Boys State Review: A compelling drama on the politics of a state and the state of politics
Teenagers play politics in this documentary by acclaimed Documentary filmmaker Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, through the Texas Boys State programme
“Boys State provides a chance to learn from each other and hear from the opposite side, without screaming and yelling on a Facebook post.” This is not me saying about the film, this is Steven Garza, the protagonist or the main subject in the film, talking about the programme at the time of enrolling in it.
And, unfortunately, that has become the reality of today’s politics, where social media has become the battleground of ideologies with loud mouths and without ears and Boys State (or Girls State), gives the American teeangers a chance to delve themselves into politics at an early age and groom themselves into future politicians later, but informed citizens of the world’s “greatest” democracies.
The Boys State opens with a George Washington quote from a bygone era, where he said that the political parties will become a tool for a few cunning and unprincipled men to undermine the power of people and become powerful themselves. And, seeing the current scenario of world politics, especially powerful democracies like the USA and India, it isn’t entirely false.
The programme conducted by the American Legion every summer since 1935, is like every other teenager programme, where for some it is all fun and frolic and some consider it very serious business, like their future depends on it, literally. But this involves politics, which requires more just than your existence and your presence in the programme. It requires passion, planning, and as you go further in the film determination and deception and good oratory skill is a must.
Every year the incoming 1100 teenagers are divided into two fictional parties, ‘The Nationalists’ and ‘The Federalists’. The film focuses on the 2018 edition of the annual teen political festival, and drives it forward through its four subjects.
Before, the trailer dropped a couple of months ago and I read all about the programme later, the title scared me, as we already have patriarchy as the one of the biggest state, we don’t need another boys state. I was not sure if it was about a State filled with male population or it focussed on the boys of a particular State. As, it won the U.S. Documentary Competition Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Festival earlier this year, the trailer raised my hopes after I read all about the programme.
Describing himself as a political junkie, we meet our first subject Ben Feinstein. A double amputee and a conservative from the word go, Ben believes that there are a lot of people easily discounting the world’s greatest democracy as a great country, is a big problem. Ben tells his family that rather than focussing on ‘individual failings’, it’s bad for America to focus on ‘race or gender or disability’.
Yeah, this is just the start, and your adherence to a certain ideology will be tested. As, without taking sides, it shows the views of both the ideologies and how narratives take shape: how they are propagated through an individual, which becomes an ideology of a party and then the nation.
Then enters, a self-proclaimed fan of Bernie Sanders and Napoleon, Steven Garza. He feels he is the progressive person thrown into a room full of conservative people and his gun-control beliefs are used against him, when the elections reach their crescendo.
Ben and Steven are political opponents. Ben goes on to become the Party Chairman for the Federalists, while Steven is asking his 600 Nationalist colleagues for the 30 signatures he needs to be eligible for the race for the Governor post. In the Nationalists, we meet our two other subjects, Robert MacDougall, who bought new boots by selling off his bitcoin worth 18000 and served as a Senate page for the Republicans in the summer.
Next we meet René Otero with the knife sharpened tongue, who in a bid to impress his Nationalist colleagues in a speech talks about how he fought for the inmates in the prison and their rights as a citizen. So, how far he would go for those who are free, quoting his grandmother that you have to have faith, hope and a bit of a pissed off attitude. And, then the political battle starts building up to the final election for the Governor of which Steven is the candidate from the Nationalists.
The film follows a typical film format, with battles, exchanges, personal allegations, viewpoints from two sides, leading to the final showdown. I guess, that may be the strength of the film, as all that is happening in front of our eyes is real, and demands your attention. That’s probably the compliment for the editor, Jeff Seymann Gilbert here, as the pace remains brisk throughout largely due to the breath-taking access and long footages of that access. At one moment, the camera is at the corner of the auditorium, getting us look at all the students in one frame, another moment it is right below Garza’s ear when he is talking about wanting to do good, as pitch for his governorship.
From the looks of it, ‘Boys State’ may seem a right-wing documentary with the reciprocity of opposite ideologies thrown around here and there. But it goes deeper, when African-American Otero talks about he wants to be the first black person from his state to go into politics and do something or Garza being astounded by the sheer whiteness of the crowd, it suggests that this isn’t your run-of-the-mill programme.
Thus, the issues and the mind games being played add to the tension. The final 30-minutes of the film play like a cricket game. You expect one is going to win, the mood, the faces everything suggests that, and most times, it results too in the same favour, however the directors are able to make you feel tension and the emotions played out, every second of the film.
You think a person to be something, the mind changes, the flips, it’s all being played here. The good-natured and sweet looking cynical boys are humans after all. One is ready to go to any extent for his own good, if that involves dirty tricks like personal attacks, as according to him, he was being a politician. The most amazing thing about it is the slow unfolding of the minds of these teenage political geniuses like blankets. They are surely here to make or save your day, maybe future.
There’s always a running joke in the film and cinephiles community that watching at least one film by A24 is a license to your authenticity as a movie-buff, I have watched six, make this your ‘that one’ or first, if you plan to continue.
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