Minding the Gap

Honestly I didn't find this sort of movie meaning skaters to be my type of documentary. But I love a great thought provoking documentary. It's brilliant and beautiful in so many ways. I totally recommend watching.

In Rockford, Illinois, the lives three young male friends (all of different racial backgrounds) and their families are the subject of this documentary focusing on the town's history of high unemployment, financial hardship, and domestic violence and how this affects individual lives. One of the friends, Bing Liu, is also the director and interviewer of the film.

The film footage takes place over a number of years. The beginning shows the boys as teenage skateboard experts. The first impression is that this is a skateboard doc but it doesn't take long for the film to show its true depth. The testimonies of the abuse from the subjects regarding husbands / partners / fathers / step-fathers have much in common but are also unique. One of the commonalities is a phrase that has sadly been repeated, in various forms, for decades: "yes, he can be terribly mean but when he's nice, he's really so sweet". In one such case, the abuse is subtle as the voice of an unseen man gives an "order" to his female partner who is being interviewed.

The film's boldest moments include those focusing on one of the young men (Zack) who is starting to fall into this negative pattern. What he's doing is wrong but the viewer has already felt compassion for him from previous excerpts. A film-maker is at his/her best when the viewer is left with conflicting feelings such as this case.

"Minding the Gap" has many strong qualities. One is that its creator is not from the outside looking in but one of the insiders. To maintain composure and seem neutral to the history that is so close to him is remarkable. - dbamateurcritic

I initially struggled with my reaction to Minding The Gap. On one hand I had the impression that I didn't enjoy this film because I didn't have the reaction that many of it's fans seemed to have, which was my initial reaction to another referenced documentary from one reviewer, Hoop Dreams. Those fans talk about how they found the film 'devastating', or 'emotionally blown-away', or 'heartbreaking'. To my mind those emotions can only come from a place of sympathy or empathy. However, for me while I did have those feelings toward some of the characters in Minding The Gap, I did not feel it toward all of the characters, nor necessarily to the film as a whole. I did still find Minding The Gap wonderfully interesting, and therefor entertaining too. I am still a fan of this film and do recommend checking it out, but want to say that it's OK not to love or feel sympathy, or badly for the plight of all of it's characters.

After the first 10 minutes of Minding the Gap, I began to wonder why this film was nominated for an Oscar for best Documentary. How could a skateboarding documentary made by a young filmmaker be that great? Well, I was very wrong. This film about skateboarding covered many different issues, including child abuse, drug/alcohol abuse, poverty, teen parenting, racial prejudice/stereotypes, and much more. The documentary did an extraordinary job connecting the audience to the people shown in the film and empathizing with their experiences. The film caused me to think about my life and how fortunate I have been to avoid many of the problems that the young adults in the film have faced in their life. It caused me to reflect on how life altering something like abuse can be. What I thought would be a simple documentary on skateboarding turned out to be a beautiful, thought provoking film.

Two really good skateboarding movies came out recently. The first one I got to see, Crystal Moselle's "Skate Kitchen", functioned as a fun semi-documentary that celebrated the friendship forged between a crew of NYC girls making their own space in a predominately male sport. The second one, Bing Liu's "Minding the Gap" took a very different approach to the subject, focusing much deeper on the pain that drove a group of three Midwestern skateboarders together, and how the same wounds would continue to dictate their life both in and outside of skateboarding. Unlike Skate Kitchen, this documentary is not an easy watch. It's by no means a boring watch, as Liu constructs a very cinematic experience both visually and emotionally, but some of the life experiences that the director focuses on can be truly devastating to anyone who has ever experienced anything similar. The characters in this film are real, and you want to see each of them succeed despite the odds stacked against them. I don't want to spoil the story too much, but I will say that there's something in this movie for everyone. It's much less a skateboarding movie than it is a movie about parenthood gone wrong and finding your way in your 20's, which I'm sure a lot of people can relate to. I hope everyone gets to see this film, and I hope everyone has a box of tissues close by.