Louder Than A Bomb
Dir: Greg Jacobs & Jon Siskel
Rating: 3.5/5.0
Balcony Releasing
99 Minutes
These facts are quickly presented in the first few minutes of Louder Than a Bomb: the film takes its title from a massive teen poetry slam competition, the participants are from disparate walks of life and the young people featured are just a few of many. It’s a bald statement of what the film then documents, a year in scattered moments of primarily four contestants preparing and practicing for what is a different yet shared experience for all of them. In a way, it’s indicative of being young as a whole; the perceived goals may be the same, but the manners in which they’re dealt with are as individual as each person. In another, it’s how a single competition can bring people who otherwise would never have met together.
Louder Than a Bomb focuses on several participating high school students, all of whom have competed in the slam before. Nova Venerable, a young women whose work mostly deals with her absent father and who uses poetry to combat the antagonistic anger she feels towards the world; Nate Marshall, a longtime slam veteran who seems ready to put the competition behind him while being still in love with the work it creates; Lamar Jorden, a hip hop influenced teen struggling with his ego; Adam Gottlieb, a gawky and expressive wunderkind who seems as committed to being as much a cheerleader for the others as being a competitor. As the documentary goes on, it becomes clear that it is not simply about poetry. While the teens are intently (almost scarily, at times) focused on their craft, it’s about how poetry has allowed them to shape and create their personalities and images of themselves. Through engaging in slam poetry, these students actively create identities.
But beyond that, it’s an interesting look at how the dynamics of a social structure (high schools, in this case) can focus competition. Lamar and his team seem dedicated to a repeat win, to the degree of belligerence and sometimes antagonism with both their instructors and the judges. Adam seems to be in love with the competition as an expression unto itself, willing to switch practiced work in mid-competition merely to be more “fair” to other participants. While the poetry recitations themselves take backseat to the preparation and personal stories leading up to them, they are impressive. The confidence and poise (if not lyrical or thematic imagination, to put it bluntly) presented by the competitors are inspiring and clearly the result of discipline as focused as any athletic competition. While the mantra of the competition is “the point is not the points, the point is the poetry,” it’s telling how the judges’ results elicit massive cheers (and sometimes boos) from the massed poets.
While directors Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel don’t deviate much from a talking-head approach accompanied by a sometimes overwhelming reliance on musical cues, their method serves their subject well. They don’t question or grill the teens, merely letting the pressures of the competition work on them and letting them speak about what makes them use this as a pressure valve. It’s a look into what it really means to be a teenager, and how connection can be made through something as simple as words.
by Nathan Kamal
