Archive for April, 2007

Billy the Kid

Published
by
James McNally
on April 22, 2007
in Documentaries, Film Festivals and Hot Docs
. Closed

Billy the Kid

Billy the Kid (Director: Jennifer Venditti, USA, 2007): I’d heard good things about this film when I was at South by Southwest a few weeks ago, but had no idea what it was about. The titular Billy is Billy Price, a 15-year-old living in rural Maine. He’s definitely a bit of an oddball. Left out or picked on at school, he seems to have no idea how to say or do the right thing in social situations. And yet he’s sensitive and articulate and lives by a strict code of honour. First-time filmmaker Jennifer Venditti (whose other job is as a casting agent) met Billy while casting a fiction film and was captivated by him. Shot in just eight days, the film captures, incredibly, Billy experiencing all the exhilaration and terror of first love. There are some moments of such raw emotional honesty that I found myself cringing one minute and beaming the next. Billy’s greatest disability may also be his most winning trait as a film character: he doesn’t have the same boundaries as the rest of us. He shares his heart, sometimes awkwardly but always sincerely.

Though technically the film is very rough (lighting was a particular challenge), the sense of intimacy more than makes up for that. Director Venditti let us know in the Q&A after the screening that since the film’s completion, Billy had been in some trouble at school and was forced to undergo a mental examination. After all this time, he was finally diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism. But Venditti was very careful not to talk about issues of diagnosis or treatment in the film, because her aim was to show Billy as a real and whole person. Often, we define people by the labels attached to them by society, and the only label that could ever encompass Billy would be Billy.

Here is the Q&A with director Jennifer Venditti from after the screening:


Duration: 14:51

NOTE: Billy the Kid screened with a charming little short called The Truth About Tooth, from Scottish director Hazel Baillie, who also appears on the Q&A.

Hot Docs programmer Shannon Abel interviews Jennifer Venditti

Official site for the film

8/10(8/10)

Helvetica

Published
by
James McNally
on April 22, 2007
in Documentaries, Film Festivals and Hot Docs
. Closed

Helvetica

Helvetica (Director: Gary Hustwit, UK, 2007): This was THE hot buzz film of the festival, and a lot of people didn’t get in to see it who wanted to. I’m still a bit baffled that there could be that many font geeks in Toronto, but I suppose that since we all use computers now, everyone knows what Helvetica is.

Gary Hustwit is the co-founder of Plexifilm, and has been involved as a producer in the making of a number of documentaries, but for his first project as a director, he chose to explore the legacy of Helvetica, a font which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Despite its age, it seems as popular as ever, appearing in logotypes for companies as diverse as Toyota, American Airlines, Target, Crate and Barrel, and American Apparel, to name just a tiny fraction. What has allowed Helvetica such longevity, where other more recent trends (like the grunge fonts of the mid-90s) have flamed out already? Opinions differ wildly.

According to some, Helvetica feels like the final version of sans serif typography, and attempts to improve upon it just fail. For others, the arrival of the computer and the installation of default fonts just means that people are lazy. If you thought a bunch of well-dressed graphic designers arguing over a typeface would be boring, you’d be ever so wrong.

Spanning several countries, Hustwit’s film takes us inside the studios of such leading lights of design as Matthew Carter, Erik Spiekermann, Massimo Vignelli, Jonathan Hoefler, Tobias Frere-Jones, Stefan Sagmeister, and David Carson. If these names mean nothing to you, you’ll still mostly enjoy the film, a beautifully-designed thing which is punctuated by real-world examples of the font in use, shot in rich high-definition and set to a wonderful soundtrack. You may just tune out all of those designer concepts and controversy.

And if you do know the names? Well, font geeks, not only are you in for a treat, but this fall, Mr. Hustwit will have a wonderfully jam-packed DVD to sell you.

Here is the Q&A with director Gary Hustwit from after the screening:


Duration: 14:12

Q&A with director Gary Hustwit from the Hot Docs site

Official site for the film

9/10(9/10)

The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun

Published
by
James McNally
on April 22, 2007
in Documentaries, Film Festivals and Hot Docs
. 2 Comments

The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun

The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun (Director: Pernille Rose Grønkjær, Denmark, 2006): Mr. Vig is an elderly bachelor living in a broken-down castle. For years, he has dreamed of establishing a monastery there, “to create something enduring,” and so, sensing he doesn’t have long to live, he invites the Russian Orthodox church to use his property. They send a small group of nuns to check the place out, including the shrewd Sister Amvrosya. They leave and then return in a few months, and Mr. Vig spends time trying to clean and fix the place up. Once the nuns are more established, he finds himself butting heads with Sister Amvrosya over the renovations and the future plans for the monastery. But for the first time in his life, he seems to have entered a domestic relationship with a woman, and finds the contentment that seems to have eluded him in his long life.

This film was unbelievably touching and beautiful, from the 35mm cinematography (which is becoming rarer all the time in the world of documentary filmmaking) to the soundtrack to the very low-key direction. There are many small grace notes throughout the film, like shots of Sister Amvrosya and Mr. Vig walking in the garden, or her preparing food for him. Everything is unspoken, but there is a very real bond between these two.

Throughout the film, Mr. Vig laments that he just isn’t like other people, that he doesn’t know anything about love, that when it comes to emotions, he’s “deformed” or “a cripple.” And yet, he invites people into his house, invites God into his house, and it somehow becomes a home.

The metaphor seems obvious but it’s true. The house is the man. Ramshackle, run down, a little dirty, perhaps, but full of interesting things and stories, and ultimately beautiful. This quietly powerful film will stay with me for a long time.

Official site for the film

9/10(9/10)

Girls Rock!

Published
by
James McNally
on April 21, 2007
in Documentaries, Film Festivals and Hot Docs
. 2 Comments

Girls Rock!

Girls Rock! (Directors: Arne Johnson, Shane King, USA, 2006): I’m a sucker for documentaries with kids in them. At every festival, often full of dark films about human greed and violence, I always try to pick a film with kids in it. There’s just something wonderful about seeing their eyes when they learn something new, or hearing them talk about the things that matter to them. Girls Rock! combines that sense of wonder with the kick-ass attitude of DIY rock by taking us inside the Rock N’ Roll Camp for Girls, an annual week-long crash course for young women from 8-18.

This real-life School of Rock takes place in Portland, Oregon and girls and young women come from all over the country to be part of it. We get to witness their initial anxiety about being grouped with others to form bands, choosing an instrument, and even choosing names for their bands. It’s clear that the camp organizers want to use the power of rock music to give these girls a voice. In a society that limits women’s choices so early and in so many ways, this camp is a shot in the arm; literally an innoculation against all the negative messages that are thrown at young women today.

But that sounds preachy. And even when the film is throwing statistics at us, it does it in a playful way, using cute animations and jazzy fonts. And a film about rock music should be fun, and the film definitely is that, even when band squabbles and unresolved behavioural problems threaten to destroy the vibe.

The girls we meet are all adorable and gifted in unique ways, even though a few of the younger ones fall into that “precocious” category that can be entertaining in small doses, but can drive you crazy if you see them getting their way too often. In this area, it needs to be said that there are some problems that can’t be solved by music alone, especially in a week.

The camp experience culminates in a huge concert in front of 750 people, and it was great to see all of these thrown-together bands playing songs they’d written themselves. It was hard to believe the camp was only a week long.

It was also hard to believe that this was the feature debut of the two directors, who’ve produced a polished piece of work that manages to deliver a positive message in such a fun way.

Here is the Q&A with directors Arne Johnson and Shane King from after the screening:


Duration: 19:32

Official site for the film

9/10(9/10)

Yoga Inc.

Published
by
James McNally
on April 21, 2007
in Documentaries, Film Festivals and Hot Docs
. 1 Comment

Yoga Inc.

Yoga Inc. (Director: John Philp, USA, 2006): A fascinating excursion into the world of “for-profit” enlightenment, Yoga Inc. suffers from having just too many good stories to tell.

First, there’s the explosion of yoga all over the Western world, with the resultant rise of businesses to capitalize on it. Philp speaks with yoga experts who decry the separation of yoga as a spiritual practice from yoga as simply a physical fitness technique. They claim that making yoga palatable to Western audiences in this way disrespects tradition and violates the very soul of yoga. When the film showed some of the flakier variations out there (including nude and “Christian yoga”), I found myself agreeing with them. With yoga’s soaring popularity has come the inevitable arrival of yoga franchises, which are now putting independent yoga studios out of business. And with every gym now offering some form of yoga classes, the fad may be reaching a breaking point. The film included a very funny interview with Barnaby Harris, who founded a store in New York City called Fuck Yoga. I’m not sure if it’s funny or just sad that some of the people who buy his t-shirts wear them to their yoga classes.

Secondly, we discover that there are tensions within the yoga movement itself. Bikram Choudhury, the man behind “Bikram” or hot yoga, is suing anyone who tries to use his methods or yoga poses without crediting him. He has copyrighted yoga poses that his critics maintain have existed for thousands of years, causing a huge rift in the yoga business community. This type of squabbling seems all the more sad when contrasted with some quotations from traditional yogis one that stressed that yoga is about peace, not power. When there’s money involved, that seems to be forgotten. It felt very much like the controversy over televangelists from a few years back. Focussing on the earning potential and forgetting the basis of the teaching seems very easy to do in our Western culture.

There’s even a third major story in Yoga Inc. Esak Garcia, one of Bikram Choudhury’s followers, is a participant in competitive yoga. Bikram claims that this tradition of yoga champions goes back “thousands of years” in India, though that seems dubious. The sight of yoga practitioners competing for trophies and medals seemed crazy enough, but there is a campaign led by Bikram to have yoga admitted as an Olympic sport. In this other major thread of the film, we follow Esak as he prepares for the yoga world championships. This type of competition seems to be strictly about the physical practice, with contestants trying to outpose each other or fold themselves into contortions. In a very American sense, this type of display is more about the surface than about the depth, about the attractive body rather than the beautiful soul.

The film was constantly engaging, but I just felt it needed more time to fully explore all the issues it dug up. This would work as a series, I think. On the other hand, Philp did a good job of using various documentary techniques, including the use of stock footage and image scans, though the low budget showed through at times with some low-resolution images and the odd cheesy effect.

Overall, this taught me quite a bit about something that is extremely trendy right now. And though I’m skeptical of the current “McYoga,” I do have respect for the traditional version, wherever that might exist. Though yoga isn’t my spiritual path, I believe that it should be treated as a spiritual path, and not as simply business, or fitness, or sport.

Here is the Q&A with director John Philp from after the screening:


Duration: 11:10

Yoga Inc. weblog

7/10(7/10)