FilmTheatre
ALIAS
The (Almost) Unbearable Heaviness of Being (Rapper) By Dalibor Mišina
O
ne of the documentaries screened recently at the Bay Street Film Festival was Thunder Bay native Michelle Latimer’s ALIAS. During a Q&A session, Latimer revealed that the impetus for her film was a desire to unpack stereotypical portrayals of rap music and the “rap lifestyle” found in the mainstream entertainment media of the MuchMusic, MTV, and reality TV variety. For her, the goal of ALIAS was to go beyond the media hype of “girls, guns, and gold” and offer an unmediated look at the lives and realities of a select group of Toronto rap artists—Alkatraz, Alias, Trench, Keon Love, and Master Knia.
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Without a doubt, ALIAS rises to the challenge of its director’s intent. It does so by avoiding the conventions and trappings of most documentaries that wade through the same waters and craft their narratives by drawing upon—and reinforcing—the very stereotypes they aim to debunk. Latimer’s approach in ALIAS is to subvert audiences’ expectations about what the life of a typical rapper is supposed to be like, and set the viewers on a journey through the daily goings-on of a group of rap artists with the requisites of open minds and empty eyes. In this sense, the documentary is as much of a deconstruction of media stereotypes as it
is an invitation for us, the audience, to cast away our own preconceived notions about rappers, their music, and the way they live. As a critique and a dare, ALIAS works quite well. However, the film’s real strength is in going beyond both of these and mining the minds of its subjects in order to understand their lives and the things that they do, or fail to do. In pursuing this, ALIAS quietly illuminates a socio-psychological context of "rap lifestyle" and, by zeroing-in on invisible surveillance and the resultant disciplining of the Toronto neighbourhood of Regent Park, reveals the (almost) unbearable heaviness of symbolic violence afflicting all of the film’s protagonists. Stripping it to its core, Latimer’s documentary lays bare the reality of the “rap lifestyle” as no more, and no less, than strategies of coping, survival and denial, pursued by the individuals who are trying to work through, or rise above, a psycho-emotional fallout of their conditions of existence. Because it does this, ALIAS turns out to be much more than a documentary about rappers and rap music. ALIAS will be released theatrically in the new year and a shorter version will be airing on Global TV on November 2 at 10 pm. Visit aliasmovie.ca for details.
Flash Gallery SELECTED WORKS BY: Tim Alexander Damon Dowbak Lorna Anderson Patrick Doyle Linda Brown Chris Stones Marianne Brown Jean Marshall Alex Christian
At Northern Lights Gallery 345-5446 316 Bay Street Thunder Bay
A TWO DAY EVENT Opening Reception Thursday November 28, 4pm to 8pm Friday and Saturday November 29 and 30, 10am to 5 pm The Walleye
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