Documentary Review: Minding the Gap (2018)

Copyright: Hulu

Growing up might be hard, but skating towards adulthood seems to be even harder in Minding the Gap. This documentary came about through 12 years of footage of the kids who lived and breathed skating in their hometown of Rockford, Illinois which was even then considered one of the prime Rust Belt locations.

Driven by dysfunctional families where violence was an apparent norm parent-children relationship, three friends try to find an emotional valve, a meaning of life and a chance for a better future in each other and their wheeled boards.

Bing Liu, the director of this fascinating documentary, managed to take the notion of a skate video and blew it up out of proportion in the best possible way. The movie opens like any film shot on a skateboard that follows people riding their own.

Film Review: The Maze Runner (2014)

Copyright: 20th Century Fox

Wes Ball, who directed this movie, plays his first cards with a lot of style, and also some guts. He doesn’t go the way I expected him to, opening his film with some kind of an info dump. He stripped away almost everything, and opted for presenting a completely bare, almost raw experience.

A young man wakes up in a middle of a field called the Glade, surrounded by boys of different age. He lost all of his memories, but immediately recognizes that others are organized in Lord of the Flies kind of society, but only this one lives in relative harmony. 

The only problem is that they are surrounded by huge walls, and the only way out of this place is through the Maze, an incredible, constantly changing structure that is full of dangerous creatures.

With this minimal verbal setting, the film drives on, basing itself on experience, not knowledge. The audience gets to find out new things along with the main character Thomas, which feels very organic. This is how he gradually learns the power balance in the Glade, shared between a teenage version of hawks, doves and owls archetypes, which differ in their approach to social structure and governance. But at the same time, all strive for the exploration of the Maze and hope to find a way out.