Worth: $15.50
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Cast:
Kevin McArevey, Jan-Marie Reel
Intro:
…at its most interesting when it takes the wider context of the area’s violent and disturbing history.
This strong, although sometimes repetitive documentary, reveals its power as the final frames arrive and you’re able to stand back and see it as a whole.
It begins with headmaster and Elvis obsessive Kevin McArevey driving to work at the Holy Cross Boys Primary School in North Belfast.
Suicide, addiction, alcohol – this Catholic schoolyard is located in a tough district where a “marginalized, working class community has, for generations, been plagued by poverty, drugs and guns”. In these streets – where the houses are all identical – the aftershocks of ‘The Troubles’ continue to this day.
Early in this fly-on-the-wall doco, the 450 boys are evacuated when an explosive device is discovered at the school gates – “dissident republicans” are blamed.
McArevey has a unique approach to breaking the generational cycle of violence. The boys are taught philosophy, their young minds challenged, probed and questioned and made to think in a way that goes far beyond the ‘three Rs’.
When the kids break the rules, they’re treated with respect, informal counselling and compassion. Their frustrations often spill over in the playground and even when they show (fairly low level) violent behaviour, they draw your compassion. Punishments are not extreme. And the approach works so well, you wonder why this isn’t more common.
McArevey may be the focus, but the stars of this film are the boys themselves, who are often articulate and, in some cases, wise beyond their years. “We all bleed the same colour,” says one boy when discussing the divisions between Catholics and Protestants.
There is flashback archival footage of The Troubles, representing the conditions these boys’ parents grew up under, with one kid telling the class of his mother having anxiety because she was too scared to go to school. Young Plato is at its most interesting when it takes the wider context of the area’s violent and disturbing history.
McArevey – his office lined with Elvis collectables, a copy of The Daily Stoic on his desk – deserves much credit for his unique way of building better lives for these kids. This corner of Northern Ireland has a lot to teach the world.
