firemanban-1

I saw this short yesterday at the Sundance Film Festival, and let me just say, this could possibly be the worst thing that I have ever viewed on the big screen. This abbreviated look at an upcoming documentary about Bunker Spreckels, a teenage surfing phenom turned millionaire party boy who died at age 27 in 1977, is like a poorly thought out Hunter S. Thompson vignette. In it we get to see Bunker surfing, smoking, big game hunting, parading around in tight jeans, and yes, urinating (full frontal, now that's art!). The score (if you could call it that) is straight from a bad 1950's sci-fi movie, and the psychedelic video effects are just pointless.

We were fortunate enough to see this film at the Sundace Film Festival, and I have rarely seen a more accomplished effort at portraying one of the worst atrocities of the past decade. Director Philippe Aractingi's ability to bring two feature actors into Lebanon on the tenth of thirty-three days of brutal Israeli bombing is nothing short of magnificent. Before seeing the film, I thought it may be a better case study of the war-torn environment left by the indescriminate bombing of civilian areas by the Israeli Army, with some actors thrown in at the last minute in a patchwork attempt to create a feature film. I was painfully wrong. This film is a compelling character drama told through the eyes of real people experiencing the worst kind of hell on earth. With unbelievable footage of the actors in the middle of the ongoing conflict, international media coverage, and the U.N. relief mission, Aractingi deftly (and powerfully) combines his fictional characters will real life survivors to tell the story of a mother trying to find her son in the ruins of war-torn Lebanon. The main character's decision to hire the initially lecherous, but ultimately compassionate and sympathetic taxi driver Tony to take her on her journey results in a touching tale of humanity and the place of individuals in a world beyond they're control. When asked about his filming techniques in the Q&A after the movie, Aractingi expressed his desire for the movie to be seen for the message it carries, as it should be.