Brehm Center

Until recently only film buffs regularly viewed documentaries.  Today, not only is the once-marginalized documentary stealing the show at film venues such as Sundance or Cannes, they actually have invigorated a very lackluster year for fiction films, even offering a surprising challenge to the “summer blockbusters.”  Given our current tendency to be suspicious of most things, why the fascination with documentaries?  Do they simply give us something “real” to hang on to? Or do they also provide a “safe” journey into the unknown and mysterious in creation and in the human spirit.

Two especially popular genres of the documentary, at the forefront of this revival, are the nature documentary (e.g. Winged Migration—see our March 2004 column, or Grizzly Man, 2005), and the competition documentary (Spellbound, 2002, Murderball, 2005, or Rize, 2005—the pulsating passionate portrayal of South Central L.A.’s “clowning” and “crumping” street dance culture).  While all of the above are worth seeing, we want to recommend two others, March of the Penguins and Mad Hot Ballroom.

March of the Penguins is a journey into a world most of us have never seen or experienced—the world of the Emperor penguin of Antarctica.

In a world where the average temperature is 50 degrees below zero, not to mention the gale force winds that blow, only the Emperors have survived for centuries. While the film is a visual feast from the opening scenes of ice floes to the textured close-ups of the penguins’ coats, it is also the poignant story of their survival (wonderfully narrated by Morgan Freeman). 

Every March, the Emperors march single file from the sea to their mating area up to 70 miles away. (Actually it’s more of a waddle; when they aren’t belly-sliding on the ice.) There, through elaborate courtship dances and songs, couples unite to lay one egg.  Their communal and individual task is to protect and nurture the future generation.  For almost two months the males huddle in mass, with the eggs safely cradled on top of their feet under their warm coats. Meanwhile the females, having lost one third of their body weight, return to the sea for food.  By the time the mothers return to feed the newly hatched babies, the fathers have endured as much as 120 days without food and have lost half of their body weight!  The mothers now become the protectors, while the fathers return to the sea.  These journeys are made several times as the chicks grow and become independent, at which time both parents leave their young for a brief period.  Finally the summer draws near with the ice floes melting and the ocean waters close enough for the young penguins to enter and begin their life in the sea. Until four years later, when they too will return to the place where they were born, and continue the cycle as their parents did.

What makes the film captivating, besides the natural beauty of these animals and their surroundings, is their dance of survival, where timing is everything.  This is truly an Antarctic ballet where lovers, and those they love, are held in the balance.  As Christians we marvel at the choreography of the Creator.  “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:  a time to be born and a time to die…” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2a).  The filmmakers and composer imbue the story with such humor, fear, pain, suffering, joy, and love, that again the Preacher comes to mind, “…if two lie together, they keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone?” (Eccles. 4:11).  

A different yet similar kind of dance is portrayed in the documentary Mad Hot Ballroom.  Here the dancers are fifth graders from inner-city public schools in New York who are participating in the American Ballroom Theater’s Dancing Classroom program—a ten week class leading up to a 60-school dance competition.  The film focuses on students and teachers from three very different schools: PS 112 from Bensonhurst, a diverse middle class Brooklyn neighborhood; PS 115 from Washington Heights, where 97% of the families live below the poverty line; and PS 150 from more affluent downtown Tribeca, where many of the students come from families split by divorce. We follow these children from their first awkward steps to their final bows.  Throughout the film the students and teachers provide captivating commentary that ranges from the sobering to the hilarious. And the dancing of these young Fred Astaires and Ginger Rogers is wonderful!

Mad Hot Ballroom is an extraordinary look at a group of ordinary children. We follow their journey into, not only the world of ballroom dancing, but also adolescence and their coming of age. As they learn the foxtrot, swing, meringue, rumba, and tango, they reveal pieces of themselves and their world. And during the film we see them transformed from shy or reluctant participants to elegant dancers, passionate competitors, and confident young people.  Mad Hot Ballroom is as much about life as it is about dancing.  Like March of the Penguins, it is about children overcoming challenges (at times life-threatening), and the adults who care for them, devoting themselves completely to their development and future.

Whether the experience is the wonder of creation or of creativity, both March of the Penguins and Mad Hot Ballroom offer us a glimpse of beauty.  They reflect an image of the Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer of the dance of life. It doesn’t surprise us that for three weeks of July, ticket sales on a per screen basis were higher for March of the Penguins  than for any other summer release.  And it won’t surprise us if some parents and schools around the country start pushing for ballroom dancing in their curriculum.  After all, Christians know the power of story.