SXSW's world premiere screening of Thunder Soul was a beautiful illustration of the benefits and the hazards of taking chances on no-profile, intriguing-sounding entries at film festivals. A glossy documentary on a fun subject, Thunder Soul nonetheless plays a bit like it was made to be a memento for its subjects rather than something of general interest. But when most of the subjects are in the audience and clearly having the time of their lives, the experience of seeing the film is, to put it mildly, somewhat transformed.

The Kashmere High School stage band became a minor worldwide sensation in the mid-1970s. A group of black kids from inner-city Houston under the tutelage of brilliant musician and redoubtable teacher Conrad O. Johnson, the band combined jazz and funk to morph the staid high school band tradition into a dynamic, dancing, toe-tapping great time. Now, more than thirty years later, the original band members are coming together -- despite the fact that many of them have not picked up their instruments since graduating -- for a reunion concert to pay tribute to the ailing Johnson.

The band members are incredibly sincere and forthright about their love and respect for Johnson. Many of them credit him for saving their lives -- for giving them pride and purpose at a time when their peers were descending into gang and drug violence. The reunion's ringleader, who describes himself as a "thug" when Johnson and the band came into his life, is particularly articulate and convincing in talking about what Johnson did for him. Music historians and awestruck bandleader contemporaries talk about the magnitude of his accomplishment in getting a professional-quality sound out of a group of 16-year olds. Thunder Soul spends roughly equal time depicting the tearful band reunion, laying out the history of the band in its heyday.

The movie is heavy on talking head interviews singing Johnson's praises, and unfortunately scant on the sort of details that would have made this story interesting rather than generically inspirational. (Though the band members credit Johnson and the band for their life success, for example, we don't even learn what they now do for a living.) It is also, weirdly, scant on the music: we hear a lot about how awesome the Kashmere band's live performances were, but Landsman treats us to only the briefest snippets of archive footage. The big reunion performance as depicted here is also strangely short and anticlimactic.

Ultimately, then, I think Thunder Soul was made for its subjects more so than for the rest of us; an elaborate scrapbook. But watching it with said subjects seated all around me was a hell of a time. In a lot of ways, the audience did the work of the filmmaker. The energy in Austin's Paramount Theater -- from the people in the film, their friends and families, and the rest of the audience -- was palpable and infectious; it replaced the energy and suspense that the movie itself lacked.

The movie itself is, I'm afraid, a little bit anodyne. But watching it was the sort of prototypical festival-going experience that makes these trips worthwhile; a communal outpouring of enthusiasm and admiration. I can't really recommend Thunder Soul, but SXSW sure is fun.