Mad Hot Ballroom
Directed by Marilyn Agrelo
Rize
Directed by David LaChapelle

Rating: Mad Hot Ballroom , Rize
by Derek Smith 6/15/05

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Sponsored by Nickelodeon, Mad Hot Ballroom delivers on its promise of adorable kids acting adorably, functioning as a deceptively enjoyable experience while remaining shallow and misguided from start to finish.  Following three New York City public schools whose students take place in a statewide ballroom dancing competition, it's amazing how little we end up knowing about the specific schools and the environment where these kids come from and how much time we're left watching them look cute.  It's clear that this program is important, both in giving the kids something positive to focus on and taking them out of their unsafe surroundings, and effective in changing the kids negative attitudes and unhealthy dispositions, but these details are scattered about the overwhelming amount of footage of their practice sessions and level after level of competition. 

Mad Hot Ballroom is (inevitably) been compared to the 2002 documentary, Spellbound, which follows eight children through the National Spelling Bee Competition, but its complete lack of focus and insufferable attempts to carry a feel good tone rather than become a substantial study of a seemingly valuable program make for, at its very best, a pleasant diversion.  Whereas Spellbound spends time exploring the children's home life, their outside interests and aspirations as well as the hard work they put into their studies, Mad Hot Ballroom is hopelessly in love with its subjects and satisfied to sit back and let them show off their skills.  Anyone not from New York City will not only confuse the three schools throughout but have no idea of the full effects of the program since these families and neighborhoods are barely shown.  Where it does succeed is in showing how the children mature, come to love dancing, and put their heart and soul into it.  The competitions themselves, while repetitive, are fun to watch, but since we barely know any of the individual kids beyond a line or two, the stakes are incredibly low for the audience and the outcome makes very little difference.

David LaChapelle's Rize on the other hand is an invigorating, in-your-face expose on the dance movement in South Central L.A.  I was a bit skeptical, not being much of a fan of rap or hip-hop (and one who laughed heartily during the recent South Park episode mocking dance-offs), of this film being only for those who would purchase the soundtrack yet it turned out to be one of the best documentaries of the last few years.  Much like the Bloods and the Crypts, the dance movement has split into two fronts - the Clowns and the Krumpers - who oppose each other if for no other purpose than to focus their negative energy somewhere specific.  Dancing in this environment is more than a lifestyle, but a way of life and possibly the only alternative to gang life that offers some protection from it.  The pure speed and energy of these dancers is mesmerizing and once we begin learning the social background and history behind the movement, their motions become a metaphor of anti-oppression, anger and disappointment turned into something positive and so magnetic that it draws many others away from more self-destructive routes. 

LaChapelle includes numerous testimonials of members and family members, scenes of birthday parties, and dance sessions themselves so that every angle within and around it is covered.  Many of the subjects have said they would be dead if not for the Clowns or Krumpers, but the inability to fully escape their surroundings despite belonging to these groups functions as an occasional punch in the gut to the viewers thinking these kids have "made it".  LaChapelle, a music video director and photogropher, does concentrate heavily on the dancing itself, but when that is all these people have, it'd be like complaining about Hoop Dreams for showing too much basketball footage.  There are few missteps here and there, most occuring in the final 20 minutes where previous oversights are tacked on because they couldn't fit in elsewhere, but overall this is as interesting and energetic as documentaries get.  The dancing, which at first may seem purely ridiculous, becomes an expression of their tortured souls - rage expressed physically but nonviolently; a cryout of an oppressed race from a generation desperately trying to build themselves up into something better.