Kate Bradford
Editor’s Note: Today marks The Matinee debut of Kate Bradford as a guest contributor for the site. Kate will be joining in on the Hot Docs coverage, and will have a lot more to say before the week is out. I’m truly thankful to have hosting her brainy work on the site, and hope you enjoy her writing as much as I do! – RM
For many of the creatively inclined, the pursuit of our given art forms is not always an incredibly profitable one. For filmmakers, the wedding industry provides a nearly endless spring of work that can help sustain them during dry spells. No matter what happens in the world, there is never a shortage of people willing to shell out big bucks to remember their big days. New York based documentary filmmaker Doug Block (51 BIRCH STREET, THE KIDS GROW UP) did just that for 20 years, and with 112 WEDDINGS he brings his two filmic worlds together.
After shooting the wedding videos for 111 couples, Doug (overcome with curiosity and nostalgia) thought of a great idea for his next film: an examination of some his favourite couples, and a revisiting of their unions. And so he began to seek out the blushing brides and glowing grooms of the past to find out whether married life was all they dreamed it would be. Would they still be as happy as they were on their wedding day? Would they even still be together?
Sadly, the answer is often no. Perhaps expectedly, a lot of our couples (statistics would dictate approximately 50% of them) are now divorced or almost divorced. Some remain together, but have endured unimaginable tragedies. Some are exhausted from chasing children. Some are severely mentally ill, and yes: some are legitimately still happily married.
The film’s strength lies in it’s juxtaposition of Doug’s romantic retrospective and his experiences with his current (and 112th) couple. Bright eyed and madly in love, the young love birds believe that they are as prepared as possible to make the leap into married life. I wanted to root for them, and despite hearing about all of the heartache experienced by the previous 111, I still did.
I think that I, not unlike the filmmaker, somewhat expected the journey to affirm for me the importance of the institution of marriage. Like many naive unmarried 20-somethings, I tend to idealize the fantasy of my wedding day, planning and re-planning every detail over brunches with my girlfriends and late-night Pinterest binges. And I know I’m not alone. But do we as a society plan enough for the marriage that follows? I seriously doubt that. The film did nothing to convince me of the importance of the institution of marriage, but I gleaned as much anecdotal evidence as possible in the hopes of learning from their mistakes and removing the veil of mystery that hangs around marriage in my mind.
There’s a saying that if we could see the future, we wouldn’t go on living. We would be crippled, cringing as we wait for the beating we know is coming. Marriage, Block shows us, is certainly one of those situations where blissful ignorance is a both blessing and a curse. The film often feels like a reverse time machine, allowing us to glimpse into the futures of these couples while also watching their weddings from the past. It’s both fascinating and terrifying, and definitely an eye-opening experience.
112 WEDDINGS plays Hot Docs 2014 on Friday night, April 25th – 7pm at Isabel Bader Theatre. It plays again on Saturday, April 26th – 11am at The Bloor, and once more on Tuesday, April 29th – 1:30pm at Isabel Bader. (official website)
For more from Kate Bradford, visit her blog: www.katehasablog.com