Louder Than a Bomb

Movie Review

Teen poets experience power of possibilities

June 03, 2011|By Ty Burr, Globe Staff

The documentary features the Steinmenauts and other high school teams… (Photos by siskel/jacobs…)

***½

LOUDER THAN A BOMB

Directed by: Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel

At: Coolidge Corner

Running time: 99 minutes

Unrated (language)

Remember when being a young poet meant solitude, pensive looks, and the glorious martyrdom of being misunderstood? By contrast, the high school kids in “Louder Than a Bomb’’ wield words like weapons of mutual salvation and they’re all in it together: pairs of friends, groups of teammates, a city of teenagers jostling with possibilities.

The city is Chicago, which has been hosting the annual Louder Than a Bomb poetry slam for eight years when the documentary opens, in 2008. The students come from all corners of the city — the inner-city crew from Steinmetz Academic Centre in L-Town, the rich white kids of Northside College Prep — and they compete in both solo performances and team events. Think of it as “Glee’’ without music. Without a net, too.

Co-directors Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel (the latter the nephew of the late film critic Gene Siskel) use an upbeat musical score and fluid editing to put us right into it; the film’s propulsive without being pushy. And the students just break your heart. “Louder Than a Bomb’’ focuses on four schools out of the 46 that enter and four incredible writer/performers who you sense aren’t the best but simply the mean. They represent, in more ways than one.

You can see which dramas the filmmakers are drawn to. In 2007, Steinmetz participated for the first time and won first place; now they’re back to prove it wasn’t a fluke. At first glance, Lamar, Kevin, Jesus, and Big C, the team’s stars, fit every quaking suburbanite’s image of young urban blackness, but of course the vulnerability under the rough surface keeps popping out. (Big C, in particular, cries at everything.) We see their terror at being blocked, at coming up short, and also their pride in stringing together phrases that percussively, persuasively paint their lives.

Just as compelling is Nova, from Oak Park and River Forest High School in the western suburbs. As she performs pieces about caring for her deadbeat father at age 10 and her autistic brother at 13, you understand why she’s so eerily self-contained at 17, and what her verse lacks in invention it makes up for in power.