>>REVIEW
DEMOCRACY IN THE SHADOWS
DIRECTED BY Brent Spiess
Friday, October 28
Hillhurst Sunnyside Community Hall
This is perhaps the only documentary that I’ve ever seen that is not about anything. Created by the Inglewood Film and Art School and Sweetgrass Films, Democracy in the Shadows has no narrative, no context and no point. It consists of mostly random and badly filmed interviews with people in Calgary who sound off about everything from democracy to corporations to lying politicians. It’s supposedly "insightful and provocative," but I am thinking of other, more colourful words to describe it.
Here is a sample insight from one of the interview subjects: "Ralph Klein kept us from being bombed by Bush. He gave all our gas and oil to Bush, so we at least don’t have to worry about being a second Iraq." Touché. Another wise soul opines that, "Democracy, to me, is perfect anarchism. And in that sense, it’s perfect communism." Do you feel yourself getting dumber yet? It went on like that for an hour, and it was like a cheese grater was being taken to my brain.
The camera work is shoddy, as is the editing. The non-interview shots are completely irrelevant – baristas goofing around in Second Cup, for example. But then, what could the pictures possibly be relevant to, since the film isn’t actually about anything?
The highlight (inasmuch as there is one) is the interview with Ezra Levant, a man whose nonsensical ranting usually provokes in me a hearty laugh. But because his comments, too, were divorced from any kind of context, I couldn’t even bring myself to snicker at the ridiculous right-wing ideologue.
Democracy in the Shadows is so bad that it unconsciously makes a strong case against democracy. After all, if people can’t even come together to make something resembling a coherent film, how can they be expected to have a say in government? |
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