Octubre 16, 2006

Review of 'On The Edge' in the Austin Chronicle

An interesting review in the Austin Chronicle of my film:

Just across the border from El Paso, Juárez holds countless secrets. A major center of drug trafficking and the scene of hundreds of unsolved femicides in the past 13 years, the industrial hub of northern Mexico is a nest of corruption. Producer/director Steev Hise takes an international perspective on this localized tragedy with his low-budget documentary. Through a rough-and-tumble filmmaking technique, Hise overmanipulates his footage, using color saturations and unrelated archival material to punctuate some of his points. But despite having a filmmaker at the helm who was a little too trigger-happy with his aftereffects, the movie tells a heart-wrenching story that remains ignored in any significant international capacity. Since 1993, more than 400 women have been murdered. The victims are predominantly young women (ages 15 to 25), students, and employees at maquiladoras (assembly plants that manufacture finished goods for export to the United States, i.e., cheap, outsourced labor). In most cases, there were signs of sexual violence, abuse, torture, and in some instances, mutilation. Wading through the social, political, and economic effects of these crimes, Hise asserts his position: Using the femicides as the lens, the film contemplates international issues of malfeasance, free trade, drug trafficking, and poverty. Clearly operating with limited resources from a grassroots perspective, Hise interviews mothers, activists, scholars, and writers to paint the portrait of a city in a state of severe crisis. Footage of and interviews with mourning mothers thrust into the role of activists is both agonizing and compelling. However, Hise's breadth is so far-reaching that it's difficult to maintain a through line. I started to tune out when the film began to make its case for the legalization of marijuana. But multiple agendas aside, the subject matter is devastatingly honest. Indeed, the film attempts to make everyone more aware of a harsh reality, and for that we should all take notice.


Posted by steev at Octubre 16, 2006 11:31 AM
Comments
I know Toddy, and I think it's worth noting that she's an MFA student in filmmaking at UT-Austin, so her review should be read as something coming from someone training to be a professional filmmaker. I guess I sort of bring this up because I'm teaching an undergrad "Making Alternative Media" class in the Radio-TV-Film department. While I thought I would get a bunch of students chomping at the bit to media activist work, I'm surprised at their lack of political engagement. I screened a part of the old "Showdown in Seattle" documentary a few weeks back, and my students snickered at the low production values. While I don't think Toddy is as disengaged as my students, I do think if you have access to nice equipment and training, production flaws pop out pretty quickly. Unfortunately, I haven't seen your movie, so I don't know what post-effects she's talking about, but I do suspect you might have done something that looks cool to you that they tell students not to do at UT. Posted by: McChris at Octubre 16, 2006 04:15 PM
...sorry about the lack of line breaks, I thought they were turned on in MT. Posted by: McChris at Octubre 16, 2006 04:16 PM