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Swing it, Kids Moves Audience at Aeon Cinema

2015年10月16日(金) Report

Swing it, Kids, the new documentary by Fabian Kimoto, screened at the Aeon Cinemas in Katsuragawara on the second day of the Kyoto International Film and Art Festival. It portrays the unusual music collective The Swing Kids, put together by musical director/conductor/instrumentalist Dai Kimoto. The group acts both as musical education and a swing jazz band that tours constantly, with the twist being that all performers are under 18, and most are in the 11-14 year-old range. Kimoto, a Japanese musician resident in Switzerland, set up the group to educate Swiss children about swing jazz and give them a chance to perform. It’s been so successful that the band has toured over 350,000 kilometers since 2005 and there is a long waiting list of kids hoping to get a chance to become one of “The Swing Kids,” the band’s name.

This beautifully made documentary captures Kimoto’s love of music and his love of teaching music as well as the huge impact being in the band has on the kids. The group becomes their life and they study hard, but they are still prepubescent and as such they play, bicker, get silly and generally act like pre-teens. One girl, Ayleen, learns 150 songs in one week (!) but at the same time she’s still a hyperactive tweener who can burst into tears talking about how much she misses her dad. In addition to Kimoto teaching them to grow by teaching them music, the band is constantly on the road so the young’uns need to deal with that lifestyle. They do 9 concerts in 14 days in Argentina, far far from Switzerland.

The emotional high point of the film comes when The Swing Kids tours Japan, Kimoto’s homeland, just seven months after the tsunami disaster of March 2011. They go specifically to the affected areas and witness firsthand the destruction wrought but that heart-wrenching tragedy while bonding with Japanese children roughly their age.

The documentary is filed over a roughly two-year period but it’s one of those brilliant pieces where we feel we see the children growing up and maturing right before our eyes. As with any band the music is the focus, but the real theme of this work is the relationships the kids forge with each other and how this spurs their maturity. The emotional power comes both from Kimoto’s and the children’s love of music and the intense and loving community they form to present that music. It’s a brilliant work on many levels.