"If It Ain't Got That Swing, Then It Don't Mean A Thing"

The movie "Swing Kids" is one of the best movies I have ever seen. It's about kids in Nazi Hamburg. They listen to Swing Music and wear their hair long. They go to clubs in secret, risk their lives to dance. Sure it has a stupid name, it almost deterred me from seeing it, but I am glad that I rented it.

They way the kids dance is almost like flying. It is so light and free. One foot on the ground, and arms in the air, muscles are bunching and stretching. The way they move is so liberating. So much controlled passion. All the energy going into on funneled expression of freedom. When Peter is alone on the floor, he is so sad, and he works out his anger over Hit Man, and how his friends are changing, over the murder of all the people and how he did nothing to stop it.

I loved this movie for it's message and it's passion. Passion. That word has come up twice since I started to write this. But that is what I think of when I watch "Swing Kids". Passion from anger. Passion from music. Fear of discovery. Fear of nothing.

Peter is sent to deliver some boxes. He delivers a box to a woman. As he is walking away, he hears her scream. He goes down to the shore of a lake or something, and opens it. In the box is ashes and a ring. Written on the inside of the box is the German word for traitor. Peter realizes that he has been delivering dead husbands and fathers, and how evil the Nazis are.

Thomas, who was becoming a true Nazi, tried to kill Peter when they raided a dance club where Peter was, but stopped when he realized how much he was becoming one of them. He hailed “Swing Heil”(a play on words of “Heil Hitler”) as Peter was being hauled off to a work camp.

At the end, when Peter sings " If it ain't got that swing, then it don't mean a thing, do wha do wha do wha do whaaa..." I was crying so hard that I couldn't see. The way he looked, defiant and angry, knowing that he was right, all added up to a very strong conclusion.

I think that everyone should see "Swing Kids". It is on the same level of "Shindler's List". It deals with suicide and betrayal. It shows you that not every Nazi wanted to be one. Christian Bale plays Thomas (all fans of the movie "Newsies" should see it) and Robert Sean Leonard plays as Peter. Leonard is also in the movie "Dead Poets Society" which I highly recommend, also. In the end, I was dancing through my tears to the great soundtrack, all original swing music.

The last words of the movie are "Swing Heil!" Spoken by Peters younger brother, who came to help Peter, but never got the chance. The caption, just before the screen fades to black says that there was a new generation of Swing Kids, who lived to see the defeat of the Nazis.

I know this may all seem like a jumble on paper, but to really get the meaning of what I am talking about, you have to see it for yourself.

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