Election Day the Movie

Demis

Crazy

What does democracy mean?

Linguists among us already know that it derives from a mashup of the Greek work 'Demis' (meaning large bearded man in a kaftan) and 'Crazy' (meaning a way for Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo to ensure their financial futures and colonise the hybrid brain of the human race for a few years until the next one comes along).

Demis-Crazy, the worst form of government except all the other ones that have been tried (apparently not said by Churchill); the system that resulted in a day off school for so many of us when I was growing up, whose successes can engender social change for the good of all, and whose failures can lead Al Gore to change his appearance.

(Actually, whoever made the comment about democracy being the least of many evils was right to add the rider 'except all the other ones that have been tried - if you want to be inspired by an alternative voting method that aims to be fully inclusive of every voter, and produce results that far more people can live with, more of the time, than democracy as typically understood - winner takes all, satisfying a minority while everyone else grimaces til the next election - then check out Charles de Borda's preferendum system.  Trust me - it's fascinating and will change the way you think about how politics is done, and what kinds of social change may already be within our reach.  In a weird confluence, the new rules for Best Picture Oscar voting are more like de Borda's system than majoritarianism - one lives in hope that life may imitate art.  Consensus - it's the new riding roughshod over the dreams of others.)

But, and you already knew this, I digress.

In 'Election Day', a warm-hearted observational documentary by Katy Chevigny, we see a day in the life of US democracy, on that fateful day when John Kerry was trying to un-swift boat himself; a day, lest we forget, which could have led to John Edwards becoming vice-president, potentially resulting in a rather troubling scandal in the middle of Kerry's first term.  (Also makes me think that if the Supreme Court had voted differently in 2000, then last year's most likely Presidential nominee for the Dems might have been his VP.  Sometimes things that look bad the first time round seem different on a second look.)  In 'Election Day' we see some of the process of how things came together and fell apart in November 2004, following a poll-watcher watching polls, trying to figure out the interaction between the individual and the collective, and taking in the disenfranchisement of marginalised people along the way.

The best thing about 'Election Day' is the way that it reduces our focus from the meta-level bystanding as the scandal of 2000 unfolded - when the world seemed glued to the same photo of that guy peering through a chad to see if it was hanging, swinging, or pregnant (and when I say 'scandal', I don't mean that we should inevitably think that Bush stole the election, nor that Gore should have been crowned prince by the Supreme Court either; just that when it's obvious that not all the votes have been properly counted, that they should all be counted.  That would seem a reasonable starting point for agreement on the fundamental principles of Demis-Crazy, wouldn't it?)

Demis-Crazy in Action

And so we see a few polling stations, watching that apparently uniquely US American phenomenon of everyone getting involved, wearing badges, filling out forms, finding out who the volunteer judges are, and seeing it through to the moment when a supermodel news anchor subverts the process before the votes are counted and tells you who has won.  The lasting sense I have two days after watching this enlightening film is - on the one hand a reminder that the US American political experiment really might have something to offer the rest of the world, with genuine opportunities for people to get involved, no matter where they are; and on the other, of the apparent brokenness of the system they want to work.

In the UK and Ireland, you register to vote one day a year.  If you're not registered on that day, you go to the local electoral office before the election and sign an affidavit.  If you don't have a passport or a driving licence or another acceptable form of ID, you can get one made just for voting.  It takes a few minutes.  Then you get a card with your name on it, which lists the place you're supposed to vote.  On election day, you have from 7 in the morning til 10 at night to vote.  You don't even need to remember to bring the card with you.  Then you go into the voting booth where you get a card with the names of the candidates on it.  You put an 'X' beside the name of the person you want to elect (or rank candidates in order of preference if it's a proportional representation election).  You fold the paper and put it in a box.  Then you go home and watch TV.  About four or five hours after the polls close, the votes have been counted.  And I mean actually counted, by people, more than once.  If the margins are small, they get counted again.  And again if necessary.  It's amazing.  There are no holes to punch, no judges necessary to confirm your identity, it's very difficult to be confused about where you should vote.  'Election Day' is a valuable film because it presents the paradox of US democracy - a system that so badly wants to work,  but nobody seems quite sure of how a government by the people for the people of the people is supposed to be produced.

'Election Day', a fascinating contribution to the patchwork of understanding America is available on I-Tunes.

Film & Spirituality: A Unique Invitation

I'm very excited about an event I'm co-facilitating in the Los Angeles area in a couple of months, to which you're all invited.  This post presents the first published information about the retreat we're calling 'Film & Spirit'.  Dr Barry Taylor - theology and design professor, musician, user of fountain pens, snappy dresser and elegant cultural critic - and I will be hosting screenings of some amazing films, conversations that we hope will shed light on the movies and ourselves, and an opportunity to get to know other people who think that cinema might be a resource for living better in our world.

On the evening of Friday 22nd, and all day and evening Saturday 23rd January 2010, we'll watch several movies, have conversations with fascinating people, eat good food, and be treated to insights from special guests who, we can assure you, will surprise, entertain and enlighten.

We're thrilled to announce that our first evening will include an exclusive private screening of the as-yet-unreleased film 'Gaia' - which will be reviewed on The Film Talk soon, but I'm happy to say is, in my view, a masterpiece and the finest film I've seen this year.  We'll be joined by director Jason Lehel and I'm sure the conversation after watching this astonishing film about healing and the interaction of cultures in the United States will be a highlight of our time together.

The rest of the programme will be revealed in the coming weeks - but the basic schedule is as follows (all details and costs tbc):

Friday 22nd January

Introductions, screening 1, conversation

Saturday 23rd January

AM: Screening 2, special guest, conversation

Lunch break (on your own)

PM: Screening 3, special guest, conversation

Dinner (provided)

Evening: Screening 4, special guest, final conversation

We're trying to take a risk with this gathering in that we want to facilitate a spiritual experience for people, and to open the invitation to everyone, regardless of background, faith perspective, or philosophy.  Barry and I might both consider ourselves to be somewhat at home in the progressive Christian tradition, and are aware that there are many manifestations (and perceptions) of the lens through which we view things.  We want 'Film & Spirit' to be a welcoming space for everyone who wants to take time out to allow cinema to be the mystical experience it can often become.  We will offer creative ways to express and experience the miracle of cinema, to encounter the life-changing work that occurs in honest conversation, and to find some inspiration for each of our journeys.  But it will be neither a 'religious retreat' nor will we pretend that you have to be consciously religious to be interested in spirituality.  We'd love you to join us - as I've said, I'll post more details soon - for now, save the date, and if you'd like to sign up to make sure you receive updates, please use the form here.

The Beginnings of What Happens Next

My friend Dawn Purvis has made a surprising intervention in a debate about the causes of the conflict in northern Ireland.  Henry Kelly writes about it here - if you're interested in the politics and peacemaking of my home society, I'd encourage you to read this article.  If you're not, but you care about how we handle history, and especially how it has become almost impossible for truth to get past party interests, I'd recommend it just as much.  Are we willing to remember things that make us look bad if it helps other people to heal?

'New' Irish Cinema - The Paradox of 'Turning Green'

You know, we like to be friendly round here, but if you've been in the neighbourhood for any length of time, you'll also know that I often grieve the lack of imagination in most films.  Robots kill some people/people kill more robots; abs-ridden guy meets cute girl/conflict/unification; bloke changes, you know the deal.  So it's a pleasant surprise to see 'Turning Green', your none-too-typical American boy grows up in a small West of Ireland village/competes with the local gangster by selling porn magazines (illegal in the eyes of the State and shameful in the eyes of the Church)/and makes witty comments about what's wrong with the land of my birth while Timothy Hutton, an actor I like a great deal, snarls at him from under a pork pie hat.

'Turning Green' was made four years ago - a runner up in the first season of 'Project Greenlight' - and is only now being released, with the absurdly misleading poster above.  To tell you the truth, it's one of the strangest films I've seen - on the one hand trying to make a decent job of assessing Ireland's paradox, or at least its paradox thirty years ago, when the film is set: the fecund literary culture and freedom narratives of Beckett, Joyce, and Heaney co-mingling with the obsessive puritanism enshrined by the State; on the other, it offers a series of cliches about 'Oirishness' - the angry priest, the aul fella who seems glued to the end of the bar, the visions of Mary turned into a kind of foreplay.  It doesn't help that the movie seems unsure of its tone - is it a dramatic entertainment in the tradition of 'The Quiet Man', a comedy in the style of 'Waking Ned', or a gangster thriller that should have been re-titled 'Mystic O'River'?  You get parts of all three here; with a shade or two of Tarantino, and a little Woody Allen neurotic cynicism in the voiceover.

Writer-directors John G Hoffman and Michael Aimette do enough to make this northern Irish writer laugh - sometimes; but also enough to make me feel condescended to, sometimes.  Ireland has been poor, sure; Ireland has been oppressive for some, absolutely; Ireland has a long string of little villages where everybody knows everybody else, of this there is no doubt.  But the lack of any empathetic characters in 'Turning Green' has the effect of suggesting there's no reason to care; and for me, Ireland needs a vision of what we can be, rather than yet more dwelling on what's wrong with us.

And yet, I found myself almost beguiled by the depiction of my home; and grateful that I wasn't watching another 'Troubles' film or a 'Ryan's Daughter'-style over-romanticisation - there's a smart little film trying to escape from 'Turning Green', one in which the double standard of moral hypocrisy is the heart of the story.  It's not a stretch to say that cultures that freak out over nudity while people are being killed in their name need a mirror; 'Turning Green' offers a very blunt one in an exchange of dialogue that, for me, was worth the weaknesses of the rest of the movie.  When an old man is having trouble describing the package he's gone to pick up from the post office, the domineering priest in line behind our anti-hero James (played with appropriate detachment by Donal Gallery) huffs and puffs about how ridiculous it is to be wasting his time.  James responds with a line that one imagines was the writers' intended motto for the whole film:

'If these people aren't bombing women and children or starving the homeless, they're making small talk at the post office'.

Despite the fact that the film doesn't hang together, glimpses of this coruscating raised eyebrow can be seen throughout; 'Turning Green' seems not be a complete work, but it has signs of moving in the right direction.  And it's a better film than I'd make right now.  (For what it's worth, 'Turning Green' pales in comparison to another film that carries similar themes - the far superior 'Garage', Lenny Abrahamson's Tarkovskian/Rohmeresque film about an Irish petrol station attendant and the encroachment of the Celtic Tiger.)

Meantime, in other Irish news, 'Prods and Pom-Poms', the lovely short documentary about Sandy Row cheerleaders will get its local TV debut for Northern Ireland viewers tomorrow night - you can see it on UTV at 10.35pm, Friday 6th November; and if you're outside the reach of northern Irish television transmitters, DVDs are still available from its makers.

Goodbye Solo: The Best Film Released This Year (So Far)

'Goodbye Solo' (I know I've mentioned it before - but it's now out on DVD in the US and just released to cinemas in the UK and Ireland) is the most frustrating film I’ve seen in ages, and also the best film I’ve seen released this year.  Ramin Bahrani, recently anointed by no less a credible source than Roger Ebert as ‘the great new American film-maker’ had a lot to live up to after his stunning movies about the economic fringes of the US immigrant experience.  ‘Man Push Cart’ and ‘Chop Shop’ tell human, and humane stories about the most mundane of circumstances – the need to make money to survive; but they do it in a way that conveys such urgency, and is completely without cliché that they take on the propulsive force of the most exciting action films.

‘Goodbye Solo’ is set in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a tobacco town not far from where I live, enervated by the collapse of other industries, and now home to, among others, a large contingent of African men, many of whom drive taxis.  As in so many other cities, many of these taxi drivers are highly qualified individuals, who occupied a very different social stratum in their homeland.  Coming to America may have granted them a better life – but America has not been as good to them as they hoped.

And so, Souleymane from Senegal (Solo for short) drives folk around Winston-Salem, and picks up William, an elderly white man, who makes an unusual request.  He wants to be driven to a mountain range in two weeks’ time, and be left there, no questions asked.  He will pay handsomely for the journey, and for the silence.  It is obvious that he intends this to be a one way trip for himself.  Solo – and we – can’t stand it.  Who is this man, William?  Why does he want to die?  Why does he go to the movies so often?  Why does he become violent when queried?

And who is Solo?  What happened in Senegal to make him want to leave?  Does he love his girlfriend?  Will he stay with her?  What are his dreams?  What does he believe?

The thing is, ‘Goodbye Solo’ never explicitly tells you the answers to these questions; but when it’s over, you know.  You know that there is nothing more important than love; that love necessarily presupposes the pain of loss; that the question of will and intention is at the heart of what makes us human.  In a recent interview with the director, I asked him if his film challenges the myth of liberal interventionism – the notion that all problems can be solved by an outside force imposing its will.  His response put my all-too-fertile critical pretentions in their place.  ‘Goodbye Solo’ has no politics, he said – it just wants to ask what would happen if two very different men met at the right time, in the right place; I’d add that it wants to ruminate on the loneliness that post-modern, post-industrial life has bred for so many; most of all, it wants to tell a bloody good story, and tell it more richly, and more believably than anything else I’ve seen this year.  It upset me, but it also made me feel more alive.  I can’t recommend it highly enough.

This review was originally published in Third Way magazine - check out the magazine here.