Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Hannah's Pick - The Bang Bang Club



It is once again Wednesday, which means it is humpday.  It also means that it is time for me to review a movie that was picked for me by my sister in-law, Hannah.  The picture (pun not intended) that I will be looking at today is The Bang Bang Club, a film about a group of photographers in South Africa who operated together between 1990 and 1994 as apartheid was drawing to an end.  It is based off of a true story of photojournalists who covered the violence between supporters of the African National Congress party and the Inkatha Freedom Party.

The first act of the film starts off very strong, as we meet up with young photographer Greg (Ryan Phillipe) who is working freelance and meets the three who would later make up what was referred to as ‘The Bang Bang Club.’  He is treated well by the seasoned photojournalist and is warmly encouraged by Kevin (Taylor Kitsch) and shows a level of bravery as he heads into a hostile neighbourhood to get the other side of the story to a bloody altercation that has just happened.  This impresses the others, who allow him into their circle as they try and photograph the bloody violence that is happening in South African townships.

We see an interesting dynamic in the first part of the film, as the lens of the camera almost appears to act as an emotional divide between the photographer and the atrocities that surround them.  They look through their viewfinders and scan for pictures, all the while showing no connection to the severity of turmoil in which they are standing.  A corpse mutilated by an opposing faction is something to be captured, not something to be lamented.  It is an interesting dynamic for the viewer, who has the ability to feel for the morbid nature of what we see, and yet seeing business and profession playing out in the main characters before us.

While this presented an interesting contrast, it was not a theme that director Steven Silver seemed interested in carrying throughout.  On one hand that is good, because we want to see the emotional walls of these people start to crack and break under the reality of their jobs.  On the other hand, the execution of such a transition needs to be handled properly for it to become effective.  There were some scenes that seemed rather forced, as it tried to push the narrative into focusing more about the individuals of the group and their dynamics.  Within this shift I felt like the power that was established at the beginning of the film was left behind.

There were a number of very interesting themes that this film looked to explore though it never fully exposed any of them.  There was the racial aspect of white photographers taking pictures of black on black violence and profiting on it.  There was the celebration of accomplishment for the photographers after walking away from horrific events and the emotional disconnect that they had.  And there was the issue of them taking pictures of awful things, but not taking any action to assist fellow humans in need (this issue was perhaps investigated the most).  The film introduced each of these elements but it never felt like it did enough to develop them, and instead lightly touched down on them from time to time.  I was left feeling life there was some terrific content to be uncovered, but the transitions and pace kept the concepts from being fully explored and the emotions I was meant to feel were never given enough time to properly sink in.


That being said, there were some amazing scenes in this film that were gripping and tense.  We get scenes of literally hundreds of people in a tense standoff that the viewer is sure will end poorly.  There is an incredibly well shot pursuit through a village as Ryan Phillipe’s character is running from pursuers waving machetes.  The locations that were picked and the set-up of the scenes of turmoil were well constructed and provided a solid emotional punch.  Perhaps the most powerful scene of the movie is just how quietly someone dies from being hacked and bludgeoned, a scene that has the ability to live inside your head when the film is over.


By the time the movie came around to the end, however, I felt like the intended effect was diminished by the sometimes rushed pace that came into play during the second and third act.  I found that, just as the photographers had an emotional disconnect with what they were seeing at the beginning of the film, I had the same experience at the end.  As the story wound up I felt like I knew aspects of the characters, but never knew them as individuals, keeping me from being fully invested when they were finally personally affected by the events on the other side of their cameras.


Rating – 2.5 out of 4 stars

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I'm smarter than a bat. I know this because I caught the little jerk bat that got in my apartment, before immediately and inadvertently bringing him back in. So maybe I'm not smarter than a bat.