In the film, two children in the Chicago ghetto are watching the 30th NBA All-Star Game at home, one is called William and the other is called Arthur. What they have in common is that they both like to play basketball and want to be like Jordan. What is worth mentioning is that they are all talented and both are just 14 years old.
"If I can enter the NBA, I will first buy a house for my mother and a Cadillac for my father, so that my family can live better." Arthur said to the camera. For children like Arthur and William who live in slums, basketball means more than after-school activities. For them, basketball often means a good life, the opportunity to enter college, and even the future. If there is no basketball They may just be drug-taking and stealing gangsters on the street.
They were spotted by local amateur scouts who started playing on the street courts and got the chance to enter St. Joseph's High School. Going to a school with few blacks meant a three-hour drive a day and a higher tuition burden, but William and Arthur and their family never doubted this opportunity, because St. Joseph's High School once walked out of Isaiah Thomas (NBA All-Star player), this is their best chance to become a player like Thomas.
We’ve seen this seemingly unattainable dream so many times, but there has never been a film that can give me such a unique feeling like "Basketball Dream". It looks like a documentary, but More fascinating than most feature films.
In the film, at half past five in the morning, before dawn, William and Arthur will have to take the train for about an hour and a half to reach the school. Seeing them walking on the snow-filled road, we know how hard the road to success is. We like to watch documentaries of well-known NBA stars, such as Jordan, James, Iverson, etc. Most of them have had a hard life since childhood, but they have different talents for basketball, and through many difficulties they eventually become everyone's idols.
The school and the team entered the school because of their outstanding talents. When they think you are worthless, they will kick you away without hesitation. Both have different degrees of academic difficulties. Excellent sports talents allowed them to enter these schools that they could not even think of before. In the predicament of unable to pay the tuition, the even better William made people believe that he would become the team's winner. The key to the ball is that someone is willing to help pay for it.
Arthur, who seemed to have not made much progress, faced a different situation and was forced to drop out and had to go to the public Matthew High School near his home to complete the rest of his studies. Both parents were unemployed and Arthur's family was unable to pay the remaining tuition fees of the previous school, which would affect his credits and graduation issues in Matthew. What's interesting is that if it weren't for the invitation of St. Joseph's High School, they would never have such an extra expense. It was more like buying a single order for a stupid dream.
At this time we feel that Arthur seems to be out, and William will dream of coming true just like those players whose names we often call on our lips.
An interesting thing happened. William, who was advancing all the way, had to suspend the game because he injured his knee in a game. Injuries made St. Joseph High School, which had lost its ace, eliminated early, while Arthur, who was abandoned by them on the other side, led the Matthew High School team to the third position in the state. In an instant, the position of two people and The future seems to have turned away.
This is not a story specially fabricated by a talented screenwriter in order to create a conflict of plots. It happens in our lives, and everything that happens is by no means fate and other reasons that can be prevaricated at will.
The director of the film originally planned to make it into a half-hour short film. As the story progressed, they finally insisted on following up for nearly six years to obtain about 250 hours of negative film. No one knows what the final outcome of the story will be. The rich material and real dramatic stories let us not only see the significance of basketball to them and their families through the film, but also the race, class, education system and more thought-provoking issues in American society. This is not just a movie about basketball, even a person who has never been in basketball will love this movie.
Two months after his family happily passed Arthur's eighteenth birthday, Arthur lost his social welfare fund, and the family whose father was drugged and whose parents were unemployed and could only survive on relief money was undoubtedly worse. Arthur’s mother faced the camera: “They thought that the eighteen-year-old black man could not go to school anymore. I used to get 368 yuan, but now it’s only 268 yuan. This is our monthly living expenses. You know how we make ends meet. Is it? How did my child support it? It really makes people jump over the wall." In the
end, Arthur and William both graduated from middle school and entered university. William played for the university for four years, and finally entered the social work, no plans to continue playing basketball; Arthur engaged in some film acting work after two years in the university. None of them entered the NBA as they wished, but we know that they are so talented and hardworking, they are so close to their dreams. They are definitely not losers. They at least changed the situation of themselves and their family through basketball, instead of continuing to be involved with drugs and crime.
Many people will be discouraged because it is a documentary about basketball, especially since it has 170 minutes left. But for film critic Yibert, "Basketball Dream" is one of his favorite movies. In his book "Wake up in the Dark" Roger will recommend the best film every year since the 1960s. He chose to recommend this movie in 1994, which impressed us. Few similar films can make me so excited. Before this, "Extreme Jordan" was the only one, now there is one more!
View more about Hoop Dreams reviews
