Get Happy

Another Netflix recommendation - and this one is new and really good.

Happy Jail - a short documentary series about the jail on Cebu, in the Philippines, which became famous for the dancing prisoners a decade or so ago.

The jail - which is actually a remand jail, apparently, but people (of both sexes, and quite a few gays) can be there for many years at a time - still thrives on dancing, and is bizarrely now run by an ex-convict who is friends with the new local governor.  (He didn't start the dancing stuff - that was by a previous prison boss who spends much time rubbishing the new regime.)

It doesn't dwell on the dancing per se - although, given that they practice virtually continuously, there are lots of shots of that.   What makes is so fascinating is the way the whole place runs:  the facilities are appallingly crowded and ramshackle, and the prison is to an extraordinary extent sort of self managed.  I doubt there will ever be another documentary where the prisoners seem so happy to be being filmed.

It's extremely well made, and at half an hour per episode, doesn't wear out its welcome.

It continually makes me feel how oddball the Philippines is - fervently religious, full of terrible poverty, in-fighting, corruption, drugs; and people who really like to sing and dance through it all.  It manages to make the place look both attractive and repulsive at the same time.

Highly recommended.