Michael Davie delivers a compelling and inspirational film shot within a 4 year time period. It's moving, shocking, joyous and wonderful and brings forth the notion that prison life isn't all terrible. "The Choir"(2007) centres around an angry and rebellious teenager, Jabulani Shabangu, and a group of fellow inmates in Leeukwop Prison, South Africa's largest. He is recruited to the prison choir where everything slowly starts to change for Jabulani, he succeeds and leads the choir to victory at the National Prisoner Choir Competition. But its message lies much deeper than just that. With the help of the inmates, Jabulani overcomes his anger and transforms his life entirely. He knows what he needs to do in order to survive prison as well as when he's released out into the world once more.
I thought that this was a very nicely done documentary, not to mention that it took 4 years to shoot. That shows the type of commitment involved in documentaries such as these. We are introduced to the horrors in Leeukwop Prison and we can see that it is definitely not a place you would ever want to be in. But it was brilliant at how the choir is depicted as this little hidden oasis of humanity among all the chaos. It's a great story of hope and one of the best documentaries I've seen. It lets us in on this world and we get to see what kind of pain these young people go through as well as the great opportunities that are given to them. In the end, we can see that these young individuals are talented human beings that are capable of such growth and change. This is definitely a must see.
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| Still from "The Choir" |
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