Change Your Image
mthoward-1
Reviews
Radical (2023)
A Masterpiece in Filmmaking
As 2 teachers,we laughed, we cried and we drove home profoundly affected by the messages in Radical. Surely, radical reactions to top-down teaching have been tried before: the Summerhill Schools in England, the German forestry Schools, the Japanese memoire Toto-Chan by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, Montessori Schools to name a few. These are largely small scale projects least the good idea goes the way of the bad institution.
Christopher Zalla shaped this true story breaking through the conventional teacher/student tropes in an unsentimental and non-patronizing way. It subtily shows the troubles children face in Mexican border towns caused by the American Maquiladoras and our appetites for drugs. Yet their teacher, Sergio Juarez, has the courage to persist in believing in his pupils potential. No other film we've seen has the ability to alter the U. S. mindset about Mexico while inspiring teachers everywhere that teaching is a nobel cause. Oscars due for acting, writing, directing cinematography and production.