BuzzFlash Reviews

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

This is a terrific story that is told in a simple and moving documentary. Call us sentimental, but who would have ever expected to rediscover the compassionate, tolerant "heart of America" in the hamlet of Whitwell, Tennessee?

It's a former coal town -- now down on its heels -- that is so small, people in Chattanooga, about a 40-minute drive, don't even know about it.

Since television platitudes and political pandering hijacked the American image, it is easy to grow cynical and think rural life is associated with hypocritical Bush parochialism, because the Republicans in D.C. have so dishonored and tarnished the word "decency."

But along comes this solid documentary filled with extraordinarily caring, well-meaning, committed and tolerant people -- led by the principal and two teachers at the Whitwell Middle School ("Go Tigers") -- and you can't help but get a lump or two in your throat as the story unfolds.

It is a simple story, as we said, but it is about so much. It is about leadership, true education, bringing tolerance and diversity to a homogenous population, remembering the dead, students who change the lives of teachers, diverse cultures that embrace each other, and making history out of a humble project that was aimed at learning a lesson from history.

"Paper Clips" is a story about an effort to teach the embracing of different cultures and religions that just snowballs. Unlike so many well-meaning initiatives, this one just keeps mowing over obstacles. Whenever there is a roadblock, something happens or someone shows up -- most notably a kindly and tenacious German husband-and-wife journalist team (the Schroeders) -- and the paper clip project advances beyond anyone's expectations.

At the center of the film is the earnest, articulate, compassionate, grandmotherly principal of Whitwell Middle School, Linda Hooper. She has lived in Whitwell her entire life -- and she's proof that there must be something spiritual in the drinking water there. It's been a long time since someone said, "I am so proud to live in the United States of America" and you felt like standing up and cheering.

Yes, this is a story built around how a memorial to Nazi Holocaust victims (6 million Jews and 5 million "others") composed of 24 million paper clips -- and so much more -- came to be. It is an account of how paper clips, the most utilitarian of objects, became filled with the souls of the dead.

The eventual student-run museum outside Whitwell Middle School, however, is a sorely needed reminder that there is a good heart at the center of America -- when people seize the moment to unite rather than divide.

And the project that began to memorialize the Jews whose lives were snuffed out simply because they were a different religion came to mean so much more. We recalled, as we were watching, the victims of genocide in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, Sudan, Armenia...and then we went blank. The world's historical list of wanton cruelty is just too long. Add now to it, Iraq.

Instead, we returned to the hope of the movie, where people like Linda Hooper and her two extraordinary teachers decided to open the minds of their students to tolerance -- and changed them and themselves in the process.

Linda Hooper taught us something too. It's been a long time since we've seen a film that made us proud to be an American, and to finally meet a principal that we wanted to just hug.

Now, we've found one.

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS