The success of this film is either a true ‘happy accident’ miracle (the wrong batch of participants and this goes south fast), or a testament to the destructive magic of alcohol. I’ve given up the drink, personally, but it’s hard to argue it doesn’t level the playing field in a sense. With total inebriation, the loss of inhibitions renders the subjects (why does it feel wrong to call them actors?) somewhere apart from good and bad — in vino veritas, or thereabouts. If you’ve ever made an instant friend late-night at some pub then you know that this is possible: the connection IS real. They just happened to have cameras rolling.
That this screened as a documentary in festival settings and is labeled as such wherever it's available further clouds how we’re meant to interpret the film. There is the lie — this was shot in a rented bar in New Orleans not Las Vegas — and then there is the truth — these are real humans, getting (really) drunk. While the lie seems bigger in retrospect, it really isn’t in practice. For the 90 minutes you spend with the film, that’s mostly immaterial. Maybe you’ll be pissed off that they ‘tricked you’ but it’s a harmless jab at worst, and — if you can get past it (which you should) — you’ll find this reveal to be an extended part of the experience. I think of a world where I simply watched this at face value and never googled it after the fact. There are people out there who will go to their grave thinking that this bar in Las Vegas closed in 2016 and these were its sad and funny regulars.
But like any movie worth its salt — doc or fiction — it’s about the universal truths. There are sad and funny regulars at dive bars everywhere in America. And this is as good an homage to these folks as I’ve ever seen.
There’s some direct, if not inverse parallels to their most recent film, Gasoline Rainbow (a movie presented as fiction that feels like a documentary). I definitely have some more/different thoughts on that (the first Ross Brothers’ picture I watched) after seeing this, so check out that review.
CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,911 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,913 ⫸
⫷ MOVIE #1,911 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,913 ⫸
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets is an American documentary film by the Ross brothers that premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. It was released on January 24, 2020.
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