(USA, 105 min.)
Dir. Brian Knappenberger
Programme: Special Presentations (International Premiere)
It's funny to see Hot Docs open with The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz. Swartz, the late
co-founder of Reddit and all-around Internet Wunderkind, offers an inspiring
tale of digital democracy. It's funny, though, to see this documentary open
Toronto's second biggest film festival just a few months after Toronto's
biggest film festival, TIFF, opened with the star-studded WikiLeaks drama The Fifth Estate. Fifth Estate's Julian Assange (played by a terrific Benedict
Cumberbatch) might not be nearly as crowd-pleasing a character as Aaron is, but
both subjects are arguably some of the most fascinating and intriguing figures
of the radical possibilities of the World Wide Web.
The Internet’s Own Boy is certainly an improvement over last year’s Hot Docs opener The Manor (although I’m in the minority on that one) and it’s a great example for how offering a film of greater scope and relevance gets a festival off to a great start. This ripped-from-the-headlines talking heads piece is a gripping and compelling analysis of the binary power and perils of the Internet. The film chronicles the rise of Aaron’s success with computers, including his landmark sale of Reddit by the age of 19, and it culminates with an eye-opening account of the Federal case that ultimately precipitated Aaron’s suicide.
The film clearly posits Aaron as a scapegoat for the American
government and for overzealous prosecutors who were eager to make an example of
this young “nerd” who knew much more about technology than they did. The film
shows Aaron’s crime as a relatively harmless one, for all he wanted to do was
share knowledge and champion open access over the privatization of culture,
history, and science. (He essentially downloaded scholarly journals from JSTOR en
masse and was bullied by Uncle Sam for taking too many books from the library.)
The Internet’s Own Boy
offers ample analysis and exploration of the murky laws that struggle to keep up
with the pace of technology. What constitutes a crime in the digital age doesn’t
seem to jive with typical crimes of passion, so The Internet’s Own Boy, much like The Fifth Estate, makes an argument that advocating transparency
and harnessing the power of Web 2.0 for democratic accountability is not akin
to cyber-terrorism. Director Brian Knappenberger gives the film a solid
emotional thread by zeroing in on Aaron’s case following an accessible character
portrait that shapes Aaron as an anomaly who simply wanted to harness the
potential of the Internet for the greater good, rather than for his own gain.
The inspiring message of the film puts the onus on the people to further Aaron’s
cause and to refuse to let outdated paranoia label digital democracy a bad
thing.
The Internet’s Own Boy
also marks a smart choice for opening night, for while it’s a solidly made and
thoroughly compelling film, it’s also far from being a perfect one. (Nobody
wants to see a festival peak on opening night.) The techno score, for one,
often overwhelms the speakers, while the length of the 105-minute running team
ultimately feels exhausting even though the participants do their best to keep the
computer-speak in layman’s terms. The talking heads collage of Aaron’s friends
and family inevitably shapes him as a kind of fallen prophet. The objectivity
is slightly imbalanced, though, for many parties on the other side of the
conversation are noted to have declined participation. The one-sided
conversation of the film makes provocative implications against the Obama
administration, MIT, and other parties that allegedly played a hand in Aaron’s
downfall. However, Kappenberger’s essay with Aaron’s life draws the collective story
from the loss of the individual, and The
Internet’s Own Boy emphasizes that Aaron’s plight was ultimately a necessary
battle for transparency, access, and accountability for an innovation that was
created for the common good.
Rating: ★★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz screens:
-Fri. Apr. 25 at 2:00 PM at the
Bloor Hot Docs Cinema
-Wed. Apr. 30 at 6:30 PM at the
Bloor Hot Docs Cinema (this screening is part of the Scotiabank Big Ideas
Series and features an extend conversation that engages with the questions
raised by the film).
Please
visit www.hotdocs.ca for more information
on this year’s festival.
Update: The Internet's Own Boy opens at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema on June 27.
