In one of my favorite “Family Guy” scenes, Peter Griffin shocks his family by expressing his disdain for “The Godfather” and is met with a barrage of indignant rebuttals.
“It insists upon itself,” Peter explains.
I have never felt a closer bond to a fictional character, though I confess that “The Godfather” and its first sequel are safe within my personal cinematic canon.
“Blood Brother” took the Sundance Film Festival by storm last year, capturing the two biggest awards a film can garner – the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award.
I didn’t like it.
The documentary is the creation of Steve Hoover, whose longtime friend Rocky Braat traveled from their native Pittsburgh to India on a journey of personal discovery. Braat came from a broken family and evidently spent his late adolescence and early adulthood searching for the security of familial roots.
In India, that manifested itself in Braat’s immersing himself into the lives of some of the nation’s most vulnerable beings: AIDS-infected orphans. Braat’s intentions and deeds are beyond admirable, but for purposes of an engaging and supposedly moving documentary film, the story left me flat.
The film goes on for 1½ hours, but we (or I, anyway) get the gist about 10 minutes in. A disenfranchised white guy goes to a Third World country, touches lives in ways most of us can never understand and finds a part of himself in the process. I don’t mean to disrespect Braat, Hoover or the poor wretches who come to love Rocky “Anna” (a term of respect and honor akin to “big brother”), but there’s just nothing new here, movie-wise.
I realize that I’m in the minority here. Most critics and film buffs rave about “Blood Brother,” though 3 out of 10 viewers on Rotten Tomatoes share my opinion. That makes me feel a bit better. There is an obvious audience for this film, and it’s not my intention to dissuade anyone from seeing it for themselves.
But from the start, the film felt contrived, setting up tear-jerking moments simply by putting the most unfortunate children on the planet in front of a camera. And I’m still not sure what drives Rocky to cast off his Western life in favor of a cement apartment in India. I saw no real cultural or spiritual conversion other than a bitterness about his own empty past and a desire to find acceptance in a new land. He seems to have found his place in the world, but it’s not one that’s particularly inspiring for me.
ted@durangoherald.com
Blood Brother
Animal presents an independent documentary directed by Steve Hoover, written by Phinehas Hodges, Hoover and Tyson VanSkiver, starring Rocky Braat and Hoover. Running time: 92 minutes. Not rated.
“Blood Brother” is playing at the Animas City Theatre.
