some positive way to make this world a better place.

`Our Song' gives us the lives of the three teenagers Lanisha, Maria and Joycelyn - best girlfriends hanging at the end of summer. Adolescent summer - even if we don't know the signals and landmarks of this particular terrain, Crown Heights, Brooklyn - is/was the same for us all. A lazy respite from the pressures and tumult of school. Welcome heat and idleness.

But if this experience of adolescence is universal, the inner city of the 90s is a different place than most of us know - maybe as foreign a country as any. Young bodies carving new silhouettes...beckoning new territory...the maze towards adulthood. The young mind coming into itself, speaking for itself, saying this is who I am, this is who I want to try to be. It is/was always thus. But this is how it plays out in Brooklyn in the late 90s.

Jim McKay is the writer/director of this film project but he acknowledges all who have shouted suggestions at him. The opening title slide `A film by' seems to list everyone in the universe. It's a gesture but by the end of the film, we know it to be a genuine one. [The closing titles also have some of the most on-the-money and appreciative credits I've read.] The vivid sound recording by Jan McLaughlin deserves to be especially noted. McKay's a modest leader who knows who is telling this story - it's his three graces Lanisha, Maria and Joycelyn. They're the real thing, their interactions have the fire of real friendship and the focus of reality. This ain't no music video shorthand telling of teenage life. It has the seriousness of the long unblinking stare.

Hanging out with them, we don't quite feel included but we do feel privileged to be listening in. These are real voices speaking with plainness about the crises and dullness of daily life. We are witness to the modern math of teenage life - how its problems are interpreted, calculated and summed and solved. Small scenes illustrate large thoughts throughout. Lanisha hangs with her dad at his security job - it's the only way she gets to spend time with him. We see the love that exists between them but also the failures of family and fatherhood. In a connected scene, Lanisha defends her dad to her mom, and we see how desperately she needs to love them both and for them to love her in return. Later, the three friends lay in the dark sharing visions and dreams - and we remember how crazy/funny kids are and more tragically, how realism hammers idealism these days. And at the end, Maria simply walking down the street is a short story in itself. We see her gather up the courage to hold all her fears and doubts at bay. She demonstrates for us the strength one needs to have to be able to embrace the fragility that makes life livable.

`Our Song's greatest gift is that we really feel deeply the terribly ephemeral nature of friendship - how, one day, alive and enlivening, that intimacy can, in the next, just turn and drift away. It's awful, but that's just the way it is, isn't it?

"Some day, we'll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun. Some day, when the world is much brighter"- The 5 Stairsteps "O-o-h Child"

Movies about Black teenagers usually involve inner city gangs dealing drugs or committing violence to a hip-hop soundtrack. Films about the everyday problems of ordinary inner city teens are hard to find, yet there is an undiscovered gem that I would like to recommend. Our Song, by Jim McKay is about three girls in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn who learn that their high school will be closed for asbestos removal and must decide on their future direction, one that may involve going their separate ways. The story is told from the point of view of a 15-year old, not from an adult reminiscing about the past as in most coming of age movies. Avoiding the mandatory street slang and excessive use of F-words, it delivers an honest and loving portrait of three friends at a crossroads in their life. The girls: Lanisha (Kerry Washington), Joycelyn (Anna Simpson), and Maria (Melissa Martinez) are in their sophomore year at the local high school. They are active members of the Jackie Robinson Steppers, a real-life marching band whose rehearsals for a Labor Day parade provide discipline and purpose to their lives.

Similar to David Gordon Green's George Washington but less stylized, the film showcases non-professional black and Latino actors with Kerry Washington as the standout. While the performances have some amateurish moments, I became so involved with the story that I forgot the girls were even acting. Maria, whose father is in jail, has learned that she is pregnant by Terrell, a local student. She wants to have the baby in spite of the fact that she is only 15 and knows that Terrell is probably not going to be of much help. Joycelyn works in an up-scale dress shop but dreams about becoming a singer. In a very poignant scene in her bedroom, she pretends to be talking to her fans, then lies down in bed to recite one of her poems. She is close to Lanisha and Maria at the beginning but drifts off to make friends outside of the neighborhood. None of the girls receive much support at home and Maria is too afraid to even tell her mother about her baby. Yet, the single moms are not typical movie deadbeats or alcoholics. They are warm and loving parents whose time with their children is limited because of the pressure of supporting the family.

Lanisha's parents are divorced but she is able to visit her father, a doorman in a luxury apartment building and talk about music. Her mother is comforting when Lanisha learns that a friend in the neighborhood has committed suicide, a somewhat melodramatic plot point in an otherwise realistic film. As the summer winds down, the girls drift apart and each decides on a different course. There are no big dramatic moments, however, only the sad recognition of the inevitability of change. Though we do not have blinders on about the frustrations that may await them, we identify with their hopes and dreams without dwelling on the negative. Our Song is an emotionally satisfying film about growing up in the projects that refuses to see life in any terms other than possibility.

After seeing this film at the SF Independent Film Festival, I couldn't wait to hear about how to get a copy. Jim McKay gave a talk (Q&A) about the film afterward which presented his ironic situation: how to get distribution for a film which portrays minorities (women, non-whites) working on resolving controversial issues (teen pregnancy, teen motherhood, racial identity, single-mother households), and how to write a faithful script on all of these topics being a mid-thirties white male. The multi-racial, multi-gendered audience of mostly-adults raved about the film's fantastic storyline, detailed characters, and fantastic portrayal of "real teen life." Most of the teens, however, had left the building--leading me to think this is a film best seen by adults with kids, as a starting point for discussion rather than, as many adults there felt, "a film teens should see because it's about them." Hence, distribution questions--how do we get our hands on it? The Internet (retail) would be a great path--this is a film that will be buried, like "Pups" or other radical modern teen films--and McKay seemed responsive. As for his credits as a writer/director, McKay was _extremeley_ sensitive and detailed in his work--allying himself to the Crown Heights neighborhood in which the film is set, working with actors to portray characters in their own vision of what they think should be--with the results being disarmingly realistic.

I saw this film earlier today, and I was amazed at how accurate the dialog is for the main characters. It didn't feel like a film - it felt more like a documentary (the part I liked best). The leading ladies in this film seemed as real to me as any fifteen year-old girls I know.

All in all, a very enjoyable film for those who enjoy independent films.