Category Archives: Film

Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, October 6: BALLET BOYS

Kenneth Elvebakk’s portrait of dancers’ dreams made its debut at Thessaloniki Doc last year. Its fest circuit also included Krakow, Edinburgh, Bergen, Reykjavik, Cucalorus, Palm Springs, IDFA, and Goteborg.

Elvebakk follows three teenagers – the only male dancers in their class – as they contemplate their commitment to ballet over four years. Torgeir is finding himself distracted by girls, Syvert struggles with balancing dance and academics, while Lukas is the most serious-minded about pursuing the artform as his career. While Elvebakk captures the grace and beauty of their performances, there’s a distinct lack of energy to the rest of the film. The boys’ friendship is appealing, but never quite developed beyond the surface to offer any deeper insight. Despite its pointedly gendered title, neither does the film address in any real depth issues related to being male in a discipline that overwhelmingly celebrates female dancers, nor how the trio navigates any potential flack they might conceivably receive from their non-dancer social circles.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, October 6: BATKID BEGINS

Dana Nachman’s retelling of the day a city made a little boy’s wish come true debuted at Slamdance this year. It also screened at Cleveland, Dallas, Ashland, Cinequest, and Bentonville, among others

After combatting leukemia, super-hero-obsessed five-year-old Miles Scott is given the opportunity by the Make-a-Wish Foundation to have his greatest dream realized: Becoming Batman – or, in this case, Batkid. When his dream goes viral, the foundation’s modestly elaborate plan attracts thousands of volunteers, effectively shutting down large parts of San Francisco to transform it into a Gotham City stage for the young boy’s daylong adventure. Beyond a fitting comic-book-themed animated sequence toward its beginning, Nachman’s starry-eyed film is fairly straightforward, combining after-the-fact interviews with planners and participants together with footage Make-a-Wish captured of Miles’ activities that day, all set to a relentless, upbeat score. The takeaway – voiced multiple times – is meant to be the inspirational way that everyone came together to help a little boy. Beyond the entire population of SF, from its mayor and chief of police, to its local sports team mascot, the rest of the world chimed in, including President Obama and composer Hans Zimmer, with additional messages of support from far-flung countries. It’s a a nice thought, but what’s left largely unsaid is how this groundswell actually takes over the day from the one person it really is meant to be about. While Miles initially seems game, if somewhat confused, not only does he basically get over the adventure halfway through the day, having to be coaxed to continue, but the various set-pieces seem designed more to appeal to the adults involved, and go over his head. In the end, even his mother isn’t really sure that he understood what happened – but everyone else sure feels good about it. Just like the horde that responded to the Batkid idea, it’s easy to get swept up in the self-congratulatory aspect of this often very sweet film rather than step back and question if this is really what Miles wanted.

Now on VOD: A SINNER IN MECCA

Parvez Sharma’s secret recording of his pilgrimage to Mecca premiered at Hot Docs. Screenings have followed at Sheffield, Outfest, and LGBT fests in Chicago, Toronto, Philadelphia, Sydney, and Dublin, among others. It was released on iTunes this past weekend.

I previously wrote about the doc upon its theatrical release here.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, October 2: THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING

Avi Lewis’ look at grassroots opposition to climate change made its debut at Toronto last month. In addition to screening at the Atlantic Film Festival, the film has had a number of special screenings around Europe in the lead up to its US and Canadian release.

Inspired by her recent book of the same name, Naomi Klein serves as occasional onscreen interviewer and overly conversational narrator here. Adopting a faux, gently conspiratorial tone with the audience, she confesses she, too, is put off by climate change films – but this one is different! In practicality, it’s really not that much different. Lewis and Klein shift the focus to inspirational stories of resistance, but the basics are still here: rightly troubling information about the damage that’s been done, and continues to be done, to our planet in the shortsighted interest of profit. The contextual frame that Klein employs to make sense of how and why we’ve gotten to where we are is interesting – the widespread adoption of the Enlightenment era notion that nature is like an animal that mankind must tame, rather than something upon which humanity depends on to survive. In her view, this paradigmatic shift enabled the capitalistic impulse to exploit nature in whatever way deemed necessary to make a profit, regardless of its ultimate, catastrophic results. In Klein’s view, recognizing this underlying concept allows for the possibility of changing it, offering more hope than if one were to simply conclude that man’s basic nature is to be destructive. That’s all well and good, but the examples she uses of grassroots resistance still fall wide of enabling systemic transformation, and their coverage here is so broad that complex issues are unfortunately oversimplified. While the film is not likely to engender awakening in those not already convinced of the need for immediate action to curb climate change, its core audience will likely embrace the pep rally feel in a social issue doc subgenre that’s not typically known for optimism.