Swing Kids: On-This-Day Thursday
Every Thursday, an older film released on this opening weekend years ago will be reviewed. They can be classics, or simply popular films that happened to be released to the world on the same date.
For March 5th, we are going to have a look at Swing Kids.
As honest as Swing Kids’s intentions are, the film is exceptionally synthetic, especially in 2020. Maybe twenty seven years ago, Thomas Carter’s feature film debut felt a little more direct with its depictions of divided youths in a time of political severity. The film is based on the actual Swing Kids movements — an underground scene where teens danced to jazz standards in Berlin around the time of the rise of Naziism and the second World War — which may be where the small bits of authentic heart come into play. So does Carter’s love of dance: the choreography is quite something after all of these years.
That’s about it. Everything else here is as kitschy as ‘90s schmaltz can get. It honestly takes any pure passion or emotion the film wishes to have, and stomps on it. These are teenagers enjoying forbidden music to escape the actual horrors of being members of Hitler youth (not everyone is a member to serve, but rather to save themselves). There’s a story in there somewhere. But, no. Swing Kids feels more invested in the friendships being tested than the actual history here, and it shows. When the climax of a film is a lead character angrily singing Duke Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing”, you know you’re in for a misguided ride.
The main friendship between Peter and Thomas serves as the basis of the film’s narrative.
Also, “Swing Heil” being the message of the rebellion against Naziism (through banned music) may have been a neat idea in 1993, but now it feels insanely stale. Much of Swing Kids got hooked on what ‘90s films were doing to evoke moods and feelings, so it has naturally aged poorly. I hate how this is so, because Swing Kids is about an intriguing premise during the darkest moment of contemporary history. There’s a lot going on that is meant to be good, but its pursuit of cinematic goodness came from all of the wrong sources. It’s like being a teacher, and having a student that worked every night on a project, only to misunderstand the crucial elements of the assignment. Now, put yourself in the kid’s perspective, grow up about ten or twenty years, and have that daydream at work, looking back on the project and going “Darn! I knew what I had to do. Why did I think glitter glue and crazy scissors would have made up for me misreading the guidelines?”. That’s Swing Kids. It’s true. It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing, but Swing Kids confuses cheap cheese with timelessness, and it shows.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.