Mixing it up

Wrapping up my review of the seven films I saw at the Tribeca Film Festival, the first film I saw actually was Blue Blood, directed by Stevan Riley. Film description was:

Boxing films are hit with a fierce uppercut in this clever, genre-tweaking documentary about the training regimen and sparring contests of Oxford University students who step out of the ivory tower and into the boxing ring to settle matters with their Cambridge rivals. In underlining the freedom to not care about failing, or about what other people think, Blue Blood paints a winning portrait of the spirit of the underdog.

It was pretty good--you definitely got sucked into the passion of the five students the filmmakers followed, all the more so because they look like such unlikely boxers at the outset (comical scenes of the guys in the gym are interspliced with interviews where the boxers themselves either come across as unintentionally unpromising, or their friends/family express severe doubts).

The film really is about that can-do British amateur spirit, which on the one hand has led to near-renaissance level achievements in fields from literature to sports to the hard and social sciences. But on the other has also led to really unequaled levels of racism, classism, and colonial incompetence/arrogance/disaster.

The kids themselves are allright; all white and similar--they keep talking about Oxford as the world's greatest university, which made me wonder what it is in the British mentality that allows them to truly believe an island nation of 60 million that until recently has been homogeneously white and since World War II has strapped for cash could really have bested the gathering of the world's best and brightest that the American university system represents.

I mean, even the documentary's soundtrack, of which the director and producer seem inordinately proud (it seemed jarring and intrusive to me, Albert Maysles said in his panel in response to a question that he indeed tries not to just film what happened rather than adding music to 'pep' things up) was mostly American music. One of the most amusing moment for many in the audience, which had a fair number of African Americans, was watching white boys practice boxing to rap on the soundtrack, I imagined the guy next to me was laughing at the double layer of incompetencey.

The boxers, of course, got better--and I actually quite enjoyed the film overall, it's always interesting watching something grow and change before your eyes. Even better, the only one of the five subjects who won his match was there for Q&A aferwards; the documentary ends by noting what happened to everyone, his line was he stopped boxing and took up ballroom dancing, which made everyone laugh. So of course, someone asked the guy--who'd just graduated with a degree in choral music or something--about his transition from the sweet but bloody science to the happy feet of ballroom dancing.

He didn't even pretend to not answer, just said: Well, I won the boxing match, and then after than with my partner won the British competitive dancing title the next semester, so it was a pretty good year.

Did I mention he's now working as a sculptor, and now is interested in becoming a filmmaker?

Talent of a different kind was on display in veteran filmmaker Stephen Olsson's Sound of the Soul. Description:

In a world where religions often drive people apart, Sound of the Soul offers a joyfully welcome reminder that spirituality can also bring us together. The film explores Morocco's historic heritage of tolerance, and showcases a stunning array of brilliant musicians at the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music, whose profound expressions of love and longing are unforgettable.

It was odd, at first I found myself not liking this documentary as much as somehow I thought I should--maybe it was the hour, or my allergies, or the previous day's glut of four films. For whatever reason, even as I watched the (brief) interviews with a dizzying array of world-class worldwide religious musical talent, and listened to their at times other-worldly music, I somehow didn't connect. Maybe because there was so much in the documentary, and the film was about the 'festival' rather than about people (this festival really has made me think about how important it is to present films via people, preferrably their faces, ideally with natural sound/music).

But it all changed about halfway through, I got sucked into it more; and then after listing to Olsson speak, I totally became a fan. There are some people who really defy expectations--I was expecting the usual white liberal goes to the dark savages and tells us and them about themselves, creating a diamond out of their rough.

And there were elements of that in the film, but none at all in the person. Olsson is just one of those people that you like right away. He's so--open? Affable? Just comes across as a good guy, with an appropriate sense of self, easy smile, and an apparent love for the people and cultures of the middle east. Without being patronizing, or self-aggrandizing, which is rare, so rare.

Hearing him speak made me trust him as a filmmaker, and even though in my mind's eye I'd have made the movie differently (my new hero Albert Maysles certainly would have), it made me in retrospect like his film more, seeing the context in which it was made.

At any rate, the music was really good, and there are a number of totally unexpected performances--and it all made me want to travel to an upcoming World Sacred Music fest, and its accompanying symposiums on global issues. The symposium, which started after 9/11, apparently is calculated to bring together members of the international political and financial elite with the musicians and other culture leaders, in an immersive environment of listening and giving (not to mention praying).

As Olsson said, "music opens the heart to dialogue." Film, too.

Images from Blue Blood and Sound of the Soul via Tribeca Film Festival.