Country:
United Kingdom
Recognizable Faces:
None
Directed By:
Stephen Walker
Sally George
I'm one of those people who thinks rock n' roll was one of the greatest inventions of the twentieth century. First, it made music fun and accessible and pried it away from the hands of pretentious aesthetes. Another thing rock n' roll did well, was to turn rebellion into a consumable product. Given that it's a long shot and that rebellion is just a phase for most, it still lights up a consciousness or two, here and there and changes a few lives. Film directors Stephen Walker and Sally George are convinced rock n' roll and do even more than that. YOUNG @ HEART is about rock music keeping people alive. I am a serious believer in the idea that there are a lot of things that are absolutely impossible to measure. Do I think rock n' roll can keep elders alive for longer? Yeah, why not? Bob Cilman, choir headmaster, thinks so too.
You heard me right, YOUNG @ HEART is a choir for elderly people. Not that special you're gong to tell me, but what sets them apart from your traditional elder choir is that they sing songs that the brats they chased off their porches in the seventies were listening to in their busted up Ford Pintos. Jimi Hendrix, The Clashes, James Brown, that sort of stuff. Most of them aren't good singers at all and end up barking or talking the lyrics, but it's not Young @ Heart isn't about musicality and craftsmanship. It's about the healing power of music. They're an American unit, from Massachussets that Stephen Walker found out about while they were touring Europe. He decided to follow them in the making of their newest show ALIVE AND WELL, where he finds out that working with elders has its fair share of issues, from the challenges of technologies to well...the occasional death.
What I'm talking about, when I'm talking about things that can't be measured, is the pure energy of rock n' roll reaching people who don't really understand it. Eileen Hall was ninety-two years old by the time YOUNG @ HEART was filmed and mostly didn't gave a damn about the concept of rock, she was just carried away but this unexplainable energy. Same thing with seventy-six years old Shakespeare enthusiast Stan Goldman, who kept braving a visibly very painful spine condition to get up and sing I FEEL GOOD with his eighty-three years old partner. He cannot really find the reason why he's doing that either. The simple words, the energy, the pure fun, the mindlessness of it. Bob Salvini, who was literally back against the wall from sickness, insisted to show up for practice until the very end. It's almost a mystical experience to see passion and fun breathe new life into the choir members.
YOUNG @ HEART is a movie where life and death curiously intertwine around the immortal concept of rock n' roll. It's not going to throw off your seat, but it's going to make you laugh and make you think about the universal power of music, something that doesn't even come remotely close to the realm of science, but seems to succeed where the hospitals fail. Makes you put in perspective the advancement of progress, seeing the people who need medical assistance the most, thrive and spark with life at the touch of something completely unrelated. It's the most non-mysterious movie that discusses the greatest mysteries of human fate. It won't carry you miles away from your living room, but it will make you smile and appreciate the true reach of rock music.
SCORE: 77%