In Baltimore, 76 percent of children don't graduate from high school, a statistic that inspired this year's most disarming documentary, Boys of Baraka. Directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, along with a group of dedicated producers and camera men set out to follow 20 Baltimore boys across the globe to Kenya, where they were given the opportunity to get a decent education -- something that one is hard pressed to find in local public middle schools.
The documentary begins with a shot few of us are familiar with: The drone of a helicopter follows its searchlight as it pans over a dismal Baltimore neighborhood. Police sirens, perforated by gun shots, wail through the night as young men are thrown against cars and slapped into handcuffs. Women stand on their porch stoops, balancing babies on their hips, gently rocking them as they watch their neighbors deal drugs, get pushed into cop cars and even die.
Richard watches this scene from his window. At just 12 years old he has a father in jail for shooting his mother, who herself often disappears for days at a time, and a grandmother who only wants to see him get out of this life. He has the equivalent of a second-grade education when he should be ready for a high school-level curriculum. Devon wants to be a preacher. His enthusiasm and charisma sweep across the screen and even has the audience shouting, "Amen!" His little brother, Romesh, a 12-year-old, has a less ambitious future but an equal amount of potential. Montrey is the token trouble-maker, constantly getting suspended from school for picking fights.
Founded just over six years ago, The Baraka School has set out to accommodate boys like this. Its goal was to keep Baltimore's inner-city, "at-risk" kids from becoming just another statistic in City Paper's Murder Ink column. Every year the administrators of the school, based on a ranch-like compound in Kenya, hand-select 20 13-year-old boys from the Baltimore public school system and give them two years of privatized schooling.
"The way I see it," a Baraka School representative says to an auditorium full of young middle schoolers, "is you can walk out of high school three ways. The first way is that you can end up with a nice pair of silver bracelets (handcuffs). Two, you can end up in a nice suit and a big box (dead). Three, or you can walk out of here with a cap and gown and a diploma."
It's harsh, but unfortunately not far from the truth. The future for these boys is bleak, and it's not necessarily their fault. Try as they might the world around them is trying harder to keep them down.
Directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Gary are from Detroit and D.C. respectively, and neither is a stranger to tough cities. "I was sold on this story I read in Time magazine about this experimental boarding school in Kenya," Ewing says. "I heard about it and just thought it was a wild idea." Thus began a three-year documentary project to cover the drama of 20 boys and their fortuitous trip to Kenya.
Enter the Baraka School. Since its inception every student of the school has graduated from high school. "The whole idea behind the Baraka program was to take the small percentage of kids that teachers say are the most disruptive and take them out of the equation. That way the kids who are the troublemakers have the chance to get themselves together and the kids who are left behind have a less disruptive learning environment."
Kenya, though extreme in its own sense, offers a safe haven for the students. They don't have to worry about the drug dealers on street corners or domestic violence that distracts them at home. Instead they are encouraged to exercise, learn, create and explore. "I got something better than a cat," one boy says in his video diary that is sent home to the parents, "I got a hedgehog." He waves the animal in front of the camera.
The program isn't easy. These seventh graders are halfway around the world and contact with their family is restricted to infrequent telephone calls and holiday video greetings. Not only that, but where once there were guns and drugs outside their windows now they have mountains and zebras. It's the culture shock equivalent of an atomic bomb. The hardest part is simply getting used to the rigorous style of education. None of these boys has ever had one-on-one schooling before, and at Baraka every move they make is noted. It's a frustrating change and many of the boys find it difficult to handle.
Montrey is a particularly difficult child. His wild attitude and defensive nature was getting him suspended from school in Baltimore, and for a while he showed no progress in Kenya. He was starting fights, causing trouble and was on the verge of being sent home. I won't detail Montrey's development as a character and as a human being, but the filmmakers were lucky to catch the story.
The documentary is beautifully shot and masterfully cut. While shooting in Baltimore the filmmakers had to juggle runaway children and the indictment of the public school system while at the same time keeping their involvement out of the film and allowing the story to develop on its own. "[The boys] became more than subjects," Ewing says, "They became close friends."
I'm not an emotional person but even I will admit (along with everyone else in the theater) that I was choking back tears from the very first scene. The movie is hard to swallow, especially because the roughest parts take place only blocks away.
As a civil war in Kenya threatens to close the Baraka School one mother argues, "But don't you see? There is a war going on here! They are safer in Africa." It's a startling realization and one that everyone at Hopkins should take to heart: There are people dying just around the corner from us.
Boys of Baraka is more than heartbreaking; it is absolutely devastating, yet simultaneously uplifting. It is the best documentary film I have seen in three years and is already being considered for next year's Oscars. The ending is something you would never expect, and after following the lives of these 20 boys and seeing them progress into smart young men, it's certainly something you would never hope for. But that is the harsh reality of life in Baltimore. One of the final scenes gives us the image of two boys on a dilapidated playground, the charred remains of a swing-set the only remnants of an arson attack. In the background fire trucks race to a burning building and the children are too hurt by the hand they've just been dealt in life to even cry. They just sit and watch everything in front of them burn and fall to the ground.
I strongly encourage everyone to see this movie. As residents of this city it is practically your duty to see it. Many of the scenes take place in front of our own medical school, where students work to rescue the futures of sick people. But who is looking out for the perfectly healthy kids living in the projects a few blocks away? This question is answered in Baraka, and it might not be what you expect.
