SXSW Film Reviews

Paper Clips

Documentary Feature Special Screenings

This polished (and Miramax-supported) documentary weaves the lovely tale of Whitwell (Tenn., population: 1,600) Middle School's Paper Clip Project, wherein the eighth-grade language-arts students collected millions of paper clips from across the world to commemorate the lives lost during the Holocaust. The film unites the students and townspeople with journalists, Holocaust survivors, one very frustrated postmaster, and, finally, a German cattle car previously used to transport Jews to concentration camps that is turned into a memorial for children. Its story is simple and straightforwardly told, but its impact is profound. When a survivors group from New York City arrives in town, the result is true-life drama – the very best of what the documentary form has to offer. During the film's first screening, with producer Bob Johnson – a onetime Cactus Pryor associate and local news anchor – in attendance, one viewer asked the right question, but one outside the film's purview: Alongside the community's "proud to be an American" rhetoric, are these kids learning to apply the project's anti-oppression message to their own society? But Paper Clips is more focused in scope, a choice that emphasizes the narrative flow rather than the sprawling thematic complications. The film is no worse for it, particularly when Charlie Barnett's regal score (which features an original tune sung by Alison Krauss) kicks in.

(Paramount, March 20, 7:30pm)