Ryan McNeil
Hope.
It’s a far loftier virtue than its one syllable and four letters suggest. It involves a threshold for punishment, a deep level of personal belief. It depends on the notion that better times are ahead, despite any and all evidence to the contrary. It’s a quality that our cynical society seems to cast aside to the likes of starry-eyed idealists. But Hope is a good thing…maybe the best of things…and it’s films like THE INTERRUPTERS that want to keep hope alive, and show us just what hope can achieve.
THE INTERRUPTERS is the newest documentary from Steve James. The film focuses on the work of Cease Fire – an organization working on Chicago’s south side. Cease Fire’s mission is to stem the tide of violence and murder that has run rampant over the city’s neighbourhoods. The group relies on Interrupters: people who come from these very neighbourhoods, who often know the people perpetrating the violence, and who many times have done jail time for their crimes. They act like mediators, or negotiators. They are there to curb the mindset that allows murder as a solution for a disagreement.
The film follows The Interrupters as they speak with all sorts of people within the neighbourhood. Sometimes they are trying to stop a situation as it happens, hoping to take it off the burner before it boils over into bloodshed. Sometimes they are working with youth who have been released from custody, since the system isn’t always interested in rehabilitating these men and women. For them, there’s always the possibility that after they get out that they’ll be on their way right back in short order. That’s the sort of loop The Interrupters want to prevent.
Cease Fire relies on people like Eddie Bocanegra, Ameena Matthews, and Cobe Williams to reach out to the community…to show young men and women just how many options they really have…and to perhaps interrupt the violence.
As THE INTERRUPTERS ends, the soundtrack chimes out with Solomon Burke soulfully pleading “Don’t give up on me”. To some, such a closing song might feel a bit on-the-nose, but as I thought about it, it is perhaps the most fitting war-cry THE INTERRUPTERS could close with. From the wider angle, it could be coming from the Chicago neighbourhoods as a collective. These areas of a vibrant city where safe areas are at a premium face real danger of being left behind. They could soon be turned into areas where businesses won’t open out of fear. These same neighbourhoods also have trouble offering quality education to the local youth.
How long before those above the fray decide “Enough is Enough” and move businesses, quality schools, and social services away once and for all? If that happens, what then for these neighbourhoods and the people who live in them?
The call of “Don’t give up on me” could likewise be coming from the troubled youth we meet within the course of THE INTERRUPTERS. Ask yourself, would you keep coming back time after time and reaching out to someone who asks for your help but seems incapable of putting in the complete effort? How tempting must it be to stop answering the phone calls? How tempting must it be not to sit and talk to them? Perhaps though, these young men and women have come to where they are because so many in their past have already turned their backs on them. What can possibly be gained if the rest of us do too?
The example of what’s possible comes in the form of The Interrupters themselves. Ameena, Cobe, and Eddie all ran with some truly rough crowds growing up. Cobe and Eddie did prison time for their sins, and Ameena was the victim of a shooting. As Cobe and Eddie were released, they both could have returned to their gangbanging ways. After Ameena was treated for her gunshot wound in hospital, she could have sought vengeance. None of them took the easy road. All of them began to see how precious life truly is, and how dangerous their lifestyle had become. Prior to these moments, it could have been very easy for anyone to turn their backs on these men and this woman…but had we walked away from them, we never would have seen them turn into the community leaders that they are.
And that’s the key to what Cease Fire and THE INTERRUPTERS wants from us as an audience: It wants us to believe in people.
The easy thing to do is to walk away…to write them off. However, if we fall into that temptation, we run the risk of turning our back on real human vibrance. What’s worse is that we don’t just lose the problematic people, but we also lose any children they might influence. It’s like pruning a rotten apple from a tree, but taking the spur with it – sure you’ve removed the rot, but you’ve also affected the next harvest.
It’s easier to be cynical – to toss that rotten apple and walk away. It’s easier to collapse into cynicism and take care of our own. That’s what makes what Cease Fire is doing so very special: It’s anything but easy. It is emotionally draining, it is seemingly endless, and it comes with some real danger. They are faced with angry and violent people asking “How can you help me?” and they don’t back down. Many of them are atoning for their own sins in the best possible way, and becoming shining examples why the rest of us should never turn our backs on ways to help.
After my screening of THE INTERRUPTERS, I was able to ask director Steve James how Cobe, Ameena and Eddie are able to keep coming back day after day and working to break the cycle of violence. James pointed out that in the case of Cobe and Ameena that when their workday ends, they are able to leave the communities they work with and go home to their families in safer neighbourhoods. In that they are able to quietly regroup, draw strength from their loved ones and their faith, and find the fortitude to carry on with their deeply important work with Cease Fire. James couldn’t possible understate the importance of this. In some ways, the lack of a real support network is what leads to the violence The Interrupters are trying to stem. Seeing what they have to work from, and the fortitude it provides.
THE INTERRUPTERS is playing in Toronto at The TIFF Bell Lightbox from now until October 20th. For details on screenings outside of Toronto, visit the film’s website.
I had an opportunity to see this at Hot Docs. It was 150 minutes long, but the movie is so engrossing that I didn’t want the movie to end. I am not sure what they cut out in this release, but regardless I could watch this again. There are not too many movies that are great and important. This is that movie. The best doc of the year, which is saying something since this is a great year for docs.
I was beginning to think nobody would comment on this post! I’d like to see the longer version myself as I enjoyed every second of time we spent with these people. I was pretty damned close to tear more than once, and Steve James alluded to a few things that were left on the cutting room floor.
Are you from Toronto? Or were you just in town for Hot Docs?
I am from Toronto. I remembering seeing Steve James’ name on the Hot Docs program and it’s a no-brainer for me. Hoop Dreams is my favorite documentary of all time and I was glad to have a chance to see it on a big screen last week at the Lightbox.
I would love to see The Interrupters last Fri, but have a previous engagement so couldn’t go. One of the question I would ask Steve James would be why cutting 30 mins of the movie? The only answer I could think of is that the audience may not want to see a 150 min doc.
Hard to say, although in my experience long docs can be an endurance test. I’d be curious to know what you think of the original cut versus the new edit.
And nice to be talkin’ with ya – always happy to meet another local movie-lover.
This movie was absolutely amazing, and yes, inspiring. Makes me specifically just want to be better to people, particularly strangers.
I hear ya man! Hopefully more people get a chance to see this film. I especially hope it can do well come Oscar time.