Details from IMDB:
Carts of Darkness
This documentary follows a group of homeless men who have combined bottle picking with the extreme sport of racing shopping carts.
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- Stars
Initial Thoughts:
I’ve been on a Canadian kick lately- music, movies, TV- so this movie was suggested to me by a friend, and I do love documentaries, so last night I gave it a watch on Prime.
Main Points:
This movie is set in Vancouver, BC, and really shows the area’s unique beauty. I enjoyed how simple this movie is. A former snowboarder, the director/writer/star, was injured and is now in a wheelchair and decided to make a movie about homeless people in his area who also race shopping carts. Technically, we only see one race, but one of the guys is obsessed with going to the top of a steep hill and riding the cart down it. Suffice it to say, taking a shopping cart down a steep hill is very dangerous! He shows one guy who gets like 30 stitches in his leg after a spill.
The film, however, mostly deals with homelessness in the Vancouver area, and we get to see several men who live this way. While several of them have problems with alcohol (and the law), one was simply determined to dedicate his life to art and couldn’t stand to be a part of the rat race anymore. They say things that make you wonder about what it really means to be rich, free, successful and have time to yourself. For one of them, Ferg, I felt really bad for him, as he’s obviously an alcoholic who could have done so much more in his life if booze didn’t have such a strong hold over him. Seeing him at the end, lying on the floor of his apartment, which was a positive, for sure, without a pillow or even a bed, was heartbreaking. At least the men shown here are productive and make most of their money by collecting recyclables and turning them in for cash. It’s a film that certainly makes you wonder if you could do more to help homeless people and, of course, feel lucky for having so many luxuries compared to them.
Final Thoughts:
Toward the end, Murray Siple thanks the men he interviewed for their participation and for letting him into their lives, so he gets in a shopping cart while one of them goes down a hill! While it was only for a short distance, it was a wild scene and took a lot of guts for Murray to do that; I was glad to see he didn’t get hurt. This short film is only an hour long, but it has a lot to say about society, homelessness, jobs, careers, happiness, recycling, and shopping cart racing. He introduces us to some truly unique and interesting people and shows how they survive in non-traditional ways. I enjoyed this movie and give it 7.5 out of 10. I would have liked to see him interview more people and dig deeper into Vancouver’s homeless culture, but I know he didn’t have the funding. There is coarse language, some blood and lots of scenes of people drinking, with discussions of mature subject matter (including suicide), so I would say ages 19+. If you can handle the issues I mentioned, I highly recommend this film.