Our Song
- Chris G.
Starting this Memorial weekend my company starts its summer hours program. That means I get to boat from the office at 1 pm, free to do whatever. Last week I grabbed a two piece, a biggie iced tea and headed home to catch up on videos. Sounds like nothing, but after working all week, I was loving it.
This week I caught the 3:15 showing of Our Song. Our what?
That’s probably what you’re saying. You’re not alone.
I was flipping through the Village Voice - New York’s free weekly cultural arts newspaper. That’s the paper you pick up when you want to read about the “other” side of things; it’s where you’ll find out about the obscure live shows in the village. So I’m flipping through it and I see this ad for Our Song. I don’t know what it was about the ad - the three smiling young girls, the pensive poses, or just “that voice” that told me that this was a movie I needed to see.
I love this poster.
Turns out it was an independent film, which means that it’s only playing in a few theaters in the city…. or in the case of this film.. one theater.
Ordinarily, I don’t go to see independent films because they look bogus, like something to fall asleep on. But after work, there was that “thing” again.. pushing me down the subway steps, across Houston Street and placing me smack dab in the middle of the box office window.
“That’ll be, nine dollars.”
*Cha ching!*
The Analysis
This movie is the real deal. Not real in the sense of it being all poetic, with doves flying around, violins playing in the background, permanent smiles, and people doing everything “the right way.” And it’s definitely not real as in “keep it real, kid.” In other words: No gats. No drug deals. No pimpin’.
It’s real because it shows girls that look like your cousins or sisters, growing up in the city. They’re not perfect. They’re just normal fifteen, sixteen year old girls.
The film takes place during a summer in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The first scene is of a group of kids in a schoolyard at band practice going over a routine for an upcoming performance.
Jocelyn - Lanisha - and Maria
From that scene, the three girls the movie focuses on emerge: Lanisha, Maria, and Jocelyn. They are all being raised in single parent homes, live in the projects, and have jobs. Due to an asbestos scare at their school, they have to choose other schools to go to: a decision that may find them having to choose schools that their friends might not be to attend. But the music must go on. They still have the show to practice for and they are still best friends, so they deal with it.
That’s how the movies starts but over the course of a few weeks they all deal with different situations.
Lanisha has just broken up with her boyfriend and doesn’t speak to him when she sees him. And although her mother and father aren’t together, after school she goes to see her father at his security guard job. She wants him to come see her in the show that she’s preparing for…“You promise that you’ll come?” “Yeah, I’ll see if I can get the day off.”
Maria has a brother who think he’s Lil Bow Wow… or as he puts it, he’s like Cuba Gooding Jr., “a man of honor”... He wants to be in the military, so he throws his feet on the kitchen table and practices for his future job by ordering his older sister around. Maria is irritated by him, the way most younger brothers irritate their sisters. She doesn’t really know what she wants to do with her life, but after she sleeps with a guy after a party she has to make a big decision.
Jocelyn could be in the house and her mother wouldn’t even know. Her mother sits on the couch reading magazines, watching TV and running out to parties. All Jocelyn wants is a little attention from her mother, just wants to spend some time with her. Still, unlike her friends, her mother keeps her freshly dipped in the latest Tommy and Polo gear. But she doesn’t give her that other kind of support…. While she’s looking in a magazine, Jocelyn peeks her head over her shoulder and says, “Mom, I could be like that girl (a model)” Mom: “You see what this says… she studies mathematics.” Joy: “So, I could study mathematics.” Moms: gives her the “yeah, right look” and goes back to reading the magazine.
So that’s what they deal with at home, as the movie goes on you get the full treatment, a deeper look into their personalities. You watch as them as they go to parties, shop, go to work, hang out in front of their buildings, and just do teen stuff.
The movie doesn’t have a soundtrack, but there is that ever present ice cream truck in just about all of the scenes outside of the projects and there is a song that touches them all in different ways: “Ooh Child” by The Five Stairsteps (it’s an updated version.)
Large Cup of Java
It’s funny to see Jocelyn go to a coffee shop with some other girls and order a Mochachino.
Jocelyn says, “Ill’, whats that?”
Girls: “It’s like… uh, chocolate flavored coffee.”
Jocelyn: “Oh.”
After they order, Jocelyn hesitates and then finally says “Give me one too.”
Later on when she sees Lanisha and Maria, she tells them about it like it’s the newest, best thing ever. Small things like that make this movie special.
The Audition
All of the girls have no previous acting experience, but watching it you would never know.
Lanisha (played by Kerry Washington) is the best out of the three, you can see emotion in every one of her scenes. Whether it’s looking in the eyes of her boyfriend or laughing at a cute boy.
Maria (Melissa Martinez) and Jocelyn (Anna Simpson) are right there with her though.
The story on Anna Simpson - who is sixteen years old - is she was five months pregnant when she auditioned for the movie. The director was gonna pass on her, but she kept showing up on time and nailed her lines perfectly. By the time they shot the movie, Anna had given birth, her baby was two months old. She was resilient though; she would come to the set, having slept two hours and would sometimes bring the baby. You would never know that she was going through all of that from looking at the movie ...
Yeah, that’s weed.
Some people think they were improvising their lines, which is easier than following a script because you’re basically going with the flow, just being yourself, but they were following the script. The fact that they did it so well is what makes their performances so natural.
Jim Mckay, directed the film and he happens to be white.
After a screening at the MOMA New Director/New Film series - a young black woman got up and said, “You have no right to make this movie!”
What the fuck is that?
Besides being a dumb comment, it’s more evidence that this is a good movie. It obviously touched her, but some people can’t look past the color of a person’s skin.
Jim Mckay’s response to such questions: “On one level I’m creating work that is somewhat outside my experience, and I’m aware of my obligation to get it right. The most well intended movies can be the worst ones in exoticizing their subjects. I check myself constantly, though, and I do feel secure about having done my homework and having been responsible to the characters I’m putting on film. I happen to feel the work speaks for itself.”
I saw the 3:15 screening, Jim McKay was making a special appearance at the next show. So when I came out and saw a crowd in the lobby, I’m thinking, “The director must be out here, let’s go get a look.” I didn’t see him, so I left. I was looking for a black guy though, so I could have been staring him in the face and not even known it.
The movie didn’t miss a beat, there is nothing exaggerated, it’s an authentic representation of the hood. Like I said before, this is an independent flick, so it’s bouncing from city to city…playing in small theaters around the world.
June 5th is the final screening in the city, but it’ll be back at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in September.
Go see this movie if you get a chance…
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