directed by:
Stacey Stone written by: Diane Mellen genre: Documentary |
I’m not sure that the synopsis I was given along with this film describes it as accurately as it could. “A true story about Art, a Laotian American lost in the bleak life of shelterless living.” That doesn’t feel right – and it’s not the perspective I ended up with personally after having watched this short documentary.
It’s insightful when you hear Art talk about why he’s at the beach to begin with. The idea that even if you’re technically alone and on your own, you’re not really because people still surround you…honestly, I like that. That’s a perspective that somehow makes this big ol’ planet feel a little less lonely, and I appreciate it. When he’s overwhelmed, or there’s too much going on, you’ll find his head covered up by a blanket as he stands with his stolen grocery cart filled with personal items, tuning out the world around him until he’s ready to roll again. I think a lot of people out there forget that we’re basically doing the same damn thing every time we close our front doors. We’re just tuning out the world, catching our breath, building up our strength and energy to get back out there and do it all again. From what I can gather, Art is around people until it becomes too much, and then he’s off on his own some more; it’s not lost on me that we’re more similar than we are different, despite different circumstances. “You learn a lot from just sitting around not doing nothing. Nothing is something.” I practically want to have that tattooed on my skin, so I never forget that. We’re all so freakin’ busy in our daily routines that we are forgetting so many of the valuable things that Art is talking about. He’s right – “nothing IS something” – it’s a matter of perspective, of course, but I admire the grounded one that he approaches life with. While we’re trying to download a bunch of apps, play handheld games on our phones, and watch seven screens at a time while simultaneously trying to hold a conversation over lunch – Art represents a time when things were much simpler and we appreciated everything that we had. I like that it takes little more than a soccer ball for this dude to be happy, and I find myself wishing we were all a lot more like Art in this vapid technology-filled world and the valley of malls we’ve created. Rain makes it tough for him. Darkness makes it tough for him. Sand bugs make it tough for him. Other than that, there’s really not too much for him to worry about, save for the occasional bylaw officer that comes along to enforce some sort of arbitrary law they could have simply turned their head and walked away from dealing with. Art’s got friends, he’s got people around him that care, and he’s got the freedom to do whatever the heck he wants to, really, because his needs, wants, and desires don’t cost the kind of money that most people tend to. He can appreciate nature and the world around him on levels that the rest of us continually take for granted, and there’s something really beautiful about the way he lives his life, even if it would be more than challenging to any of the rest of us that tried to live in a similar way. If it was hard for him at first or took some adjusting to become comfortable with, “ART” decided not to go too far into that and instead focused on a more spiritual-yet-surface-level approach. The questions you get throughout this short documentary are the same as those a concerned neighbour would likely ask, all with good intentions but somewhat afraid to dig too deep in fear of the unknown. If I had any slight criticisms towards what I see in “ART.” it would mainly revolve around the potential for follow-up questions and how that’s not a tactic that’s often deployed as it should be here. I think we have a tendency to be too polite to a degree, and also a detached approach that suggests it’s somehow best to let a person tell their story in the way that they would tell it. Don’t get me wrong, there’s part of me that agrees with that – but there’s also a journalistic part of me as well - that hears a response to a question about brothers and sisters and how Art has’em, but mostly on “the dark side” – I mean…you better believe I wanna follow up on that instead of just moving on to the next thing, which is kind of what happens in this short timeframe they’re working with here. It’s arguable that you get a bit of an answer, I suppose, and it’s fair to say that there’s no such thing as an eleven-minute documentary that is ever going to do someone’s life complete justice…but…well…I guess what I’m saying is that as viewers and people who would care about Art’s story, we’d want to see a bit of engagement and back & forth in the conversation, too. Some of the filler footage…scenery & whatnot…I dunno…I just kept coming back to how short of a timeframe we’re trying to examine a life with, and it almost seems a little unfair to their main subject to spend any time outside of his actual story. Maybe that’s just the way that I see it. Part of me worries that by going too much in a surface-level direction and not digging into the real hardships & substance of a story like Art’s, we’re doing him a bit of a disservice. Like at the very end of this film, when he gives a personal answer about what scares him, and we finish off this documentary on how without God, he’d “worry a lot more” – I dunno…it felt cut short in a nearly detrimental way, you know what I mean? Like we were all waiting in the bushes for him to mention that God will make everything okay, and as soon as he did, cool, we can wrap this project because we got the answer WE need…the one that makes US comfortable as we go back to sleeping on our pillows in our big ol’ beds. So, yeah, I mean…I have concerns when I see things like that. That’s where I start to question whether a film like this is made for art or if it’s made for us instead, and I think it matters which is which. It’s a bit on the safe side of filmmaking, but I do appreciate the time that has been taken to tell a story like Art’s, even if it’s relatively short – every life is important, we can all learn something from another person, and no matter how insignificant we may feel or we may seem, we were here…and we matter.
So don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot I appreciate about “ART,” and I still think it has tremendous value at the end of the day, even if I think there could be more done here. Circling back to the “bleak life of shelterless living” description that came along with this film…I’d remind you all that would be an opinion and a perspective that we have from what’s perceived to be a more privileged perch in life – but it’s not a view that you’ll find someone like Art sharing as you learn about him in this film. From his perspective, there’s precious little, if anything, that he’d change – he’s living the life he chooses to live and he seems to be quite comfortable with that. Thankfully, there’s practically no synopsis to a movie that ever really accurately describes what we’ll see, so I take it with a grain of salt…the work that has been done speaks far more strongly on Art’s behalf than that description ever could. I’m going with three stars out of five overall, based largely on what I enjoyed most: that it is shot well, and the main star of the show proved to be a fantastic person to talk to about life with. Honestly, I don’t quite know how Diane Mellen and Stacey Stone were able to reign themselves in so succinctly - I would have been very tempted to talk to this dude for hours and hours if I had the opportunity - and I can only imagine pairing this down to an eleven-minute short film was itself a masterclass in editing & self-restraint. It’s enjoyable though…like I said, there’s a story worth telling here and a life that has merit – Art is among the best of us, and Stone’s work is able to recognize that in a way that allows us to celebrate it without being too invasive or intrusive, which in the end, allows him to continue living life on his terms, the way he wants to live, without interference. |
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