(Canada, 67
min.)
Dir.
Michelle Latimer
Programme: Canadian
Spectrum (World Premiere)
Alias is one of
the most urgent documentaries for Toronto audiences at Hot Docs this year. This
stark, gritty, and street-smart doc by Michelle Latimer is a timely film in the
wake of the city’s escalating media coverage of shootings and violent crimes. Alias explores the story omitted from
the sensational headlines and takes the camera to the city margins. Using the
story of five local rappers—Alkatraz, Alias Donmillion, Trench, Master Knia
(Know It All), and Keon Love—Alias
looks behind the stereotypes of Toronto’s rap scene.
“Black people have been the first at being the last for a
very long time…so we’re trying to just to get even. Nobody wants to grow old
and broke,” says Alkatraz in a scene that comes late in the film. Similarly, one of Alkatraz's fellow rappers, Knia,
explains to the camera that he is pursuing a law degree to create new options
and opportunities, not only for himself but also for his daughter. The
importance of a law degree, Knia notes, became clear when many of his peers
experienced convoluted legal battles and slip-ups as a result of not knowing
the law.
The law doesn’t look to be on the side of Toronto’s black
community, as one early scene in Alias
shows. A concert of several Toronto rappers requires a booking of excess cops
to guard and monitor the nightclub. The officers pat down the concertgoers with
a thoroughness that someone likens to an airport security check. The subject’s
comment is made in reference to the meticulousness of the search—he is even
asked to remove his shoes—but the quip could just as easily refer to the kind
of racial profiling that frequents airport security checks post-9/11. The
police presence at the concert shows an immediate assumption of violence in the
rap scene. (Security for Justin Bieber probably isn’t nearly as intense in
spite of the difference in venue capacity.) The show goes on regardless and the
vibe in the crowd is that of a community gathering, not of a gang war. The
pointlessness of the police presence is highlighted by the end of the sequence,
as the performers actually make less money at their show than the cops did,
thus making means and opportunity harder to come by for a rapper.
The artists describe their music as a getaway, or a means of
survival in neighbourhoods that have become known as “territories”. The stories
provided by the rappers notes effects that violence has wrought on their
communities. Showing the faces of fallen peers and describing funereal
eulogies, Alias reveals the lateral
effects of violence and reminds its audience that the effect of a shooting is
felt in a ripple wider than that of the immediate victim. Alias, however, notes rap music as the alternative for channelling
frustration and anger. The music, highlighted in observational sequences and on
the soundtrack, complements the testimony from the rappers.
Alias marks an
impressive feature debut for Michelle Latimer, whose short film Choke was my pick for the best Canadian short of 2011. As she did in Choke,
Latimer provides as insightful, important look at a relevant issue in Canadian
communities. Alias shows a much
different approach to storytelling from Choke,
though, as the brilliant animation of Latimer’s short was a haunting evocation
of a complex story. The sparse, uncontrived observational style of Latimer’s
approach allows Alias to provide a
voice for and from Toronto’s black community without any of the manipulation
these stories receive in the media. Alias,
raw and realistic, looks beyond the stereotypes and tells the truth.
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Screens with:
My Black Box (Ma boîte
noir)
(Canada, 12
min.)
Dir.
Nicolas-Alexandre Tremblay
My Black Box directed
by Nicolas-Alexandre Tremblay, is an appropriate opening act for Alias. My Black Box brings a telling celebrity story to Hot Docs by
following Montréal rapper Dramatik as he shares with a group of students the
art of making a good beat. Dramatik explains that rap helped him find a voice
to overcome a stutter that resulted from childhood trauma, and his lesson with
the students of an inner city school imparts an artistic outlet for
articulating fear and anger as artistic expression. Like Alias, My Black Box is an
empowering tale of shared experiences.
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Alias and My Black Box screen:
Friday, April 26 – 7:00 pm at the Royal
Sunday, April 28 – 1:00 pm at the Scotiabank
Saturday, May 4 – 8:45 pm at the Scotiabank
Please visit www.hotdocs.ca for more info on films,
tickets, and show times.
