trabuquera
Modesty Bag
Life of Crime: 1984-2020 - a shocker in unexpected ways. Started out as a low-to-no-budget community film project in Newark, NJ, following around a pair of local petty crims - likely lads and pains in the ass but not master offenders. US society being what it is, the next 36 years brought them through the poverty to prison pipeline, the carceral system, several different drug epidemics, health nightmares and terrible losses. The early years footage is quirky and shambolic and stilted; there are moments of very queasy near-exploitation and almost-fake-seeming interviews ... and as the tone gets bleaker and bleaker, several VERY VERY explicit and upsetting sequences on the physical and emotional horrors of all sorts of addiction. One of those docu's where you start asking yourself whether it's time for the maker to put down the camera and intervene as a human. But overall its heart is in the right place and it makes Requiem for a Dream look like the pretentious neurotic art-directed fever dream of these sorts of stories that it is. Hard-hitting isn't in it - still feel a bit shaken by it overall. Not 100% bleak throughout but the overall weight of damage and hurt is crushing. Also has one of the most devastating last-act twists I've ever seen. Worth it if you can catch it on Sky Documentaries (it was finished off with funding from HBO so might also be available in otehr places)