Boys of Baraka [DVD] [2005] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

I teach young men in South Los Angeles whose circumstances are similar to those of the young men portrayed in this film, and it's fair to say that this film very much changed the way I saw the young people I teach. It also inspired me; broke my heart; filled me with despair; filled me with hope; made me very angry; made me very determined.The Baraka School was located in the countryside of Kenya, and served as a boarding school for some of inner-city Baltimore's most troubled male 7th and 8th graders. The boys who went there were not the "good" kids - rather they were the "bad" kids who kept the good kids from being able to learn anything. The documentary follows four of them for the one year they are at the Baraka school. Those four are: 1) a boy whose solution to every problem he encounters is to start a fight with another student; 2) a young aspiring preacher whose mother is an active junkie; 3) a 7th-grader functioning at a 2nd-grade level whose father is in jail for having shot his mother; and 4) his younger brother, who seems lost but who is academically capable.In the course of their year at the Baraka school, these four young men are able to experience something that inner-city Baltimore has taken from them: a childhood. They are taken from a world of drugs, guns, and concrete to the Kenyan countryside, where the electricity is turned off in mid-evening. They experience nature - one boy delightedly asks "Did we just see a lizard?" They are taught the old-fashioned way, in small classes, with patience, by teachers who are able to see them and care about them. One reviewer takes exception that the teachers are white. Really? Seriously? So what? As a culminating activity ending their first year, the young men climb Mt. Kenya. They return to Baltimore for their summer vacation transformed.Unfortunately, world events intervened to end the Baraka School after the bombing of the United States Embassy in Nairobi. The four young men, having had one year of a truly transformative experience are now thrown back into the Baltimore public school system, and there the film ends. We don't know what will happen to them; neither do they. One, Montre (The fighter.), discovered at Baraka that he is a math whiz. He gets the second-highest score on the Maryland State Math test, and is headed off to one of Baltimore's best high schools. He is clear - Baraka showed him what to do, and now it's up to him to do it. Another, Romesh (The academically capable younger brother.), is simply devastated, and says "I think our lives are gonna be bad now." The other two seem to be drifting and unsure when the film ends.A bit of research online can reveal what has happened to the four young men. The infuriating thing is that the Baraka school provides a model of something that might well work if carried out within the United States as a national program. Public education in our country is letting down the most vulnerable members of our society. This film clearly shows us a better way. It should be required viewing for every metropolitan school district superintendent and every candidate for Secretary of Education.

I'm not going to write a long review, as I doubt people care to read and in depth report on the documentary. What I will say is that this film changed, moved, uplifted and depressed me all at the same time. It is truly powerful and the best documentary I've seen in years. A lot of documentaries deal with the atrocities that take place in other nations and those are the ones that receive the greatest recognition. I think we as a country take solace in knowing that things are so much worse somewhere else. This film hits right at home and shows the realites I face as an educator everyday. Our educational system is short-changing our youth, primarily our Black youth. When I saw this film, I went to work and told my colleagues to go and see it immediately. Our discussions about this film have all been tear-filled as we came to the realization that we are a part of a system that sets children up for a lifetime of failure. You may not have the same reaction to this film that I did, but you will have a deep and direct reaction to it. It is powerful, truthful, vibrant and spirit-filled. You will find yourself cheering for, crying for and ultimately enamored with all of the young men chronicled in this film. Buy it and invite everyone you know who matters to come over and watch it.

Perhaps I'm biased as I work with at-risk teens, plus I lived in Kenya for a year myself... but this documentary encapsulates an incredible idea that I believe could easily be replicated if people truly caught the potential behind such an idea. While sending a group of teens to Africa is on a very large scale, this could be done on a smaller scale and produce a very similar result. Taking ourselves out of our comfort zones tends to produce in us fertile ground for breaking through rock and stretching out new roots to produce new fruit.Since I didn't hear about this film in a conventional way, but rather accidentally, I am not expecting this idea to suddenly catch and become the trend that environmentalism has become. However, I hope to replicate this idea one day. I guess we'll see what happens.While this film is disappointing in that the whole story was not able to be completed (due to unforeseen circumstances, not due to the documentarian's fault), the story is inspiring and brings hope to a grim future for so many young people who are a victim of their surroundings/circumstances.

I liked the movie a lot, but felt something was missing. I felt that the story was very worthy of coverage and it was harsh that the program had issues, which were interesting to follow in devising new solutions. It, for me, was kind of sad to see minds ending up in such a mess - as portrayed in this movie.In addition to special schooling there should be special programs for parents. It is too bad that efforts like these are not done on a wider scale as many nations, especially the US, is willing to spend a billion dollars a day on a losing counterproductive war - but is not willing to spend a few million helping the brilliant families and minds of potential laden children that will be tomorrow's community leaders.

Film-makers Ewing and Grady offer an intelligent, insightful look at the devastating realities of life in the crime-ridden ghettoes of Baltimore, a city where only one-quarter of young black men will ever graduate high school--and most, as one counselor grimly reminds prospective applicants, will wind up in jail or dead. "Baraka" takes us into the school hallways and homes of its three principal subjects, and features poignant one-on-one interviews with teachers, family members, and the boys themselves, whose honesty about the circumstances of their lives butt against their hopes and dreams. The Baraka School may be a safe haven from the streets, but it has its own hardships, too. Join these "Boys" on a compelling and inspirational journey.