User Reviews

This film caught my attention on Netflix streaming movies. While I don't play anymore I grew up playing a cornet and a trumpet, I played through high school and college ROTC, and played as an adult in community (non-paid) symphonies and concert bands. So you could say this film is right down my alley.

Most of it is filmed (digitally, most likely) with equipment that gives an adequate picture, but certainly not great. So is with the sound, there's no mistaking this for a high-quality professional production.

But it is very interesting from a social point of view. The middle of the film shows a clip from 1999 when then President Clinton was announcing the beginning of bombing of Serbia. Which went on for some time and destruction of buildings is still visible in places. Yet barely 14 years later Americans were going to Serbia to play music and many of the Serbians vividly recall the war.

The music is very distinctive, and a rag-tag group of Americans in the New York area have assembled a brass band and they play Serbian music. This film is to document their visit to the 50th annual Serbian bras band festival and competition in the valley with a small community of 2200 population. But the temporary population swells to over 100,000.

Frankly the music isn't that good, at least to my musical ears. Each Serbian band has a lead trumpet player and while they are very good they are not of the musical quality of what we know as the virtuoso trumpet players past and present. Plus many of them use the older, less common trumpet with rotary valves.

Overall I enjoyed seeing it but I wonder how interesting it might be to someone who doesn't play brass instruments?