Paper Clips (2004) Movie Information:

Paper Clips (2004) Directed by: Elliot Berlin, Joe Fab Paper Clips (2004) Written by: Joe Fab Paper Clips (2004) Cast: Not available at this time

Paper Clips (2004) U.S. Distributor: Miramax Paper Clips (2004) U.K. Distributor: Lionsgate

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Paper Clips (2004) Synopsis:

Whitwell Middle School in rural Tennessee is the setting for this documentary about an extraordinary experiment in Holocaust education. Struggling to grasp the concept of six million Holocaust victims, the students decide to collect six million paper clips to better understand the extent of this crime against humanity. The film details how the students met Holocaust survivors from around the world and how the experience transformed them and their community.

Paper Clips (2004) Movie Review:

This documentary tells a powerfully important story, even though the filmmakers get far too caught up in both the story and the significant emotions swirling around it.

In small-town Whitwell, Tennessee, teachers Hooper, David Smith and Roberts were concerned that their students had no way of understanding tolerance, because of their all-white protestant community. The 13-year-olds came up with the idea: paper clips were invented in Norway, where they were used as a symbol of wartime resistance. So to understand the concept of what Hitler did to the Jews, the children would collect 6 million paper clips. As journalists (the Schroeders) adopted the story, some 30 million clips arrived. And the school created a permanent memorial to house 11 million of them, representing 6 million Jews and 5 million others killed by the Nazis.

This evocative story is loaded with urgency and relevance. And the filmmakers spent years with the teachers and students, telling it beautifully from every side, including the intimate, personal responses of people touched by the project. As the task develops, the students are visited by Holocaust survivors ("They look just like my grandparents") and they take possession of a German freight car to house their memorial.

While the project is laudable in every conceivable way, this film leaves a nagging sense that for a true understanding of tolerance in this Bible Belt community, located just 30 miles from the site of the 1925 Scopes Trial and 100 miles from the Ku Klux Klan's birthplace, the students perhaps should have taken on Aids in Africa. Or even Aids in America. Would these deeply religious students' tolerance extend to embracing a gay person?

These kinds of thoughts emerge while watching this film, mainly because of the filmmakers' earnest, heart-wringing, somewhat arrogant approach. Yes, what these children are learning is utterly essential, and they're doing it in a creative, meaningful way. But they're celebrating the fact that they live in a free country with their extended family around them, rather than understanding the fact that, first, their lifestyle represents a tiny minority in the world, and second, it's an illusion.

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Paper Clips (2004) review written by: Rich Cline