April 28, 2009
Documentaries dominate Tribeca Film Festival
NewYorkology film columnist Tim McGonagle was orphaned in a revival theater in Boston, Mass. in the mid-1970s. While other kids were outside playing tag, he was busy absorbing the films of Buster Keaton, Akira Kurosawa and the inappropriate-for-his-then-age, John Cassavettes. Currently he contributes to the “Noir of the Week” film website and maintains a blog of his own. Here’s his second set of reviews (first set here,) from the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.
Three world premiere documentaries are standouts at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. While there are many to choose from, here are a few that are all well worth the price of admission and then some.
The Lost Son of Havana (2009) – World Premiere
As I write for a website called NewYorkology I must reveal, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m originally from Boston and a diehard Red Sox fan. At the age of six my father took me to my first professional baseball game at Fenway Park. On the mound pitching for the Sox that day was a big man with a fierce stare and a giant bushy handlebar mustache. His windup looked exaggerated and bizarre as he released the ball from various arm slots. More importantly, the crazy junkball pitches he threw baffled hitters. The fans would chant his name “LOOOIE, LOOOIE!” as he struck out batters flailing at his pitches. He seemed bigger than life to my eyes in that summer of 1976. He wasn’t just a pitcher; he was a Boston phenomenon that had people flocking to the ballpark. As baseball hall of fame writer Peter Gammons explained, “Luis Tiant was theatre unto himself.”
With his thick Cuban accent, a cigar always in his mouth and a fantastic sense of humor, Tiant was an engaging character off the mound. But there was a side to him the fans never saw. Luis Tiant had not been home to his native Cuba since 1961.
The previous year he arrived in the United States as a promising young minor league prospect with the Cleveland Indians. Tiant was in the states playing in the minors when the Bay of Pigs invasion irked Castro enough to issue an ultimatum to all Cuban baseball players in the states: come home and play as amateurs, or never come home again. As their only child, his parents wanted him to pursue his dream and told him to stay in America knowing full well he may never see them again.
After a successful major league career, the 67 year-old Tiant finally gets a chance in 2007 to go home to his native Cuba from a 46 year exile. The Lost Son of Havana documents his trip back, what is left of his family and in his own words, “to see my country before I die. That’s gonna complete my life.”
The trip back to Cuba is multi-layered with humor and heartache. His encounters with old neighbors and family are varied and fascinating. A few old friends have ambivalent feelings for Tiant. While happy for the reunions, Tiant becomes a catalyst for their anger and frustration that they couldn’t leave Cuba as he did. They felt abandoned by him and the fact his letters and packages sent to them from the states were always confiscated by the Cuban government only exacerbated those feelings.
His two surviving aunts live in squalor, suffering for decades in Cuba’s poverty, but are ecstatic to see him. They convey moving stories to Luis about his family during his exile, such as his mother seeing him pitch in the 1968 All-Star Game on a neighbor’s TV. Watching that game or anything American was forbidden in Cuba, but the consequences of Cuban law and the weak signal didn’t stop Tiant’s mother. For the first time in seven years she saw her son – pitching in one of the biggest major league games of the year. His aunt told Luis his mother kept going up to the screen and touching his flickering image on the glass as tears streamed down her face. The many powerful examples of this gap between Tiant, his home and family serve only to draw the viewer into his tale.
While there are plenty of baseball stories and footage in the movie, they’re relevant to the overall emotional arc and historical significance of Tiant’s story. Baseball is simply the vehicle in which director Jonathan Hock captures the amazing historical depth that resonates in Tiant’s life. From his father Luis “Lefty” Tiant, who was a dominating pitcher in the Negro Leagues during the 1930s and ’40s to former Senator George McGovern hand delivering a letter to Fidel Castro in 1975 lobbying for Tiant’s parents’ release from Cuba, the Tiant saga is impressive.
Hock’s documentary carefully studies Tiant’s emotional conflicts of guilt and disconnect from his family and friends he left behind in impoverished Cuba. He wants to see his homeland and all its offerings, but he also deeply feels the disparity between his fortune and those he loved, left behind to suffer. Tiant tries to make sense of the complexities of his life, the hand he was dealt and the choices he made. Tiant’s odyssey is long and riveting as he tries to relinquish some of the past and make peace with himself. The end result, The Lost Son of Havana, is simply an astonishing and beautiful piece of storytelling.
The story seems enormous in scope, but in fact is simply about people and the small but significant times where their lives intersect. In the beginning of the film, before his flight to Cuba, Tiant makes a stop in Miami. He pays a visit to a hilariously wise little old lady who was a close friend of his family back in Cuba years ago. They reminisce about the old times and then talk about the separation between their countries and family there — the meaning of it all. As both their eyes well with tears, the little old Cuban lady muses, “Oh my God, life is so big.” As a kid (and maybe an adult too,) I always thought Luis Tiant was bigger than life. I now stand corrected.
The Lost Son of Havana plays again Thursday 4/30, Saturday 5/2 and Sunday 5/3.
P-Star Rising (2009) - World Premiere
In the opening scene of Gabriel Nobel’s documentary P-Star Rising, a father and his 9 year-old daughter step out of a car in Lower Manhattan on a winter night. They’re in front of a night club complete with booming hip-hop coming from within and an enormous bouncer out front. The little girl is adorable – pink puffy jacket, sparkly plastic kid jewelry and all smiles. She and her father are let in the club where a serious freestyle rap competition is taking place onstage. The two make their way up front and we see her take the stage after being introduced as “P-Star.” The thought of her doing some bubblegum kiddie rap or whatever her father will make her perform in front of this tough crowd seems wholly inappropriate to say the least.
But what you see and hear next is jaw dropping. This 9 year-old girl with mic in hand begins to flow lyrically with incredibly complex and catchy rhymes. Her cadence and delivery is impeccable and old-school hip-hop. She works the stunned crowd with a stage presence as undeniable as her raw talent and wins over the room.
Her real name is Priscilla Star Diaz and she lives with her father Jesse and older sister Solsky in a one-room housing shelter in Harlem. Jesse Diaz was once an up-and-coming rapper in the ’80s, but after his two daughters were born their mother abandoned the family due to an ongoing drug addiction. Jesse got involved in drug dealing to support himself, his girls and mounting medical bills. He got caught and ended up incarcerated for two years in federal prison. When he was released, he fought hard in the courts for another two years before regaining custody of his children.
The “self-employed” Jesse pins the hopes of the family on young Priscilla. Her incredible talent could someday be a panacea for all their financial worries. Priscilla and her father eventually sign a record contract with a rap label and a manager who sees Priscilla’s potential.
After paying the bills in their new apartment, Jesse proceeds to blow much of the $10,000 contract advance on clothes, jewelry and other baubles for himself and the girls. Image and the perception of success by others are important values to Jesse and the girls. At one point he quells their fears about the bleak financial situation by describing what a big house and all the cars they will someday own.
Jesse is not a bad father. The love for his girls is easy to spot but he gets caught up in the trappings of the whirlwind promise of money and fame Priscilla is getting closer to. Jesse is unable to let go of his own glories and eventual failures long past. The effect makes his focus on P-Star’s career all the more acute and consuming. Along the way Jesse’s other daughter is left out, as so much energy and attention gravitates around her younger sister, Priscilla. She garners her own attention by failing in school and convincing her father and Priscilla to look for their drug addicted mother not seen in years — still somewhere on the street. Jesse understands the need for the girls to connect with their mother despite the abandonment. Young Priscilla speaks articulately when describing her mother’s affliction. She theorizes that if she was physically sick or infected she could, “take antibiotics for life.” But when it comes to the addiction, Priscilla says matter of fact, “It’s the one thing I can’t take away.”
Aside from the heavy family issues, there’s plenty of humor and great music throughout the film, making it an overall package well worth seeing. Noble shot the film’s footage of the Diaz family over the course of four years and with editor David Abelson, they were able to assemble a crisp, well-paced finished work.
Priscilla’s intelligence, candor and charisma are the driving force and soul this film. While the story of the Diaz family is an engaging and touching one, Priscilla is a magnetic personality and wise beyond her years. She is the essential cohesive element of not only her family, but the film as well. Aside from her astonishing gift for performing hip-hop, her maturity and precociousness are mesmerizing. While you can apparently see her these days as one of the cast of “The Electric Company” on PBS, after watching the film you may become a fan and find yourself wondering if her CD is out yet.
P-Star Rising is playing again Wednesday 4/29 and Saturday 5/02.
Racing Dreams (2009) - World Premiere
There is a scene in Racing Dreams when a mother of a young kart racer tries to explain the depth of her family’s passion for racing. She can’t understand how anyone could not love competitive racing. Yet she wonders why anyone would sit in the sun watching guys try to hit a ball with a stick for three hours. I felt the exact opposite of her view about racing vs. baseball: Why would anyone want to sit in the sun watching guys take a left turn for three hours? At least that’s what I thought before seeing Marshall Curry’s stellar documentary Racing Dreams.
Over six months, the film follows the lives of three pre-adolescents who are immersed passionately in the world of kart racing, which is to NASCAR what Little League is to Major League Baseball. These racing karts are not toys: They reach up to 80 miles an hour and travel only one inch off the track surface.
Curry does a great job of explaining the basics and intricacies of racing by using clear, visual guides to enlighten the novice. The racing footage is phenomenal, well edited and extremely exciting. This isn’t what the film is about however. Racing Dreams is about Josh, Annabeth and Brandon.
The three kids are unique talents in the world of kart racing, yet their problems and lives away from the track are not unique to their age. 12 year-old Josh has raced since he was five. The combined weight of his competitive racing trophies could easily surpass that of an M1 tank. A sharp and articulate young man for his age, Josh examines and mimics the styles of professional NASCAR drivers. Not only does he learn from their techniques on the track, but perhaps more importantly, their proficiency with conducting interviews and product endorsement.
Annabeth is a bright and charming young lady in the making. Fairly common for her 11 year-old age is a bedroom that’s girly and heavy on the color pink. The exceptions being a life-sized NASCAR driver stand-up display next to her bed and other racing paraphernalia. Annabeth is determined to be the first woman to win the Daytona 500 (the Superbowl of NASCAR) and believes her ability on the track is a, “God given talent.” Annabeth feels like most kids her age with one difference: “When you’re 11 or 12 years old, everyone always tells you what to do. But when you are racing, you are totally independent. You have to decide whether to pass that guy. It’s totally up to you.” The vast majority of 11 year olds aren’t passing anyone at 70-plus miles an hour while in a driver’s seat.
Brandon is a hilarious and impish 13 year-old. He has a proclivity to lose his temper and was disqualified from the previous year’s kart racing championship (that he had all but won) for “rough driving.” He has been raised by his supportive grandparents as his mother and father have both drifted in and out of his life due to drug addiction and incarceration. Brandon is trying to find his way in his young but tumultuous life. For him, racing is not only a special ability he has but also an escape from his sometimes difficult home life: “When I get to the track everything else goes away – I don’t think about nothing except racing.”
The world of competitive kart racing and the devotion these kids and their parents show it is amazing. Unlike Little League, the cost of racing is approximately $5,000 per race so sponsorship and fundraising are crucial elements to remain competitive and relevant. All the families make sacrifices to facilitate their kid’s racing. Whether it is taking on an extra job, spending the family savings and especially the copious amount of time working on the carts and driving around the country from race to race every other weekend – kart racing is certainly not the same as dropping your child off at soccer practice a couple times a week.
The kids featured in the film make sacrifices with their time, friends and many other normal things pre-adolescents do at their age. Additionally, the kids are all at a crossroads. They’re at the point where a personal and professional decision must be made to determine if these young drivers will go to the next level of racing (the NASCAR minor leagues so to speak.) Racing Dreams explores that crux in the kids’ ages where they start to truly form as individuals and begin seriously envisioning their future as adults. When they dream about these possibilities they seem exciting, limitless and daunting.
At one point Annabeth feels conflicted about all she is giving up to race, realizing that, “All these other doors are opening for me. … It’s hard for an 11, 12, 13 year-old to think about what they want to do for the rest of their life.” The wonder and anxiety of Annabeth’s questions is a universal theme that has resonated with every adult at one point in their young life. It is this uncertain and wondrous feeling where we are uninhibited to dream is what Racing Dreams captures so well and makes for compelling cinema at its best.
Racing Dreams is playing again Wednesday 4/29 and Saturday 5/02.
Picture credits: (All provided by Tribeca Film Festival)
The Lost Son of Havana; Luis Tiant, former Major League Baseball star, lights up a cigar upon arriving in his native Cuba after 46 years of exile. Photographer: Alastair Christopher.
P-Star Rising; Priscilla Diaz a.k.a. “P-Star” earns her street credibility as she raps at an outdoor concert in Harlem. At age 9. Photographer: Joe Conzo.
Racing Dreams; Photo Credit: Kent Smith.
Earlier: Tribeca reviews: Englishman in NY, House of the Devil
Tribeca Film Fest quick look: tickets, freebies, NY picks
April 28, 2009 10:35 AM in Downtown, Kids, Sightsology, Sports
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