Off the Grid and other joys
I went to see Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa at the Walter Reade Theater yesterday despite still feeling bizarrely jetlagged and was so glad I did. Thanks to Jesse and Agnes for convincing me! I first saw a rough cut of the film at DocuClub a while back and it has come such a long way since then. The doc is about the misfits, veterans, runaways and renegades who live on a patch of desert in New Mexico - entirely off the grid. That means no water, no electricity and no proper roads. Many of the residents are military vets, clearly scarred by their war experience, many suffering from PTSD, but still fiercely patriotic (at least when it comes to the Constitution, they have nothing but contempt for the government). The thing that struck me about so many of the people in the film is how amazingly lucid and eloquent they are. I guess some of this results from the poetic language that often goes hand in hand with mental illness but I’m sure it is also something that comes from living in the middle of nowhere and having plenty of time to stare at the big sky in stillness, with no TV, commutes or people to avoid in the street. It brings a sort of quiet intensity - until they get blindingly drunk and start setting fire to cars that is!
The film looks beautiful - as co-director Randy Stulberg mentioned during the Q&A last night, the place looks like Mad Max, post-apocalyptic and coolly dangerous. It is interesting and hardly surprising that the people who end up seeking refuge there are the people who are so often severely let down by American society: vets, single mothers and abused children. I loved how one of the elders, an ex-psychiatric nurse, talked about the need for “mama energy” to resolve differences in the community. And then there’s Stan the pig farmer. This man, with his floppy felt hat and bushy beard, is so lovely and wise that I was moved to tears every time he spoke.
You can catch Off the Grid at the IFC Center on Tuesday.
And joy of joys! The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters opens at the IFC Center today! You have to see this film. I was sceptical when I sat down to watch it at Tribeca - I just didn’t know what a documentary about washed up Donkey Kong players was going to do for me. But I was soon cheering and booing the characters like it was a British Christmas pantomime, and crying with laughter throughout. The scene with the “baddie” blow-drying his hair to “Everybody Knows” by Leonard Cohen is one of my favorite documentary scenes ever.
Here’s what The New Yorker says:
“Fascinating! Populated with snivelling acolytes, understanding wives, and Machiavellian twists and turns, [it] plays like a great Christopher Guest mockumentary, revelling in the deadpan entertainment of the obsessed.”
And don’t forget that the fantastic Manda Bala also opens tonight at the Angelika. So many films to watch at the moment, it’s very exciting.