Directed by Marcy Garriott
With Omar Davila, Josh Ayers, Romeo Navarro
Website at www.insidethecircle.com
Breakdancing’s come a long way since the days of the Electric Boogaloo, as this documentary set in the ultra-competitive Austin, Texas b-boy scene proves. Director Marcy Garriott’s eye-popping, gravity-defying doc recalls the drama and excitement of Hoop Dreams as it follows Josh and Omar, two teenaged b-boys with dreams of making it big. Formerly close friends, Josh and Omar now front competing crews hellbent on outdoing the other’s best routine on the dancefloor — and become tight-lipped rivals in the process. Meanwhile, just as Omar begins to garner some major international attention via the internet, crises with family and the law come to a head in Josh’s life. (from the filmfest-guide)
I really wanted to see this documentary because I have always admired breakdance since it first entered Germany’s consciousness with the Rock Steady Crew in the early 80s. I admired breakdance when I was active in the hip-hop/graffiti scene myself in the early 90s, and admire them even more today, all grown-up more than a decade later. After all that time I can still find myself speechlessly impressed about moves the world hasn’t seen before and should not be possible. Just today I was blown away by a video of a guy who literally did push-ups with both his legs straight and his feet in the air. Incredible.
So naturally I had to see Inside The Circle and was very pleasantly surprised, because this documentary turned out to be much more than just about breakdancing and some moves. It offered a wonderful behind-the-scenes look into the scene, the events and more importantly: the people, their lives, who they are, what they do, and where they came from. This film was also very successful and authentic in that it absolutely managed to reflect all the ideas, goals, the flavor and atmosphere and the dynamics of the hip hop scene as I remember it from my old days. I don’t really want to get nostalgic and mourn about old-school and new-school and what hip hop has become these days etc-etc.. but really: breakdancing and the people really stayed as raw, unpolished, true-to-themselves and from-the-streets as they always were… not slightly more polished, presentable, engineered or commercial.
