(a still from the very still, slow, stunning LUNCH BREAK)
This is the most of the important week in the Hot Docs programming season. Sundance. Many of the programming decisions we make in the next weeks will be informed by our response to the work seen here, its availability for Hot Docs, and/or our desire for its inclusion.
Best thing overheard at Sundance this year, which frequently yields juicy bounty for eavesdroppers: “It’s like the Sundance of 15 years ago….but without the optimism.” While this year’s festival trailer evokes nostalgia for the “Sundance Fever” of yore, the noticeably sharp decline in Industry attendance, and fair weather, has made this a quite enjoyable, non-fever inducing event. “That’s what happens when you take a dozen alpha males out of the mix,” jabbed a doc fest friend. He was referring to the collapse of the mini-major distribution biz, and, well, the not so great recession. Much of the frenzy, and the capitalism, has been missing – or not missing, depending your point of view – from this year’s festival.
Whatever. I like the new old Sundance. As usual the documentary programme is very impressive, if not yet life changing. Its also HUGE, at some 45 features, including the experimental stuff. This must be the largest selection of non-fiction ever presented at Sundance. At this point in the Hot Docs production cycle, the politics of programme acquisition precludes me from public displays of emotion and opinion with regards to the works that Senior Programmer Shannon Abel and I have screened this week. However, I’m quite pleased that by the time we leave Thursday we will have seen EVERY doc at Sundance (okay, except TYSON, didn’t fit our skeds). Even the experimental stuff. So, just a coupla of disparate thoughts to share, sparked by two films screened over the weekend:
PASSING STRANGE (Spike Lee)
In his programme note for this totally engaging record of the acclaimed Broadway show, Shannon Kelley calls Spike Lee’s new joint a “documentary.” Now, Shannon is way smarter and informed than I on practically everything. For instance, I recall him once illuminating me on the architecture of Leipzig. He even knew the proper names for the pretty thingy things on the buildings. Hence, one of my new year’s resolutions is to get better at knowing the names of things. And Shannon is spot-on when he writes that PASSING STRANGE is “a tour-de-force of creative collaboration and inspiration.”
But, is a filmed performance a “documentary,” formally speaking? While certainly a document, or record of the performance, and skillfully photographed and edited, there is no non-fiction in the content of PASSING STRANGE. Okay, a dash, in the intermission sequence. But wouldn’t a documentary about the Broadway show Passing Strange feature comment on the performance, perhaps some “making-of” footage, a sense of its reception? Not that I wanted any of this in the film. I loved it for what it was, wished I had seen the show live, and was thankful it had been preserved. Yet, is a “document” the same as a “documentary” film? I’m not being rhetorical here. I’m really not sure, and have been thinking about it. Something to explore further.
LUNCH BREAK (Sharon Lockhart)
I hope this doesn’t come off as annoyingly righteous, but I do wonder why I see so few of my documentary programming colleagues at screenings for non-fiction based work in the Frontiers programme at Sundance. Meanwhile, we consistently discuss our desire for more attention to form in the conventional docs we screen here and elsewhere. Having few opportunities to see films like LUNCH BREAK, I found it like yoga for my cinema senses. Not that I’ve ever done yoga. But I did feel limber, mindful, and ready for my programming day after the early morning screening.
Its a kind of camera performance film, an uninterrupted tracking shot through the interminable corridor of a metal works plant. The workers are on lunch. The image is slowed down to (I’m guessing) 1/100th speed, maybe even slower. Yes, an 83 minute super duper slow-mo long take….Eureka, I’ve found Opening Night! 
… The sound design consists of real-time ambient industrial sounds, workers talking and, at one point, the background ramble of a Led Zeppelin song from (we are to assume) the plant. The effect is the sense of watching something highly constructed and formal, yet with a hyper-observational realism. Everything is in sharp focus and we have plenty of time to explore the cluttered detail in the crammed corridor. Simple human movements, taking a sip from a pop can for instance, become epic gestures. And, fragments of narrative emerge and nudge our attention along as the camera crawls forward. Well into it, there’s a long moment that involves a worker and popcorn that’s both kind of funny, and somehow reflexive re: movie watching.
I confess to lapses of attention that had absolutely nothing to do with the form of the film, or its diegetic space. Yet, the contemplative space Lockhart creates also allows for reflection on the nature of capturing, re-constructing and representing reality. But this isn’t simply a formal exercise. I also thought about how rarely we see such spaces represented on our screens, and wondered if Lockhart chose lunch time as a sort of metaphor about the state of contemporary labour. There is something melancholy about labour at rest, and quite sad about it halted. Having worked in a factory myself, I recalled the persistent industrial hum, thick combustible smells, boot worn shiny cement floors with faded demarkings. And, indeed, lunch breaks certainly induced a desire to slow time down to the max. My father worked in these spaces all his life, in part so I could work watching films about them. I thought about that, too, and what it means.