Today I saw
Schultze Gets the Blues (Michael Schoor, Germany),
Reel Paradise (Steve James, USA) and
The Waiting Room (Zeki Demirkubuz, Turkey).
Schultze was the best of the three, but none are near the highest level of stuff I've seen at the Film Festival thus far.
The best part of
Reel Paradise was the heated discussion that took place afterward, as two of the documentary's subjects in John Pierson and his daughter Georgia were in attendace and fielded Q&A afterward. Some of the audience was apparently pretty angry, about all sorts of things, and decided to take the Pierson's to task for their small part of it, I guess.
The movie, directed by Steve James of
Hoop Dreams fame, follows the Pierson family during the last month of their one-year stay in a fairly remote Fiji community. John Pierson is a producer and supporter of American independent cinema in general. To check out his resume, look for his book
Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes recounting his early work with Spike Lee, Michael Moore, Errol Morris and up through Kevin Smith (View Askew financed
Reel Paradise). As part of his
"Split Screen" television show on IFC, Pierson had become aware of a small ramshackle movie theater in Fiji, and a segment had been taped there. When he saw the way the villagers reacted to a Three Stooges short film, he was intrigued by the idea of bringing cinema to such a setting. When he found out a year later the theater was closing, he decided to move there for a year and run it, bringing in American movies (mostly the contemporary Hollywood fare of the day, no indies or arthouse stuff) and show them for free. His wife, teenage daughter and slightly younger son all came to live in this area of Fiji.
ANYway, the film Steve James made shows not only what goes on at the screenings of course, but also how the Piersons interact with the community and how they influence it - for good and for bad. After the film, John and his daughter got up to field questions. The first couple were fairly standard, just asking for more details about this or that element, then came the negative shouts. Basically some folks had a terribly reaction to how the Piersons conducted themselves, and thought them the ugliest of Americans exploiting these native peoples and generally being pricks who clearly didn't care about humanity any furhter than themselves. And besides, showing
Jackass and
8 Mile and such to unsophisticated young brown people is a terrible thing by itself! James' film does indeed raise such discussion in the way he presents things, but the few angry people in the audience weren't there for discussion, they were much too pissed and righteously indignant for that.
T'was amusing anyway. I thought Pierson was very honest about his motives, his feelings then and now, and how it is all presented in
Reel Paradise. He even fessed up that he shouldn't have shown
8 Mile to the younger kids there without more strictly enforcing an age restriction, and if he had it to do over again he'd definitely have handled that particular screening differently. But in general, Pierson wasn't apologetic, nor do I think he really should have been. He didn't go there as a missionary or anything, he had simple and somewhat abstract goals. Some of the criticism is more than fair, but also can be put in the context of the regoin's larger issues and remembering that the prism of a documentary is selective and far from the whole of any story.
Gus Van Sant was a couple rows in front of me, so I just watched him as the negative speakers went on their tirades. For a man who has probably taken more heat in such settings from
Elephant alone than most filmmakers in recent years, he just sat there kind of shaking his head with a bemused been-here-done-this look on his face. Pierson did a good job in trying to engage everyone in dialogue, but they mostly wanted to make speeches. His daughter, Georgia, who I believe was sixteen in the movie and must be closer to eightteen now, was less diplomatic, and I can't say I blame her, as when I was her age I would have done more than just flip them the bird - which she did (this was also a reference to events in the movie, so she was being funny - I thought).
So...it all made for an interesting evening, that's for sure.
As for the movie, it's good, though it does run a bit long for my tatse, and I think it takes too much time getting to the kinds of issues Steve James wanted to highlight. It all works, but it could be tighter and it's nowhere near the level of some of the just amazing documentaries of the past few years. Still good. Don't know if it'll get a real theatrical distibution deal, but at the very least it'll show up on TV and/or video by the end of the year, I'm sure. It's worth keeping an eye out for.
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