Weed

Weed (1972)

** (out of 4)

Before making a career with porn movies, director Alex de Renzy made several documentary films with this one here taking a look at that green plant. Of course, the title gave that away, didn't it?

This documentary, in its uncut form, runs 112-minutes and there's no question that de Renzy wanted to give you all sorts of information on the subject but for the life of me I didn't see the need for this thing to run so long. The version released by Something Weird Video is missing fifteen-minutes and I can't help but think that would be preferred to this one in regards to entertaining.

As I said, I can appreciate there being a lot of information here. Not only do we get interviews with potheads but we also hear from the other side of the issues. We get interviews with cops, people against the legalization of weed and those who feel that it would help making it legal. We even get a segment where the director travels to Vietnam during the war to interview our troops about grass! This leads to more information about weed and its prices throughout the world.

Again, everything you'd want to know about weed is here but at the same time the film is just rather lifeless and not all that interesting. I doubt even potheads would find this all that entertaining just because of how long it drags on plus the fact that a lot of information repeats itself.

As an undeniable boomer, IMO this is a must see for all ages. Post-boomers will FINALLY get a clue from this incredible deep dive what the best & breadth of counter-culture had to offer at its height.

The Cambodia & Nepal footage is invaluable time capsule where no one else dared venture then on even this limited scale. The 'Nam footage is heavyweight by any measure. That far afield there then is unparalleled by any independent, let alone bootstrap, film production I have ever witnessed.

100% of the budget is on the screen direct from location, and is earnest in raw style that is almost unobtainable in currently released documentary films, regardless of intent to do likewise. There may be bodycam & helmet GoPro footage slice of life shorts on YouTube & its counterparts that compare, but something about the urgency to maximize content volume on a single, then expensive roll of filmstock makes these single take uncut candid scenes pop with the passion of onscreen presenter, camera jockey & sound sideman as jazz trio improvisation, regardless of lengthy shot duration. Whining negative reviews with MTV predicated hypercut expectations are way off base.

That I currently have to buy a copy of this film released in DVD sandwich with grindcore cousins is a big drag.