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Throw Down Your Heart (2008)

Throw Down Your Heart
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Directed by Sascha Paladino.
"Throw Down Your Heart" follows American banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck on his journey to Africa to explore the little known African roots of the banjo and record an album. Bela's boundary-breaking musical adventure takes him to Uganda, Tanzania, The Gambia, and Mali, and provides a glimpse of the beauty and complexity of Africa. Using his banjo, Bela transcends barriers of language and culture, finding common ground and forging connections with musicians from very different backgrounds.
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KarinaKarina LAFF Diary: Another Classic Fro ...
by Karina in Karina on SpoutBlog
hasn't rated it.
Was this review helpful? [Be the first to tell us!]
 "I grew up in Los Angeles and have fractured but fierce memories of seeing movies in Westwood, the theater-packed micro-city surrounding UCLA, in which the Los Angeles Film Festival is now based. I think I saw Jurassic Park four times at the Avco. I know I saw my first Lubitsch movie (Design for Living) at UCLA. Yesterday I was standing in line at Rite Aid and had some kind of out-of-body flashback experience of getting ice cream at the same Rite Aid after my mother took me to a matinee of Flight of the Navigator. I’m sure people go to film festivals in their hometowns all the time and don’t think it’s weird at all, but I get painfully nostalgic. I, like, went to school and stuff, but hanging out in these theaters for entire summers is how I fell in love with movies. Funny, then, that I’ve been here for almost two full days and I haven’t yet been able to see a single film. Part of this is a scheduling issue––I got in too late on Monday to make it to a screening, and I had already se ... " [More]
SpoutBlogSpoutBlog LAFF Diary: Another Classic Fro ...
by SpoutBlog in SpoutBlog on spout.com
hasn't rated it.
Was this review helpful? [Be the first to tell us!]
 "I grew up in Los Angeles and have fractured but fierce memories of seeing movies in Westwood, the theater-packed micro-city surrounding UCLA, in which the Los Angeles Film Festival is now based. I think I saw Jurassic Park four times at the Avco. I know I saw my first Lubitsch movie (Design for Living) at UCLA. Yesterday I was standing in line at Rite Aid and had some kind of out-of-body flashback experience of getting ice cream at the same Rite Aid after my mother took me to a matinee of Flight of the Navigator. I’m sure people go to film festivals in their hometowns all the time and don’t think it’s weird at all, but I get painfully nostalgic. I, like, went to school and stuff, but hanging out in these theaters for entire summers is how I fell in love with movies. Funny, then, that I’ve been here for almost two full days and I haven’t yet been able to see a single film. Part of this is a scheduling issue––I got in too late on Monday to make it to a screening, and I had already se ... " [More]
KarinaKarina Sarasota 2008: Throw Down Your ...
by Karina in Karina on SpoutBlog
hasn't rated it.
Was this review helpful? [Be the first to tell us!]
 "The neatest formal trick in Throw Down Your Heart, Sascha Paladino’s somewhat overlong but surprisingly moving document of his brother Bela Fleck’s journey to Africa to sort out the roots of the banjo and record an album with native musicians, is the employment of selective translation. Fleck, a celebrity in his bluegrass/jazz Americana niche, is a wide-eyed total outsider in Uganda and Tanzania, where even those who speak English have thick enough accents that their words need to be subtitled. But Paladino only translates African song lyrics and conversations between locals when the content within is essential to understanding a scene. This forces us to really contemplate the imagery and the sound of the music––elements that are so universal they need no translation––to pick up most emotional cues, and for the most part, it works beautifully. For a film about the power of music to shatter cultural and historic barriers and unite people based on pure feeling, I can’t imagine a tig ... " [More]
SpoutBlogSpoutBlog Sarasota 2008: Throw Down Your ...
by SpoutBlog in SpoutBlog on spout.com
hasn't rated it.
Was this review helpful? [Be the first to tell us!]
 "The neatest formal trick in Throw Down Your Heart, Sascha Paladino’s somewhat overlong but surprisingly moving document of his brother Bela Fleck’s journey to Africa to sort out the roots of the banjo and record an album with native musicians, is the employment of selective translation. Fleck, a celebrity in his bluegrass/jazz Americana niche, is a wide-eyed total outsider in Uganda and Tanzania, where even those who speak English have thick enough accents that their words need to be subtitled. But Paladino only translates African song lyrics and conversations between locals when the content within is essential to understanding a scene. This forces us to really contemplate the imagery and the sound of the music––elements that are so universal they need no translation––to pick up most emotional cues, and for the most part, it works beautifully. For a film about the power of music to shatter cultural and historic barriers and unite people based on pure feeling, I can’t imagine a tig ... " [More]
KarinaKarina Sarasota 2008: The Restorative ...
by Karina in Karina on SpoutBlog
hasn't rated it.
Was this review helpful? [Be the first to tell us!]
 "Photo via zizzybaloobah @ Flickr. I landed in Sarasota around 2:00 yesterday afternoon, and by the time I was standing in line for my first film an hour later, the sore throat I’d been carrying around for three weeks in New York since returning from SXSW had miraculously disappeared. It would be hard to overstate how magical this place feels in contrast to the cold, gray, post-global warming non-spring of New York City. It’s 80 degrees here and sunny; my hotel’s right on the beach. And I’m working. Feel free to hate me––I would. Speaking of work, I saw two films yesterday, Throw Down Your Heart and Spine Tingler: The William Castle Story, both of which I’ll be writing about shortly. More soon. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth " [More]
SpoutBlogSpoutBlog Sarasota 2008: The Restorative ...
by SpoutBlog in SpoutBlog on spout.com
hasn't rated it.
Was this review helpful? [Be the first to tell us!]
 "Photo via zizzybaloobah @ Flickr. I landed in Sarasota around 2:00 yesterday afternoon, and by the time I was standing in line for my first film an hour later, the sore throat I’d been carrying around for three weeks in New York since returning from SXSW had miraculously disappeared. It would be hard to overstate how magical this place feels in contrast to the cold, gray, post-global warming non-spring of New York City. It’s 80 degrees here and sunny; my hotel’s right on the beach. And I’m working. Feel free to hate me––I would. Speaking of work, I saw two films yesterday, Throw Down Your Heart and Spine Tingler: The William Castle Story, both of which I’ll be writing about shortly. More soon. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog " [More]
Tags: banjo , music , africa , documentary , SXSW
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