There's old school, and then there's really old school
What do a 92-year-old retiree from Northhampton, Mass., and a 19-year-old breakdancer from Seoul, South Korea, have in common?
They were both meant for the stage.
Taken separately, both the documentaries "Young@Heart" and "Planet B-Boy" offer different sides of the same coin -- a group of ragtag but dedicated amateurs persevere on their way to the big stage. The fact that both music-themed documentaries are opening in Madison on the same day is a nice bit of serendipity.
Both films look at musical performers who exist at the margins of their respective show business worlds, and seemed to have made a decent living pursuing their offbeat passions.
In "Planet B-Boy" (which opens Friday for a limited one-week run at Sundance) the performers are breakdancers, standard bearers of that bygone '80s phenomenon that was once considered a cornerstone of hip-hop culture. While you can still see the occasional dancer in a Justin Timberlake video, the rise of gangsta rap in the '90s pretty much ended popping and locking in the United States.
Except that instead of dying out, breakdancing went global, finding new generations of recruits in countries as far-flung as South Korea, Japan, France and South Africa. Like "Spellbound" or "Air Guitar Nation," "B-Boy" is structured around a competition, and we watch as various competitors live and breathe hip-hop as they practice on the road to the "Battle of the Year" world championships in Braunschweig, Germany.
Few people would include "hip-hop" and "Braunschweig, Germany" in the same sentence. But the fact that the competition is held in this city is fitting, because it underscores what a worldwide and decidedly non-American phenomenon breakdancing has become.
France's Phase T, which seems to draw heavily from that country's influx of immigrants, seems like interpreter dance as much as breakdance, while Japan's Ichigeki is just pure exuberance on stage. There is one American team, Nevada's Knucklehead Zoo, whose members seem reluctant to associate with the other crews in the competition.
While the film stresses how hip-hop unifies different cultures, it's interesting to see how each culture's youth has appropriated the principles of hip-hop for its own self-expression. In South Korea, for example, the crew Last for One does a breakdance routine that illustrates the separation between North and South Korea, and the younger generation's hopes for an eventual reconciliation.
The vignettes with the different crews are interesting, particularly when we see that no matter what country you're in, behind every breakdancer is a bewildered, mildly disapproving parent. But Lee gives us such a banquet of cool dancing footage that by the time the film gets to the competition, we're a little breakdanced out.
Still, it's fun to watch, just to marvel at the various performers, such as the South Korean dancer who has devoted seven years to perfecting his head-spinning technique. At least he's learning a marketable skill.
For "Young@Heart" (which opens Friday at Westgate), Stephen Walker would seem to have a sure-fire subject for a crowd-pleasing documentary. The British filmmaker follows a choral group made up of senior citizens who are getting ready for a big hometown show in Northhampton, Mass.
The catch is that this choral group doesn't sing old chestnuts like "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" or "Edelweiss," but Talking Heads' "Life During Wartime" and The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated." The group's mercurial music director, Bob Cilman, seems to delight in presenting his crew with weirder and louder rock songs to try to learn.
The seniors are undeniably adorable as they forge on, gamely trying to remember the lyrics to something like Sonic Youth's "Schizophrenia." There's a great moment when, on the way home from rehearsals, three members start singing "Yankee Doodle Dandy" in the car. It's like an inversion of three high schoolers listening to 50 Cent on the way home from glee club practice.
The problem is that Walker is a heavy-handed filmmaker, always going for a cutesy sound bite rather than a moment of real insight, adding unnecessary and glib voiceover narration to nearly every scene. Instead of an actual film, "Young@Heart" plays like a 100-minute version of one of those "on the lighter side" news feature segments that end a local newscast.
But even a blind squirrel of a filmmaker can find a decent scene every once a while, and "Young@Heart" has its moments, particularly in the more poignant second half of the film, when a couple of the members fall seriously ill.
The climactic showpiece of the film is a rendition of Coldplay's "Fix You," done by a morbidly obese elderly man who suffered from congestive heart failure. With his deep voice accompanied by the rhythmic hiss of his oxygen tank, he turns an already moving song into an emotional powerhouse that even Chris Martin would have to tip his hat to.
PLANET B-BOY
Three stars
Stars: Thomas Hergenrother, Kevin Staincq
Rated: Not rated, but contains some adult language
How long? 1:41
Where? Sundance
For fans of: "Air Guitar Nation," "Rize," "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo"
YOUNG@HEART
Two stars
Stars: Bob Cilman, Len Fontaine
Rated: Not rated, but contains adult themes
How long? 1:50
Where? Westgate
For fans of: "The Bucket List," "Spellbound," "Cocoon"
Twentieth Century Fox
A senior chorale group tries to rock out for its big show in 'Young@Heart.'
