Black & White World

Protagonist (2007)

Compelling and well-paced documentary from Jessica Yu, profiling four disparate men and the defining moments in their lives—a bank robber, a terrorist, a martial arts enthusiast and an evangelical ex-ex-homosexual.  That’s not a typo—he’s gay, he went through a phase where he believed he was cured, and then came out of that phase and embraced who he is.

Each subject is the protagonist of his own story, and Yu threads the stories together according to ancient Greek dramatic structure, through phases like Provocation, Opportunity, Turning Point, Catharsis, Reversal, and Reflection.  Puppetry and scenes from Euripides in Ancient Greek serve as transitions from one phase into the next, and while I really enjoyed the inventiveness of the puppetry, the Ancient Greek slowed me down a little.  I really appreciated the idea of it—maybe more than anything else I didn’t care for the translation that was laid out in subtitles.  The wording was so literal as to make it difficult to follow even in English, for example these opening lines:  “Tell it still.  There is pleasure in hardships heard about.” I mean, I get what it means, but it’s as if it needs an extra translation.

I was reminded a little bit of Errol Morris’s Fast, Cheap and Out of Control a few times, just in the randomness of the four stories and how parallels could be drawn between them.  I thought it was odd that the story of the martial arts enthusiast was less life-and-death than the other three stories, and in fact kept thinking that his story was going to take a tragic turn any moment, but it didn’t.  On the other hand, the subject (Mark Salzman) is such an enthusiastic and engaging storyteller, full of humor and energetic outbursts, and I wouldn’t dream of losing his story.  And his more mainstream run-of-the-mill story is a bit more relatable than that of the terrorist or the bank robber, for example, and helps tie in the viewer with all the other stories.  Really a fascinating piece.  Recommended.

1. Someone’s been movie-blogging.... Good for you.

   I’ll have to check this one out. Hopefully I can overlook the bad translation.

   Posted by Patrick  on  07/08  at  09:09 AM

2. I’m all caught up!

   I think you would like this one.  Netflix may have it in their “Watch it Now” selection.  The ancient Greek stuff is only used in transitions, so it’s pretty easy to get through.

   Posted by  on  07/08  at  09:29 AM
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