A documentary that combines intimacy and sociality, focusing on filming and light organization. Starting from the treatment of self and friends, the director boldly exposes himself. Taking skateboarding as the entry point, the director talks about domestic violence, adolescent growth, racial discrimination, female self-identification, and the loss of small town population. At the same time, it also contains a broad social value. This way of operation is perfect, unique and unrepeatable. Self-disclosure is funny and for good reason: the three characters in this film are the camera and two of his friends hahaha. The director switches between participant, observer, and subject, and being able to do that is already highly personal. Thanks to the time span of the shooting, the footage is very thick. Without such material accumulation, the above-mentioned effects of both personal and social perspectives cannot be achieved. And the weird location where the director has developed a new energy camera...and it's very impactful. With a lot of material comes one big problem: organization. It is a pity that the director did not consider maturity in this regard: it may be due to the director's previous experience as a photographer, or because the act of shooting has a greater personal meaning. The final presentation is occasionally chronological, occasionally segmented by character, occasionally digs depth by character, and occasionally organized in a very chaotic manner by emotional tension. The intersection of the three people became less and the film was almost split into three short documentaries.
View more about Minding the Gap reviews
