MovieChat Forums > The Interrupters (2011) Discussion > what do we really learn?

what do we really learn?

posted 12 years ago by herecomestheboombluray
9 replies | jump to latest

it's difficult to criticize "the interrupters" without coming off as heartless. however, i don't think this film is as powerful as most others do.

for starters, i can't shake the scenes of violence in the movie, especially the ones involving children, but they had nothing to do with the interrupters themselves. this was unearned sentiment.

to that end, what impact did the interrupters actually have during the year we followed them? again, at the risk of sounding heartless, the reality is that these are untrained, uneducated individuals who seem content putting band-aids on gaping wounds, or thinking that a manicure and a haircut is enough to alter a person's life.

look at the thread here about flamo. people write about him as though he were omar. it's great that viewers found him to be so funny, but what did you learn from him? better yet, why do you think he was included in the film? (in my opinion, his presence was mostly for "comedic effect," which is another issue i had with the piece as a whole.)

this leads me to my biggest problem: from the opening scene on, we're shown that the violence in chicago continues to get worse, and no one knows how to stop it. yet the filmmakers chose to end things on an unearned sentimental and hopeful note.

are we to believe that flamo is still sweeping train stations? or that the young woman who wanted to be a doctor is now on the right path? it also lessens the impact when you remember that the subjects from the streets who said all the right things did so with cameras in their faces.

i ask then: what are we as viewers supposed to take away from this film? what are we supposed to learn that we didn't already know going into it?

[–] miamihurricane 12 years ago

Completely agree, I felt the film failed to make a "point." It presented the problem just fine, but didn't offer any solutions on the part of the filmmakers, the interrupters, or anyone else. Because I don't think hopelessness was the point they were trying to make, I think the film fell short.

[–] AtlantaMoviesExaminer 12 years ago

Of course, it's all a matter of opinion, but I'm surprised to see people questioning whether the interrupters really had any impact. If Cobe hadn't talked Flamo down, just to name one example, it seems entirely likely he would be in jail rather than working at the train/subway station.

Also have to disagree with the observation that the film ends on an unearned sentimental and hopeful note. For me it was more ambiguous; you leave with some sense of hope, but also knowing that it's entirely possible the film's subjects might backslide. And the sentiment that is there isn't in my opinion cheap at all, it's 100% earned from the heartbreak we've seen on display elsewhere in the film.

As to what we're supposed to learn that we didn't already know going into it, that's for each viewer to decide, but here's what director Steve James said when I asked him what surprised him during the filming:

I think in the case of this film, I had this sense that people in these communities had maybe kind of given up, that there wasn’t much fight left in them over this issue of violence.

Everybody we met had lost a loved one or a good friend to the streets, without exception. And of course, many of them had lost more than one. And when you think about that, that’s pretty astounding. This was surprising too, just how prevalent it was. I didn’t expect that.

And then I think there was just this sense that maybe they had given up and might be numb to all the violence since it’s so commonplace. And we couldn’t have found it to be more different. People haven’t given up, people are angry, you see that I think in the film. People are fighting it. When people lose a loved one, even if they’ve lost others, it’s completely devastating as if I lost my child.

And I think that was just really revelatory because it both spoke to the tragedy they live with on a daily basis and also the resiliency that we found in these communities, that people despite it all keep trying and keep wanting to either change themselves or change their neighborhoods.

Full interview here for anyone who's interested:
http://www.examiner.com/movies-in-atlanta/steve-james-interview-acclai med-director-talks-the-interrupters

[–] southtxabstract 12 years ago

But that's why the film is great.It's a hopeless situiation in those areas and you can see why.The filmakers werent trying to give you solutions.They were focusing more on how the volunteers gave those people some hope,any hope.I didnt expect a solution to this film because nobody's figured it out yet.Its very real in the mere fact some will say all the right things in front of the camera and some will actually think and listen and just be a better person.We are already aware of the this violence and the fact that we are posting on a thread about this film just brings more awareness.just another reminder.At least that was my take on it.
SARAH PALIN. Hero of the stupid.

[–] hulb0012 12 years ago

Did you not watch the film?

They directly stopped violence on multiple occasions, if they allowed Flamo to go then the body count with him would have continued to grow.

To say they aren't have any affect because violence continues is a very closed way to look at things. The culture is not going to change in a year but they are changes. People are calling them to mediate. They are provide support the them boys and girls that they are craving. The prime example is Ameena continuing to support even as the girl she was working with was making mistakes and rejecting her caring.

I guess with your view you see all the garbage in the street and say what does it matter if I pick up one piece and the interrupters look at it as you have to start somewhere and thankfully they are doing that work.

[–] sammythemc 12 years ago

>>They directly stopped violence on multiple occasions, if they allowed Flamo to go then the body count with him would have continued to grow.

Yes, exactly! You can't look at this film and ask what they've concretely achieved, because they're trying to put a stop to things. Of course murders still happen in Chicago, but it's tough to measure how many murders *aren't* happening because of these people.

What stunned me about this movie is that most of these potentially violent kids don't *want* to be violent, not really. Before I saw this, I had the image of murderers as cold blooded do-what-you-gotta-do types or hot headed and emotionally violent. But that didn't seem to be the case. A lot of them seemed to *want* to be talked out of it, eg Flamo calling Cobe. If he *really* wanted to mess someone up, he wouldn't have called someone who does violence intervention. But Flamo, along with the others, have been taught that turning the other cheek is shameful, that not responding to a slight is tantamount to punking out, so when a third party comes along and says "You're going to fight over a $10 bag of weed? *Really*?" it's like a switch gets thrown and they're finally allowed to just let it slide off their backs.

So that's what I took out of it. The situation isn't hopeless. Most people aren't truly dedicated to fighting and killing. The culture of violence that grips some neighborhoods certainly has a hold on them, but that hold is way, way more tenuous than I previously thought.

[–] herecomestheboombluray 12 years ago

my point is this: if you're attempting to show that the interrupters have a permanent effect on gang members, then your study needs to last longer than one year.

take flamo again as an example. for all we know, his story may have occurred in the span of just a few days, which would render false what's implied in his final scene: that the interrupters transformed a gang member into a law-abiding train station sweeper just by telling him to stop being a gang member.

to me, this film would've been more impactful if it'd focussed on, say, four gang members and chronicled their interactions with the interrupters from day 1 to day 365 (assuming still that it could only cover one year).

instead, though, subjects come and go, and we never know their timelines or who they truly are. we see only what the makers of the film want us to see, which i consider manipulative.

i'd also like to find out how many potential subjects didn't make the final cut because they laughed off the interrupters right from the start and didn't consider changing their ways for even a second.

if i were asked to sum up the theme of this movie, i'd say, "there's gang violence in chicago and no one can stop it." i don't think any larger point was made.

[–] deeepthawtz 12 years ago

Are you really ignorant or just new to documentaries? This was a film in the day-in-the-life-of vein of which there are many (eg the classic Salesman). We are presented with an interesting group of subjects and we watch them work through some sample cases. That's the entire point of such films. You seem to be grasping for some grand "Thou shalt not ..." proclamation. If we learn anything it's a glimpse of what it takes to for someone to go into a highly emotionally charged and dangerous situation and de-escalate things to prevent further violence. Put in other words, we learn this is something you'd never be able to do.

if i were asked to sum up the theme of this movie, i'd say, "there's gang violence in chicago and no one can stop it."

Yes because no violence was stopped in the movie. You weren't even paying attention were you? I know you weren't because

we never know their timelines

is non-sense. Time is clearly marked by the passing of the seasons. What do you want a little stopwatch in the corner? This is film with a narrative structure, not a police report.

[–] OttoVonB 12 years ago

To those who would ask what point this film makes or what the interrupters achieved, tell yourself this: each succesful intervention means that somewhere, a kid gets to have more time with a parent, a parent with their child, that maybe that kid who would have taken a stray bullet on the way to school will get to live...

I don't know how you can look at that and not think it has any value.

[–] zolazona 11 years ago

You need to watch more documentaries. They aren't fictional movies with story boards setting up a plot. A producer may start with a concept or idea, but many times the story flows in a direction not realized before and becomes something altogether different.

One thing I was very moved by with this film besides the work Cease Fire was doing, was the ongoing struggle with redemption that 3 of the featured *characters* were going through, especially Eddie Bocanegra. I can't his story out of my head.