Review of The Boys of Baraka (2005) by Susan R — 11 Mar 2006

There's an experimental boarding school called the Baraka School located pretty much in the middle of nowhere in Kenya. Every year, twenty boys from poor neighborhoods in Baltimore are selected to attend 7th and 8th grades there as sort of a last ditch attempt to "save" them. The various risks in their Baltimore lives include drugs, gangs, jail, bad public schools, low graduation rates, and lousy parents. The hope is that if the boys are taken out of their bad environment and put into a very structured academic setting with no distractions and high expectations, they'll be able to get into good Baltimore high schools and hopefully will have learned the discipline they need to stay out of trouble. That's the plan anyway.

This documentary follows four boys: Devon, Montrey, and brothers Richard and Romesh. Richard is a really sweet, sensitive, optimistic kid who still reads at a second grade level, presumably because no one ever noticed. Romesh is quiet and smart. Devon is a mixed bag: he gets into his share of mischief but he's also an aspiring preacher who gives rousing sermons about "GoDUH" and "JesuSUH". Montrey is a huge troublemaker.

All of the mothers seem fairly excited that their boys were selected and get to go to Africa. The kids are practically neighborhood celebrities. There are tearful goodbyes at the airport as the boys' normally tough facades temporarily crack. None of them have ever been away from home before and they're all sad about leaving their families.

Once the kids arrive at the school, they seem almost universally disappointed and homesick. The school is twenty miles from the nearest city. There is electricity for only part of the day. And worst of all, there are strict rules. About a week after they arrive, Romesh is shown dragging his belongings towards a field in the direction of the airport. He's had enough and he's going home even if he has to walk all the way to the plane. Big brother Richard convinces him that the local kids will steal his things once he leaves the school grounds so he might as well just stay. So Romesh reluctantly heads back.

As time passes, the boys appear to be adapting. They go for mandatory morning jogs. They do their homework. They play with hedgehogs and lizards and frogs and joke about the "big butts" on the zebras that graze near the school. They still get in trouble sometimes, especially Montrey. They have touchy-feely counselors who employ disciplinary measures such as making two fighting boys team up to pitch a tent together and then presumably spend the night in it.

Except for an occasional comment by a parent, this film is all boys all the time. A lot of the things they say are really, really funny. I laughed more at this movie than I have at any in a long time, mainly because most of the kids' off-the-cuff remarks are just so fresh and unexpected.

At the end of the kids' 7th grade year, all four seem to be thriving. Romesh and Montrey even made the honor roll. The boys return home to Baltimore for the summer, where after the initial excitement of seeing their families wears off, they all promptly become bored waiting for school to start back up. Then something very unfortunate happens: following the closure of the U.S. embassy in Kenya due to an increased terror alert level (orange!), the Baraka school decides to shut down for the upcoming school year. Which means the boys all have to attend 8th grade back in the lousy Baltimore public schools.

The kids are totally dejected. The parents are all up in arms demanding that someone remedy the situation and claiming that they can't send their kids back to the public schools, even though they were perfectly content sending them there for their first six school years. But in the end nothing can be done to change things. There are simply no alternatives.

The film checks in with the kids again near the end of their 8th grade year and the results are mixed. One boy has remarkably aced a math entrance exam and gotten into the best high school in Baltimore. Another is on the verge of dropping out of school completely. Though some are doing better than others, there's no doubt that they'd all be better off if they'd been able to spend another year at Baraka.

My reaction to what happened was much the same as the boys': "It's not fair". An opportunity was dangled in front of them and then snatched away. But at least they had their one good year. What about all the kids who live in bad neighborhoods and go to crappy schools and don't even know that it's not fair because it's all they've ever known. What about them? Can we ship them all off to boarding schools in Kenya?

Although [i]The Boys of Baraka[/i] was often a quite entertaining and hopeful film, it left me with an overwhelming sense of powerlessness. Even if I could drive to Baltimore and save Richard and Romesh, there are thousands of other little Richards and Romeshes to take their places. And they just keep being born. What's the solution? I sure don't know.

This is the sort of movie that highlights the injustice in our society in such a way that it makes you really want to do something about it. But then when you try to think of what you, as an individual, can do to help, the problem seems so overwhelming that you just do Sudoku and take a nap so you don't have to think about it anymore.

It's been a week since I saw [i]The Boys of Baraka[/i]. I'm still thinking about it. I guess that means it's a very good film.