by JOANNE LAURIER
This is the fifth of a series of articles devoted to the recent Toronto film festival (September 6-16). Part 1 was posted September 22, Part 2 September 26, Part 3 September 28 and Part 4 October 2.
In recent years we have commented numerous times in articles on the WSWS and other forums about the extraordinary weakness of the US filmmakers’ treatment of American life. So little of this reality and its texture has appeared on movie screens in the last couple of decades.
Particularly disgraceful has been the absence of any serious artistic examination of the ravaging of what was once one of the world’s leading industrial centers, Detroit. (Curtis Hanson’s 8 Mile [2002] was no such effort, by any objective standard ). An honest look would demolish the obscene official claims about the city and its auto industry “roaring back.”
As it turns out, contrary to those who assure us that art and everyday life exist in two distinct realms, external and indifferent to each other, social developments are pressing through the “dark shell of the [artists’] subconscious.”
In other words, a number of films about Detroit have suddenly emerged—first and foremost, documentaries. One is Detropia, which we will review on the WSWS. Another is Burn: One Year on the Front Lines of the Battle to Save Detroit. Detroit also has an important presence in Far From Afghanistan, in which director Travis Wilkerson introduces material on utility shutoffs and the social disaster in the city.
And now a fictional treatment has appeared. But the present is always a surprise. So the first fiction work that attempts to deal with life in Detroit is … a comedy about Arab Americans!
World Socialist Web Site for more