Hot Docs 2012 - Detropia (Ewing & Grady, 2012) ****

Acclaimed documentarians Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp) offer in Detropia a visually stunning, thought-provoking mosaic of a decaying urban city that evocatively shows the macro and microeconomic causes of the fastest shrinking city in America. A provocative feature that seeks to portray the city of Detriot's woes as a microcosm for what's currently ailing the U.S, Ewing and Grady employ a detached, fragmented narrative that peeks in on the myriad abandoned homes and buildings in the downtown core and lets its subjects speak for themselves.

Detroit, a city that used to employ hundreds of thousands of people who could pull in a decent wage working at an automotive plant, has been steadily in decline since the 1980s, when the corporate push for cheap, foreign workers and federal divestment from municipal coffers became economic effects of the Reagan administration. As a result, the city has been mired with issues of poverty, crime and general degredation for decades, with no hope in sight for long time union workers looking to retire before they reach old age, or youth abanoned by the education system looking for steady work, or even a way to keep afloat. Presently, all the wealth in the Detriot area is centralized in the suburbs, beyond the city's infamous 8 Mile, as director Ewing even alluded to in her remarks after the film.

This kind of background is important for understanding the film's aesthetic, which means that the film will probably mostly appeal to those who have an interest in municipal policy, economics or urban planning, but for my money, does not lessen its power or its message. Ewing and Grady decline to establish a main subject, but there are a few interesting Detrioters that cross the viewers path: There's the deeply philosophical, politically astitute "last black owner" of a blues bar just outside the city; the charismatic, slightly senile union leader who longs for the good old days; and the blogger / barista with a big personality who has an interesting hobby of sneaking into abandoned buildings, taking pictures and sharing the property's stories with the world. The rest of the film is comprised of beautifully shot vignettes that give sometimes bleak, sometimes quirky and sometimes life-affirming snapshots of modern day Detroit.

This is a documentary that is not about "solutions" or establishing a public relations campaign to save Detroit. Rather, Detropia is a kaleidoscopic journey into a city that reminds us of the kindness and perseverence of the American people despite economic woe. Those who are engaged in, or passionately observing economics at the municipal level will immediately find much food-for-thought in the filmmakers' subtle depiction of the City as perhaps the most important level of government when it comes to maintaining the well being of the American citizens but fans of gorgeous, intelligent documentaries would be remiss to pass up Detropia.

Hot Docs 2012 - Indie Game (Swirsky & Pajot, 2012) ***

 Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky's first feature documentary Indie Game: The Movie is a surprisingly heartfelt look at the undocumented trials and tribulations of a new breed of independent video game developers, who put their lives and their finances on the line to create state of the art video games that are both deeply personal artistic expressions and highly lucrative products. The film follows three games, each with their respective creators, looking to take advantage of the completely revolutionized video game distribution model that has allowed independent developers to flourish and create legitimate businesses for themselves. There's the egotistical perfectionist Phil Fish from Montreal, whose game Fez has been in development for almost half a decade; Edmund and Tommy, highly quirky, intense nerd-types about to release Super Meat Boy; and Jonathan, a developer out of San Francisco, whose Braid was a smash hit before the film was released, struggling to cope with the emotional impact of the game's success.

For a film about guys sitting on their computers all day, the directors actually wring an enormous amount of emotion out of their subjects. Super Meat Boy developer Tommy, in particular is a multifaceted, highly complex and at times psychologically difficult person. We see him taking insulin shots after eating meals, expounding on his social awkwardness, going as far as discussing death if his game is not completed. Phil Fish also openly contemplates suicide on camera, his enormous ego being driven to its limit as his personal life crumbles and a former business partner threatens the release of the game. Film has great production values too despite it's crowdfunded budget, with some of the best visual respresentaions of 2D and 3D video games ever seen on screen.

Indie Game is a tad on the long side, though. At times the film feels overwrought, as all the main subjects are consistently on the verge of a panic attack. A sharper edit could have fixed some of the apparent fat that hangs off the film as we wait for stories to find their climax. Swirsky and Pajot have recently inked a deal to option their film as a television show, produced by Scott Rudin, Ron Howard and airing on HBO. This is a film not just for video gamers, but people interested in the immense challenges associated with investing everything into an art form and praying that it will all be worth it someday.

Hot Docs 2012 - Shut Up and Play the Hits (Lovelace & Southern, 2011) ****

I illegally downloaded LCD Soundsystem's first self-titled album in 2005, which was just when I was starting university. I hadn't known the face of the band, the wunderkind James Murphy, other than what I had read about him in SPIN magazine. But what I remember is that the music was almost revolutionary for its day: it was like Murphy took all the genres he liked and threw them in a blender and they came out as this new genre called "dance rock" that suddenly became all the buzz. Murphy was unapologetically cynical in his lyrics and in the hard-edged disco grooves laid down beneath his voice, his music influencing a new generation of genre-busting rock musicians. Cut to 2011. Just months after releasing the band's successful third album "This is Happening", Murphy, 41 years old, decides to call it quits. Shut Up and Play the Hits is a concert film that captures the band's final concert at Madison Square Gardens, as well as a behind the scenes meditation on aging and morality as an artist in the 21st century.

For those unfamiliar with LCD Soundsystem, I would describe Lovelace and Southern's film as kind of a mash-up between Scorsese's The Last Waltz chronicalling the last show of The Band (rest in peace, Levon Helm) and Jonathan Demme's masterpiece, Stop Making Sense, the Talking Heads concert film. Sequences during the actual show itself are meticulously shot and edited, with lots of lush, sweeping camera moves and artful, dynamic framing that add an adrenaline fueled feeling to the already spectacular performance of the band and the accompanying light show. Special guests include members of Arcade Fire, Reggie Watts, and even a brief cameo by the wonderful Donald Glover as a spectator. In the pantheon of great farewell concerts, Murphy, who describes it in the film as a "giant high school musical", put on one of the most memorable and kinetic shows of all time.

Intercut with concert footage are segments that bookend each song. Murphy is interviewed just before the show by the incisvely nerdy Chuck Klosterman, who pushes the musician to come to terms with his decision to leave his greatest accomplishment by the wayside. We also see what amounts to Murphy's entire lazy hungover day-after the show, as he purges the necessary emotions and begins his retirement. Thematically, Shut Up and Play the Hits asks questions about art and fate. Do we let our art govern our paths in life, or will our conscience inevitably come to shed the art from our lives as we get older, and it loses meaning. Or does the art we create ever lose meaning? One of the strongest concert films in years and the most visually stunning documentary at Hot Docs 2012 thus far.