Louder Than A Bomb (2010) Documentary Film Review

This review is written just in time for National Poetry Month, which is April of every year.

To throw a bit of personal experience into this review, I have to say first and foremost that poetry has been of vital importance in my life, serving as a non-judgmental outlet when I had nowhere else to turn to. Through the positive and the negative, it provided the storytelling framework for me, a struggling individual, to share my stories, without judgment.

Louder Than A Bomb, by Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel, documents the Louder Than A Bomb high school poetry slam, an event which takes place in Chicago every March. Over six hundred students from throughout the city participate in the event annually, hailing from massively different backgrounds. Yet, all of them are linked by their love for writing and performing, all of them finding in poetry a very real sense of community.

Highlighted in the documentary are four schools with widely different profiles, teaching styles, and economic backgrounds, but all had placed in the previous year’s competition. Louder Than A Bomb follows the entire process of the poetry slam and each team as it prepares, but focuses more closely upon four students, in particular:

Lamar “The Truth” Jordan (Steinmetz)
Coming from a school full of largely “atypical” slam poets — lower-income, largely African-American youth, Jordan finds in poetry a source of pride. He begins the film, saying, “When I was coming up, I was a bit of a troublemaker, and I did some things I regret. I would like damage a lot of things in my house, but my father never cried about that. When I got arrested, my father didn’t cry about that. First time I made my father cry, was the first time he heard me perform poetry.”

Novana Venerable (Oak Park And River Forest)
Despite growing up in suburban Chicago, Venerable is not without her family problems, and poetry helps her manage the difficult emotions that come associated with childhood trauma. She has not spoken to her father since she was twelve and often plays mother to a younger brother with a host of physical and mental problems. Though she says early on in the film that she “would choke people” and “stab people with pencils” when she first entered high school, Venerable later explains, “My life just sort of seemed to fit when I started writing.”

Nate Marshall (Whitney Young Magnet)
Nate Marshall is from south Chicago, so far south that the L train doesn’t even run there. Poetry has been his number one passion, and he has been involved with it for longer than any other student featured in the documentary. In one of his slam poems, he reveals just how important the artform is to him, saying, “But a mic, a stage, a pen, a page helped end my rage and mend my ways. So I’ll admit, I’ve been afraid of leaving this, cause when I stayed, I found my voice, but now my time is up.”

Adam Gottleib (Northside College Prep)
Unlike many of the other slam poets, Gottleib comes from a privileged background, but still inspires respect from all for his positive, inspiring poetry. His coach testifies that, “He really thinks and wants there to be a better world, and he lives that better world.”

Through personal accounts, competition footage, and interviews with a broad range of individuals, Louder Than A Bomb highlights how poetry and writing surpass socioeconomic and personal boundaries to find their important places in the hearts of many. Poetry is more than a basic hobby for many of these students; it is a basic form of communication; it feeds the uncontrollable need for the words to explode out of their hearts and onto the paper.

I will close this review with a quote from Gottleib, which captures the essence of the film: “Writing a poem does not change the world. Learning about new people, and understanding new people, and really feeling inspired by people who are very different from you — I’d like to say that that is changing the world. And if not, it’s definitely coming much, much closer.”

www.louderthanabombfilm.com

OPENING SOON:
New York City, NY — Opens May 18 — IFC Center
Seattle, WA — May 6-12 — SIFF Cinema
Columbus, OH — May 13-19 — Drexel Theatre
Chicago, IL — May 20-26 — Gene Siskel Film Center
Boston, MA — Opens June 3 — Coolidge Corner Theatre
Palm Springs, CA — Opens June 3 — Camelot Theaters
Washington, D.C. — Opens June 10 — The West End Cinema
Portland, OR — Opens June 10 — Living Room Theatres
Salem, MA — Opens June 17 — CinemaSalem

UPCOMING SCREENINGS
Rochester, NY — April 30, May 1 — 360|365 George Eastman House Film Festival
Champaign, IL — May 1 — Ebertfest
Vancouver, BC — May 6, 11 — DOXA Documentary Film Festival
Salem, MA — May 13-14 — Massachusetts Poetry Festival

Written by
Vee Hua 華婷婷

Vee Hua 華婷婷 (they/them) is a writer, filmmaker, and organizer with semi-nomadic tendencies. Much of their work unifies their metaphysical interests with their belief that art can positively transform the self and society. They are the Editor-in-Chief of REDEFINE, Interim Managing Editor of South Seattle Emerald, and Co-Chair of the Seattle Arts Commission. They also previously served as the Executive Director of the interdisciplinary community hub, Northwest Film Forum, where they played a key role in making the space more welcoming and accessible for diverse audiences.

Vee has two narrative short films. Searching Skies (2017) touches on Syrian refugee resettlement in the United States; with it, they helped co-organize The Seventh Art Stand, a national film and civil rights discussion series against Islamophobia. Reckless Spirits (2022) is a metaphysical, multi-lingual POC buddy comedy for a bleak new era, in anticipation of a feature-length project.

Vee is passionate about cultural space, the environment, and finding ways to covertly and overtly disrupt oppressive structures. They also regularly share observational human stories through their storytelling newsletter, RAMBLIN’ WITH VEE!, and are pursuing a Master’s in Tribal Resource and Environmental Stewardship under the Native American Studies Department at the University of Minnesota.

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