top of my school

I wanted to blog about this gem of a video I found today.

I’ve probably watched a handful of short films and musicals in my life, and I’ve never had any strong opinions about any of them, but I think this one might be up there with one of the best videos I’ve found on the internet. Before reading this post, I highly recommend you to watch the film first. I don’t think you’ll come by a video like this very often, and this post will definitely contain spoilers.

I want you to understand that I grew up in a pretty stereotypical Asian household. My parents have always been rather strict about grades when I was growing up, especially my mom. I remember her signing me up for Kumon back in elementary school, which is pretty much the signature nightmare for any Asian kid. I did tutoring at a couple other places throughout middle school, and I was almost always yelled at for any mark lower than an 80%. That’s just how it was in the house, and I’m obviously not the only person this has happened to. Inevitably, my mom has gotten a lot less strict ever since I started caring more about my grades in high school, but it sure was a traumatizing childhood at times.

I mention this because Top of My School is about a girl, Bree, who strives for perfection in school due to the pressure from her parents, and does whatever it takes to be on top. It might not be a new concept, but the way it’s presented is genuinely incredible, and I’m not even getting into the themes and the plot twist. The film is filled with incredible songwriting and cinematography, specifically the first section, which I want to talk about.

The song that plays first in the film is “Top of My School,” which was released way back in 2021, five years before the release of this film. It’s definitely my favourite song of the bunch, and also the most popular song written by Katherine Lynn-Rose, the producer of the film. The first couple lyrics really do resonate with me, and they are that follows:

Some people live the life that was given
Some people just get by
Some people never learned how to be driven
Some people don’t even try

But some people know what their heart desires
Some people lead with a passionate fire
And some people know that they’re destined
To fly

As you can probably see, these lyrics describe someone who is heavily driven by success and their accomplishments, someone who considers themselves “destined” to achieve something truly great, even at the price of burnout and overworking themselves. In the context of Bree, this is all done to please her parents, who continuously pressure her to focus on her studies. In the film, Bree’s father tells her the Chinese myth of the Dragon Gate, which is a legend that states while many carp swim upstream against the river’s current, very little are brave enough or capable of making it through the final leap of the waterfall. Those who do, are transformed into dragons. This was used as an analogy for Bree’s effort to do well in school, and I believe the lyric “to fly” was a subtle nod to this.

The pressure that Bree’s parents put on her is what made her try to do anything to succeed in school, which is what made her be so determined to win the position of council president. But when another girl, Avery, joins the race, Bree knew that she had to do something about it. She began to get to know Avery through an English project, and eventually found out that Avery had harboured an affection for her.

This is when Bree thought of the idea to manipulate Avery, and kill her by taking advantage of her peanut allergy. Sure, it’s an incredibly dark ending, but it shows the true lengths Bree would take just to please her parents and show them that she wouldn’t remain just an ordinary carp. The film has many parallels with another one of my favourite films, Whiplash, which shows the absolute destruction that perfectionism can have on an individual. After all, when you live your entire life up to someone else’s expectations, is it really your life?

In some ways, I admire the character traits of Bree. When it comes to academics, I’ve always tried my hardest to become this hardworking individual, someone who truly dedicates their time to achieving something that they believe, is great. But when this dedication consumes your entire everyday life and overworks you, when does it become a problem? At what point does this obsession with success truly take over you? I’m obviously not at that level of insanity, but it is an interesting thing to think about.

I’ve yet to watch other productions made by Katherine Lynn-Rose, and I do intend on watching her other musical short film, Class Crush, sometime soon. I never thought I would discover someone so ridiculously talented on a random Sunday afternoon, but here we are. It’s always a nice thing when you relate to others who grew up in an immigrant household, as you tend to discover that your experiences have been felt by many others before.