Chasing It What one up and coming filmmaker, Gus Trapani, with 2 of his own successful features, (Bad Vs Worse, Absolute Zero) under his belt has to say: I just finished watching The Peers Influence Peers Partnerships latest documentary, Chasing It A film that chronicles the harsh realities of the overwhelming heroine addiction problem that exists in New York State, specifically the Putnam Valley County area. After the film concluded, I am emotionally and mentally, defeated. By producing this documentary Peers has created a double edged sword result. One side of the blade is that they have produced their magnum opus, their masterpiece, their greatest work in twenty years functioning as a non profit organization. The other side of the blade however, is that Peers has set the bar for what we will expect from them going forward, very high. This is obviously something to be very proud of but is also something that should evoke a strong urgent sense of responsibility on Peers as content creators, to capitalize on. Now I can proudly call myself a member of the Peers family. But that in no way, makes my review biased because my only involvement in this particular feature was camera operating one interview. I watched this documentary with no understanding of what this product ended up looking like. With that said, lets continue. I was at first taken back by the abrupt start of the feature and felt a bit disoriented with the manner of being literally, forcefully yanked into the documentary. I thought this was an issue in pacing until about a minute in when I realized that this is exactly what I am designed to feel. Peer’s isn’t holding your hand with this documentary. (A criticism that can maybe be argued with some of their past work) This documentary is Peers saying. “No, No, No. I want to show you something, and your going to watch. It’s ugly and it’ll turn your stomach inside out, but your going to watch it. “ This device is the very device that carries out through the entire documentary which is essentially, a string of emotionally flooring and extremely informative interviews featuring, professionals, parental figures, and of course, the addicts themselves. This structure is fused together with one very powerful centerpiece. That centerpiece is Doug Greenwich, a Putnam Valley father who lost his son in the war against heroine addiction. The result of watching Doug’s interview is the equivalent of taking a baseball bat swung by Jason Giambi, to the gut. The camera work was intellectually executed. With the spastic, jittery camera work for the interviews featuring the addicts and very controlled, static photography featuring the interviews with the professionals and parental figures. If you remove the the interviews, the documentary all on its own,personifies itself with a screaming voice that says: LOOK! This is happening live, right now! It does this by mixing the interviews with establishing shots of busy Baltimore streets that at first may seem unmotivated, until you realize what Peers is doing. By juxtaposing these busy traffic shots against the interviews with the addicts, Peers is showing us, ourselves. They are saying. “While you live your life, driving here, driving there- this is what’s killing our youth. Sleep well.” Of course, it’s done with the upmost subtly. Peers leaves it up to us to come to these conclusions. Having Stephen Velichko in the role of interviewer is what I like to call, common sense in Producing 101. Stephen has a very solidified understanding when it comes to pulling not only extremely personal and informative knowledge from the addicts, but also capturing astoundingly heartbreaking emotional moments in a jar, all while making sure that the safety, comfortability and security of the interviewees are never compromised. A huge amount of respect goes out for the addicts themselves who are essentially emotionally undressing in front of the camera. Making themselves completely vulnerable and open to massive amounts of judgment. Anyone in their right mind however can not judge because these are kids that SURVIVED. They starred what Mr. Greenwich called, The Devil in the face and they lived to speak about it. The amount of courage and character that takes is an amount that many people never arrive at in their life time. I can go on for three more paragraphs about this feature. Huge congratulations to Peers, Frank Reale and Stephen J. Velichko of Living Waters Productions for creating the documentary equivalent to Darren Aronofskys Requiem for a Dream, A film that currently holds spot number 77 on imdb for the top 250 greatest films of all time. I am horned that my production company was given an opening title credit on this amazing piece of work. Ive been hearing a lot of fear regarding the future of Peers. There has been some uncertainly due to difficulties with funding the organization. But there is no doubt that Chasing It is Peers light at the end of the difficult tunnel that is staying afloat in the video production industry. Peers is just getting started. Chasing It marks an end alright, the end of the beginning.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 20:23:55 +0000
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