| Summary: | This landmark documentary is the fourth film in renowned ethnographic filmmaker David MacDougall's long-term, five-part study of childhood and adolescence at the Doon School in northern India. This film focuses on life in a school dormitory. A new group of 12-year-old students is arriving to start their lives at the school. The film follows them from their first day, exploring their emotional and intellectual lives as they experience homesickness, fights, classroom teaching, and the stirrings of group identity. Although these boys are the same age as those in the earlier "With Morning Hearts," the group dynamics captured here are very different from that film. Within the group are boys of varied personalities and backgrounds -- some natural leaders, some subject to teasing and bullying, some argumentative, some peace-makers. Especially notable are the conversations among the boys about such matters as the causes of aggression and warfare, homesickness, restaurant food, and how to speak to a ghost. Along with 'Doon School Chronicles, ' 'With Morning Hearts, ' and 'Karam in Jaipur, ' this profound cultural portrait will take its place among the classics of ethnographic cinema. It will generate thought and discussion in a wide range of classes in cultural anthropology, Asian and Indian studies, visual anthropology, education and childhood studies, and post-colonial studies.
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