The Target Shoots First

Documentaries do not usually draw big crowds. But when I saw the film at the Rotterdam Filmfestival it was a full house. And justly so!

A very interesting - almost shocking - and hilariously funny insight into US mail order CD shops. Shocking because you get to learn about corporate intruige. Shocking because the head of marketing does not even know what she is selling.

Remember Columbia/Warner is the biggest reseller in the US! And frightening because these corporations are fast taking over Europe.

And amidst all this, one lone warrior for the independent spirit fights himself out of the corporate noose to make this absolutely delightful documentary.

Never condescending towards his colleagues. With tongue in cheek and without surplus commentary (remember you are almost watching a home movie) the film maker won my respect and my heart. The posing for a 'picture with the rich and famous David Haselhoff' had me and my friends in stitches. I wonder where Chris Rocha go next?

Chris Wilcha has made a small home movie with, it seems, deceit and bitterness as his guides. He paints a bunch of professionals who are minding their own business, trying to get their jobs done the best they can, as a bunch of morons. The unintended result is the depiction of Wilcha's insecurities, jealousy, and general sour grapes. What he doesn't understand is that not everyone in the corporate world is a sell-out, and not everyone who can't make a living is a noble artist. Is it really possible that besides Wilcha's boss Rick Hunt (the only good guy in the whole movie), no one at the company has both a brain AND a heart? Columbia House allowed Wilcha to aim his camera at the company every day, so it seems to me that they had nothing to hide. Wilcha obviously does, but wasn't successful.

The two things that separate 'The Target Shoots First' from the rest of the Cinema Verite pack are it's content and it's form: the content is basically an expanded, clever home video and it's form is well, home video. Christopher Wilcha takes his college graduation gift, a hi-8 video camcorder, and uses it to document his life in the corporate world at a job at Columbia House, the world's biggest mail-order Music distributor. His inner conflict of converting from being a college music scenester, to making choices at a clueless, corporate business, is well documented in the everyman's format of video. Not only was the format of the film do-it-yourself, but so was the struggle of the director during the course of the film, stopping at nothing to fight to make the most insignificant of changes at the all mighty juggernaut of a business that is Columbia House. What shows through the film, is a compassionate attempt to show the persistence of the working man, Christopher Wilcha and his band of colleagues against the evil empire that is constantly thwarting them. To put it musically, Wilcha 'Rages Against the Machine' in the most calm, cool and clever way ever to be chronicled in a film.

I really enjoyed this film when Chris Wilcha presented this movie to me and my class recently. It was a creative concept, well shot, and succeeded in finding what it was going for. Special kudos to Chris for editing that much footage into about an hour and a half long movie. ****, 10/10

Edited from more than 200 hours of footage, "The Target Shoots First" is a young production manager's chronicle of his two-year stint at Columbia House. Its technical merits and fabulous sense of humor earned it both the critics prize and the audience prize at the recent South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin. The audience at the Aurora Picture Show in Houston (where I saw it tonight) was equally enthusiastic. The story begins in 1992, when Columbia House hires recent college graduate Christopher Wilcha as a marketing assistant. He brings his Hi8 to work every day to distance himself from the reality of the job, which turns out to be boring and hilariously out of touch with the popular music scene. As his amount of responsibility increases, he helps design a new, more intelligent catalogue for the burgeoning alternative rock subculture. Readers love the new catalogue, and their letters of praise are encouraging for a while, but Chris's subversive attempts fail when the company manipulates them to suit its agenda. One of the pleasant surprises of Chris's approach is that while he's clearly disgusted with the corporate process at Columbia House, he retains a compassionate attitude toward his coworkers. The emergent tone is one of contemplative frustration with how the company siphons the individual creative energy of its employees to further its own, less admirable goals. Interesting note: I used to get the alternative catalogue in the mail, and I never expected to meet the guy responsible for it (six years later, in Houston).