![]() ![]() After a beat, the teacher says, “Are we ready to start math?” “Yes,” the students cheer.Īs I discuss with Chandler in our discussion about his perceptive and artful film, he could have continued in the vein of his first act and made an entirely revealing documentary on the school security industry, one highlighting the grotesqueries and militarist mindset of these businesses. ![]() “If you notice any thoughts pressing through your mind, let them float away and bring your attention back to the sound and silence,” the teacher says, as students sit, hands palm down on their desks, eye closed. But then Bulletproof suddenly cuts to a classroom, where a group of elementary school students are being trained in mindfulness techniques. Active shooter drills, teachers given firearms training, a first-generation immigrant starting a business producing Kevlar hoodies, and a Las Vegas trade show where high-tech surveillance equipment and classroom accessories like bulletproof whiteboards are hawked to school board purchasers - the parallels between this education/security industrial complex and our post 9/11 security state, where weaponry and advanced surveillance co-mingle, are hard to miss. Until this point Chandler, with cool, distanced precision, depicts the “capitalist spectacle” that has grown around the issue of violence in schools. There’s a truly startling sequence beginning about a half hour into Todd Chandler’s unsettling, formally assured documentary on school violence, Bulletproof. ![]() BulletProof, Grasshopper Film, Metrograph, Todd Chandler ![]()
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