THE BAND Documentary

Filmmaker David Zeiger spends one year
filming his 18 year old son Danny and
fellow members of the Decatur High
School Marching Band. Surprisingly at
ease and unselfconscious in front of the
camera, the students philosophize, clown
and give unflinchingly earnest accounts
of their lives in progress.
Against a backdrop of personal tragedy
(the death nine years earlier of Danny’s
brother and the parents’ subsequent
divorce), the film offers a voyeuristic
glimpse, in turns painful and uplifting, of
how a father and son rediscover and
strengthen the bonds that unite them.
Those persuaded by today’s stereotypica I
portrayal of teenages as being insensitive,
violent and angry are in for a wake-up
call. Zeiger’s subjects come across as both
perceptive and introspective, with
refreshingly open and independent minds.