Movie Details
| Title: | Knuckle | |
| Director: | Ian Palmer | |
| Year: | 2011 | |
| Genre: | Documentary | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 09.26.11 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 09.26.11 | Alamo South Lamar | This Screening is part of event: FantasticFest 2011 Day... 4? Monday. Back to work. Nothing better after a full weekend of fantastic fest than sitting in an hour-long training about the merits of records management. I could not care less about the information security violations that my sticky notes present. Anyway, back at the theater, I saw this doc about a decades-long rivalry between Traveler clans in England and Ireland where disputes are settled in the form of fair fight bare-knuckle brawls. The doc itself is made up of ten years of footage. The first thing you probably think when I say that is "wow, ten years! there must be tons of great footage there!" and I did too but what I didn't think about was the video technology available ten years ago. A lot of this movie is pretty poor quality, recorded with VHS cameras and whatnot. Of course the quality gets better as the years pass, but it's still a little jarring compared to the beauty of a lot of the films here this week. That aside, the story is pretty interesting. It's a lot like a whole documentary dedicated to Brad Pitt's character from Snatch, right down to the whole family sitting on one couch for interviews and everybody stuffed into caravans and whatnot. It's pretty fascinating stuff to see these inflammatory youtube-esque videos get passed around between clans inciting fights and the age of one dude in particular as he has his first fight and ten years later when he challenges the same guy to regain his respect. That guy and the housing area where they live showed the most effects of time. I thought it was really cool to see this housing complex brand new when they move in and then see it ten years later when it's all sprayed with graffiti and one house has been abandoned to rot. I really don't know anything about this culture but I'm guessing they're kind of like gypsies... I kind of wish the doc explained the whole culture a bit more but the glimpse that we got was enough to make an entertaining film. It just could've been more I suppose. |
