Crooked Lines

Film: Crooked Lines

Year: 2012

Director: Lucy Walker

Running time: 19 minutes

Cast:

Ailson Eraclito Da Silva

Others

Other Info:

This screening took place at Roxy Bar & Screen, London and as part of the London Short Film Festival 2013 – Long[er] Docs strand.

The blurb, sound bite and description from the guys at the LSFF:

Ailson Eraclito Da Silva is the best rower in Brazilian history, the Michael Phelps of his sport. Growing up in a leper colony on the banks of the Amazon river, he’s constantly discriminated against. But his dream to win Gold for Brazil at the Olympics is within his grasp until his plan fails.

Well… The first thing to ask oneself after reading the brief description of the film – or better still, ask the director herself – is “does Lucy Walker have a fascination with Brasil?”. Indeed, it’s not her first foray into the country. You only have to see Waste Land to be 100% certain of this.

We’ve not uploaded a review of Waste Land as we write this but here is one of another of her films, albeit in a different narrative style to most of Lucy’s others: Countdown To Zero As a short it’s not her first, see the The Tsunami And The Cherry Blossom review also – albeit the length of the latter matter is nodding towards feature-length at between 40 and 45 minutes long. Whilst on the subject of Lucy and her shorts, it’s worth mentioning the recently publicised, “Daredevil on a Snowmobile” – an ‘Op-Doc’ which serves also as an accompaniment, a complement, a counterpart (almost…) to the feature-length docu (and this is definitely feature worthy at around 2 hours!), “The Crash Reel”. Details of both here:

http://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000002614787/daredevil-on-a-snowmobile.html

And here:

http://thecrashreel.com/

Now, I wouldn’t normally over-promote a director like that but all her films so far seem to have a social message, so it’s only right that one should preach for good causes.

Anyway, either way or anyhow, Lucy’s talent still shows her art here as it does with her longer in length / full length docs. Lucy has been said to want to potentially move into fiction features and there are certain shots, camera work, music use and also ‘trick’ flashbacks which could be seen as her experimentation with that form.

Perhaps I’ve just not noticed those stylings in her previous works. But whatever the case, when the day finally – and hopefully – comes, the fiction film world will gain such a talent but it will also signal a massive loss to the docu film world.

Apologies that this is such a mini-mini-mini-mini-mini-review but I do hope that you may witness the picture some day. If not, some of her other works.

Lastly, look out for music by ‘Stars Of The Lid’… these guys also assisted on Ms Walker’s Waste Land. Oh and another? Yes…’Maps For Sleeps’ – an ironic connection with the ‘Lines’ in the film’s title? Probably a coincidence, I think you’ll agree.

Trailer [Crooked But Linear Storytelling]