Paper Clips Documentary 2004
Whitwell, TN Student Project On the Holocaust
Students learn about prejudice and assemble millions of paper clips to represent victims of the Holocaust.
Paper Clips is a 2004 documentary, taking place in rural Tennessee, that follows an ambitious project by middle school students to learn about the Holocaust. The project began when teachers and administrators decided that teaching the Holocaust would be an important way for the children to learn more about diversity and the dangers of intolerance. The project escalates to something more, however, when one of the kids cannot visualize six million, the number of Jews killed by Hitler. In order to see six million, the kids begin to collect paper clips; as their story gets out, paper clips and stories from all over the world begin to pour in.
The Film's Layout
The film has a fairly slow pace, taking its time to get a feel for the people most closely tied to the project as well as the community itself. The town, Whitwell, Tennessee, is anything but diverse, being almost entirely white and Protestant. Many in the community openly admit to once being judgmental of others, speaking racial epithets or growing up around them, and realize that as Southerners, they themselves are a common stereotype. About halfway through the film, as the paper clip project continues to get news coverage and website hits, Holocaust survivors come to share their stories and memories. These accounts are a small part of the film; the last third is devoted to the school's acquisition of a German rail car in which to house the paper clips and display on campus as a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust.
Flaws
There is no doubt that the class itself, the community and the desire to document and share their story on film are all admirable things. Unfortunately, the end result comes off as superficial, with very little depth on some of the more interesting aspects. Much time is spent initially on why the class was begun, but very little was shown about the class itself, how the lesson of intolerance might relate to current day events, or anything learned other than "intolerance is bad." Poor choices were made in choosing how to use the film's time, spending too much on less important or well-covered areas.
Personal accounts and the history behind the Holocaust are, naturally, deeply moving and emotional. Sadly, the movie overdoses on emotion, managing to wreck the impact by coming off as saccharine and trite with obvious sound bites, slow motion and cheesy music. Everything is heavy handed; a subtler approach would have been better suited to the material.
Good Material, Poor Execution
The Holocaust itself is well documented in many different kinds of films. Paper Clips documents what was a great idea and a small town's inspirational story that continues, presumably, to be a source of great pride for that community. There can be no doubt that the subject matter of the film was more than worthy and could have made for an exceptional documentary. Sadly, its execution was poorly done. The original point of the project, to collect six million paper clips and see what that number looks like, goes missed. There is barely a glimpse inside the rail car that houses the paper clips and we still don't know what six million looks like. The film is medicore at best, but the inspiring story trying to be documented is a great one.
