Marching and music

‘Ballou’ is a poignant examination of a great high school band

08/19/2009 10:00 PM

By TERRY DEAN
Staff Reporter

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Ballou



Film review
Ballou High School in Washington D.C.’s East Side is similar to a lot of schools in troubled urban areas in the United States. Located in a community plagued by crime, poverty and high unemployment, students enter the school through metal detectors when entering. Crimes sometimes occur inside the building.

But this all-too-real experience is only the backdrop of Michael Patrei’s documentary about the school’s nationally-renowned marching band. Called Ballou, the film is among many playing this month at the 15th Annual Black Harvest Film Festival at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State through Sept. 3.

Ballou features well-known figures such as Jesse Jackson and Colin Powell singing the band’s praises, but their comments are bookends early in the film and at its end. The main focus is the students — musicians, flag girls and dancers — and the adults who teach them. They’re led by band director Darrell Watson, a passionate and charismatic former Ballou High student himself. He’s a father figure and sometimes disciplinarian to his kids. He also can be a big kid himself, joking with students and staff. Most of his adult instructors are unpaid volunteers and alums of the school.

We also meet some of the students and hear their personal stories. Fifteen-year-old Lewis, a junior, joined the band with his other brother Anthony, who died of Leukemia. Kenney, also a junior and a snare drummer, is the admitted jokester. Mr. Watson, as he’s called by his kids and referred to in the film, sometimes has to rein Kenney in. But the drummer is serious about his playing and is the snare drum section captain. One moving moment in the film involves Kenney, his band mates and teachers remembering the death of one of his best friends and a former teacher. The two died on one of the planes in New York on 9/11. It was a trip Kenny was supposed to go on but had to back out of at the last minute.

The film takes place during practice in the band room, on the football field and during games where the Ballou musicians and dancers perform. It’s all in preparation for a national marching band contest in Alabama.

The film ends with their performance against two other bands and the announcement of a winner, which I won’t reveal. The band’s success, as Mr. Watson told them in an emotional speech before their Alabama competition, is not measured in awards but in their relationships with each other and with him.

Ballou is sometimes funny and serious, but always entertaining and enlightening. And the band’s performance at the Alabama competition shows why they’re one of the best in the nation.


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