Here’s another entry in the NFB’s de facto series of modest, small-scale celebrations of people’s elderly relatives and, by extension, people’s actual cultural roots. The great thing, that might and should be replicateable pretty well unto eternity, is that these particular little celebrations are undertaken and executed with their greatest skill and best imagination. Look at the details (the furnishings, the symbols, the mixed media). It’s a variation of our elsewhere-cited and celebrated Carlos Saura/Antonio Gades strategy (see reviews of their Flamenco trilogy, q.v.), a strategy that should, after all, inform a craftsman’s every effort. Do your best, no matter what the assignment. If everyone did that, if everyone was satisfied where everyone was, there’d be no more Hollywood hierarchies, no more social misrecognition or alienation.
Well look at that: I’ve gotten all carried away! The thing is, good home movies make you all wild-eyed. You can’t really blame a guy, though. Look at those photographs! The most important movie genre! [For more, on that, see BYU Theatre and Media Arts’ home movies initiative: http://abouthomemovies.org/.]