Going Varsity in Mariarchi

Going Varisty in Mariarchi
Alejandra Vasquez and Sam Osbornariarchi.

My brother was recognised for his skill in music from an early age.
We had a piano Mum ought to from the family that lived in the house before us. And my brother hammered it. He went on to have tuition at our school. His music teacher became his lifelong friend, and my brother accomplished grade 8. I, of course, tried to mimic and ruin his Yamaha DX7 by playing with the settings and constantly wanting to put Skeletor on it. But music was from the start for the gifted and the privileged. And even then, it took persistence to gain that access.

Going Varsity shows that’s still an aspect of working-class/blue-collar life. Where there is art, where there is culture. There is the monetisation of opportunity during a celebration of heritage. At a lower economic school on the south Texas borderlands, there is more than mere pride in winning the championships for a school band. There is finance, scholarships, careers, and sometimes even transport rather than a frustrated dad.

There is a level where the film meets all the beats one would expect in a dramatisation of these events. The directors could have phoned in a replete high school joy field jukebox of errant boys, serenading lesbians, achieving team captains of a band with hand-me-down instruments taking on ‘The poshos’ or the rival higher class and way more instruments and wardrobes of the other Hogwarts school down the road.

Alejandra and Sam avoid these pitfalls by giving the young people q real space to breathe with their voices and perspectives. For me, one student, Drake, embodies the dichotomy at the heart of today. At once, he felt a feeling he is transplanted with no direct experience at the home of mariachi, yet still benign in the guitar’s position, the heart of the band. While his opening statement is he is here to do his job, his own alienation is not so much with the band but with himself and seeing that be overcome through his own process and cognisance, with the support of others who empower and not enable it is an arch vein for the film.

My brother left the League of Musicianship for many years. Academia called to him, and he applied himself as he always has, with a commitment that made him successful in that field.

For myself., the joy of music will always be in seeing him return to it now, and I wonder how he got to where he is because of it as a start. And then, I look at my saxophone and take a few selfies.

I got three notes. But this film is a melody of ambition, inequality, and community that overcomes it in totality by a refreshing, honest ending that you can’t help but root for.,

Seek this out on a par with Hoop Dreams and Waiting for Superman. And a great insight into where education is going today and where it is taking our children.