Girlhood (2003)
A fascinating subject. Camera friendly faces. Dedication to the project. Dedication to the craft. These are things a filmmaker like Liz Garbus has control over. These are areas where her powers as a storyteller and an artist can manifest themselves within a given set of definable rules. Then there are the intangible webs that the documentary gods spin.
In a time where “reality television” more often than not is scripted and manipulated, it is easy to feel paranoid when facing down the last bastion of true reality entertainment and enlightenment, the independent documentary feature film. A film where someone called a director, but more aptly called a documentarian, is incapable of directing anything. The life force of the subject, the signs of the times, the alignment of the cosmos, the Fates themselves are driving this train.
When, in 1999, Garbus points her camera at two painfully young women in a correctional facility outside of Baltimore, she cannot predict the outcome of her film. She chooses to focus upon a volatile, implosive situation and she can only arm herself with sensitivity to the issue itself and faith in an overseer who has gifted us in the past with the likes of Hoop Dreams. The main “actors”, a cherubic black girl named Shanae who was on drugs and pregnant at eleven and stabbed a friend to death at twelve, and Megan, a cloyingly appealing, yet self destructive (shebiselfdestructive) nymph, exist in a warped, confused world where the grim truths of life strike early and unfairly.
1999. Two girls – crimes behind them – an environment with plenty of discipline and plenty of love – (I can hear Tom Petty crooning now) – the future was wide open. Liz Garbus, director of the acclaimed The Nazi Officer’s Wife and a very well respected voice in the field, stands ready, taking it all in – for more than three years. One can imagine the epic of minor proportions Girlhood turns out to be. Think about the ingredients. The optimistic nature of youth. The seductive enchantment of the street. Potential to be great, to remain unchanged and impenitent, to keep your head above water, to drown. Girlhood takes us on the type of emotional journey that simply can’t grow out of a script because…because you know it’s real. That look of anguish when a hero disappoints, real. A furious tantrum erupting after years of bottled up frustration, it's being felt with scathingly raw hurt. That jubilant smile when an unpredictable redemption peeks through the storm clouds, real as the air we breathe and the sunshine that warms us.
Without wanting to offer up the intimate details of the film (now playing in NY at the Quad Cinema on West 13th Street), but still encouraging you to check it out, I would like to refer to one of the foundations of Girlhood, because it is the most lasting.
Once again I find myself writing about family, and in particular, maternal figures. Both girls naturally have mothers and both girls have rebelled, but if you have ever doubted the influence and worth of a strong, supportive family situation, Girlhood will open your eyes wide with blinding brightness and it will be impossible to look away or ignore the importance of a parent as a guiding force. Witness the earth shattering difference between the chances of a girl with a working, caring mom, and a girl with a junkie to come home to.
With two girls who have done the unthinkable, it is their mothers that can move mountains with the slightest word, the subtlest gesture. Garbus’ overarching lesson in this disturbing, yet life affirming portrait is that girlhood is an early stage of life, but the consequences of mistakes upon womanhood and, more significantly, motherhood will ultimately have the final cut.
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