Minding the Gap

Bing Lu's "Minding the Gap" is more than a sleek skateboarding doc that dives into alternative culture; in fact, it might not even be that at all. What probably began as an exercise in Lu turning the camera on himself and his friends blossomed into portrait of middle-American working-class life, specifically three young men who process hardship and deep emotional wounds best while on a skateboard.

Lu, his friend Zack and their younger friend, Kiere are the main subjects of the story, each passionate skaters trying to get by in their hometown of Rockford, Illinois. Piecing together that skating is symptomatic of something deeper between them, Lu decides to probe Zack and Kiere, gently pushing them toward emotional honesty. What he uncovers is a troubling and all-too-true reality that each of them is enduring, a revelation that transforms the entire viewing experience.

The film is full of these subtle, unexpected surprises. Most documentaries make an assertion or hypothesis that the filmmakers explore in depth, and the stories have an intuitive arc to them. "Minding the Gap" takes place over the course of many years and even includes footage from several years earlier, but that's not immediately apparent. Our perception of the story, along with its scope and impact, changes the longer the movie's timeline gets. Essentially, Lu's patience with his story pays off tremendously; letting these characters' lives play out deepens and enriches everything.

Time factors in the most in Zack's tumultuous relationship with Nina. She's pregnant when we meet them, and as their baby boy, Elliott, begins to grow, their lives and their relationship struggles take on a different urgency. Lu captures lots of critical moments in their journey (usually from either his or her perspective separately), which proves vital to the film because so much of the rest is reflective, specifically on Lu and Kiere's childhoods. The Zack-Nina relationship is, in effect, a microcosm of so many of the obstacles, struggles and themes of all the characters' lives.

As personal as the film gets, however, it's also a technical accomplishment. Lu conveys not just the cool, but also the zen of skateboarding that these characters experience through excellent action shots. He and co-editor Joshua Altman nail those movement sequences on top of powerfully stitching together so many different moments and stories. The film sometimes gets so deep into the characters' emotional lives that skateboarding feels irrelevant, but the extent to which skateboarding provides escape and "therapy" as one character puts it sinks completely in by the end.

Here are these men who will gladly risk every limb to land a trick yet are reticent to take emotional risks. Only Lu's close relationship with these subjects allows them to open up. His own sense of an imperative to ask them the tough, honest questions and blur his role between filmmaker and friend/relative creates the film's most powerful material. At a few points, subjects ask him if they should pretend he's not there or talk to him like they're having a conversation, suggesting the strong influence of his dual-role in his film.

Yet "Minding the Gap" is far from self-centered and self-serving. Rather, it is indicative of how some stories can only be collected and recorded by the people who live them. We'll need more brave filmmakers like Lu in order to discover these stories and let their truth find the eyes, ears and hearts of those who identify with and need them most.

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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.

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.

Minding the Gap follows the lives of three young men who share a passion for skating. It's not long until we find out that skating is a way for them to escape from their troubled home lives. This is such a deeply intimate documentary, made with a real yearning to show something to the world. Because of all the heart it was made with, everything captured is so enticing. Documentaries often feel like documentaries, that feels like quite an obvious thing to say but that is usually why a lot of people choose not to watch them. However, this film doesn't feel like a documentary, and the fact it is makes it very shocking and overwhelming at times because you are taken on such a moving journey. These are real people therefore everything we see is true, that's the obvious thing, but everything we see in Minding the Gap is raw and completely unfiltered and it's so special. It presents everything as it is and doesn't try to be a certain way which is the key as to why it is so captivating. You can't hate the characters because you know their struggle yet of course they are not perfect. I think that's why I'm starting to love documentaries like this: when you watch a film characters often fall into a good or bad category so you love them or hate them, of course cinema has a wide expanse and that includes characters so therefore we still love and identify with characters who have flaws or we love the villain because they're just so damn good. With documentaries however they are real people not trying to be like anyone or not trying to represent anything, therefore you cant love them or hate them you just accept them and digest what they have to show. It makes you learn more about the human experience, people in the world and that I think is so amazing. I don't like the term eye-opening really because it does sound kind of patronising, our eyes should be opened to everything really, but this film does make you think and will definitely stir up your emotions. Worth the watch just so so much.

I registered on the site to write this because I was hungover on a Sunday and looking for skateboarding videos/docs online. I used to skate and cannot now due to a back injury.

I expected something featuring tricks and skate videos, however I received an extremely emotional reaction to a brilliant documentary about real people living through very real issues I have had experienced. The film was made brilliantly and I have highly recommended this to my friends. People who skate and those who don't. A very well done piece. I grew up in the Midwest and knew the struggle of "when is the sidewalk good for skating" with the cabin fever of just wanting to pop an ollie outside.

Brilliant. Highly recommended, especially for anyone that broke out on a skateboard (bike, roller blades, etc) just to get outside when young. This doc is terrificly an underdog.