It’s all about the people

An Iraqi from Stephen Marshall’s Battleground

As popular as documentary films have become over the past five years, they are still stuck with the arduous task of striking a very fine balance between educating and entertaining. A film may have something groundbreaking to show the world, but if it fails to engross an audience the message is lost.

At this year’s Hot Docs festival where over 100 documentaries will screen between April 22 and May 1, two Canadian Spectrum films achieve that precarious balance through character-driven filmmaking.

For Stephen Marshall, director of Battleground: 21 Days on the Edge of the Empire, a highly emotional look at the Iraq war from the perspective of the soldiers and Iraqis, it’s all about the people.

He explained in a phone conversation with S&H.ca, his approach to filmmaking has always been humanistic. “It’s people first, politics second,” he said.

He went on to explain if a documentary is character-driven people will follow along with it and be engaged.

The film’s subject matter alone is something difficult to achieve a balanced perspective with. Again, Marshall cites a humanistic approach as the answer. “Think about how the Iraq war was sold to the public,” he said. “There were no people. You never saw any Iraqis. You never saw them speaking.”

Marshall admits to having an anti-war agenda, but also said he aimed to be as balanced as possible. “Everything out there about the war has been so bloody one-sided,” he mused.

In order to try and make his film as impartial as possible, Marshall took a fearless approach to documenting what life was like for the Iraqi people outside the narrow glimpse provided by CNN and Fox News.

“They all have a story to tell, and it wasn’t getting heard,” he said. “I was amazed at how incredibly articulate and intelligent [the Iraqi people] are, and how much wisdom they have.”

Having been to over 50 countries, Marshall said Iraq was by far the most intense experience he’d ever had abroad. “In a place where death is happening on a daily basis, life takes on a different resonance,” he said.

He views Battleground as his most political work in a long time, but said, “I did it at a time when no one was being objective.”

He managed to be political without beating people over the head, by incorporating real people to make his point.

Jesus, a character in Paul Carriere’s The Cross and Bones

Another Hot Docs filmmaker who makes the characters central to his work is Paul Carriere, director of The Cross and Bones. The concept for his film came from a vacation to the badlands of Alberta, where he became interested in how the landscape and geography influenced the behaviour of those who lived there.

Central characters include a community of Christians putting on a re-enactment of the last days of Jesus, compete with elaborate sets, costumed extras, a giant cross, and director with head-set. Next up the fossil hunters, on a quest for dinosaur bones, and whose views of evolution are in direct conflict with the creationist ideals of the Passion play members. This little mix is spiced up even further when a rather large gang of bikers enters the picture, bringing along their own ideas about life.

Carriere’s landscape film is raised to the next level by incorporating the characters that live there. What he found among these people inhabiting the badlands, despite their opposing views on life, was one common thread.

“What surprised me was the common need to believe,” he said. “People need to know where they’ve come from. Tourists come from around the world to dig for bones, not because it’s fun, but to feel something bigger then themselves.”

“Whether it’s watching the Passion play and being moved to tears or finding a fossil and being in awe, you are being taken somewhere outside yourself,” he said.

The Cross and Boneswasn’t born out of a need to make a scientific film, or take an in-depth look at creationism versus evolution, Carriere said. “It was the characters who drew me to this place.”

Whatever the finished product ends up depicting, it has to be character driven in the end, he explained.

And in the end, it’s often the characters that bring people to the theatres to watch documentaries, and what keeps them coming back for more.

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Images courtesy Hot Docs