watching teenagers being abused

Rating: 1/10 (9 February 2015)

This movie tries so hard to display the hardships of training to be a musician that the whole image shifts into simple physical and mental abuse of human beings, in this case teenagers. As another reviewer said: it is the boot camp of music. I did not believe what I was seeing. If there was a movie where some dog-whisperer is hitting the dog and yelling at it and this would prove to be working as a method to 'educate' the dog, then people would be upset. But treating a human like that is OK? this just sickens me. yes, you can get humans to do some things by pushing them with violence. Get them into an obedient state of mind, that is simply following orders. But there is a reason why this strategy of motivation has proved to be only effective in the military: There, human lives are indeed worthless. This treatment will make you 'harder', meaning it will make you less of a human being.
When it comes to music however it is impossible to achieve great results with these methods. It can only lead to a soul- and heartless disaster. A fitting result would have been an aggression build-up in the main character which would have prevented him from ever playing anything worth listening to again. This reaction has been seen in other movies where usually the people that are socially connected to the main character will have to suffer from the violent state of mind that this mistreatment is causing. The other possibility is a simple resignation, either by quitting music or by quitting life.
But what is displayed here is wrong on many levels, because it tells you that this abuse leads to something beautiful. That it is all worth it because it pushes you to your limits and then you will be a great musician. Whoever made up this story is either suffering from a severe psychosis or has the intent to justify abusive methods in education by presenting them as effective.
If you treat people with violence they will get violent too. Either towards others or towards themselves. This is the only result you will achieve. And in this case it would also completely destroy the main character's ability to be a musician. Music is not the military. You do need discipline and training, but this comes from mental strength. And you do not get stronger by being abused. It will only weaken you.
It makes me sad seeing that apparently this movie is entertaining to people. This can only be the case if they do not see the utter failure in judgment that is presented here. And if they do not see it then they are blind in a way that is worrying.