The best place to be during the Telecom Auckland International Film Festival is inside the cosy Civic when it’s cold outside. During a film you’ll occasionally look dreamily to the stars in the ceiling and the projected soft clouds hovering above. It's even better when you're there and it's packed full of people. There's a real buzz in the air. Saturday was one of those nights. Rize was the film.

The doco by David LaChapelle (his first full length feature) begins with aerial shots of the LA riots in 1965 and 1992. This is a tough hood and has been for ages. It took a clown to make things more cheerful: Tommy, the world's first hip-hop clown! He wears a bright technicolour wig and outfit. His dance style is called Clowning. White clown makeup and being able to move well is required, of course. It's a really fast, physical style of dance. We see shots of locals of all types doing it: big bottoms wobbling, toned young bodies, and little kids moving better than you ever could. Tommy started Clowning as something positive for the community, a place where drive by shootings happen all the time.

Other dance styles, The Stripper, and more importantly Krumping soon evolved from Clowning. Krumping is a more aggressive style with plenty of pushing but no fighting. It’s a way to release the tension and aggression of the streets. There’s old footage employed of African warriors wearing white face paint and dancing in a playful fast wrestle just like an anthropology lesson. The similarity with Krumping was there. Others involved in Clowning and Krumping are introduced with their cool names (Dragon, Lil’ C, Miss Prissy, Baby Tight Eyez, etc). They’re all poor and therefore self-taught. Most people go to schools and academies to train. Here, you learn it on the street. It’s their “ghetto ballet”.

The climax to Rize is a dance off between the Krumpers and the Clowns in a big stadium. Tommy hosts the show like a clown Don King with his big bright wig. The Clowns win the audience vote and Tommy is very happy. He, just like a cult leader, disapproves of the rebels of his new religion (the Krumpers). Then reality hits as Tommy gets a call that he’s been burgled. Life in South Central L.A is brought again to our attention. Dancing and spirituality are ways that people survive here. The film didn’t tread deep enough here, and would be its weak point. It doesn’t impart great detail about the people and their daily lives. What do these people do for a day job? Director David LaChapelle is a fashion photographer; you wouldn’t expect anything deep from him in that sense. That is what you get, and that is perhaps the point of the film. It’s just great entertainment.—NB