Blue Blood Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Tribeca Winners Revealed
Filed under: Documentary », Drama », Foreign Language », Independent », Awards », Tribeca », Newsstand », Cinematical Indie »
The 2006 Tribeca Film Festival was brought to a close last night with the awarding of prizes, and several major awards went to war films. The winner of the International Documentary Competition was The War Tapes, a film built from footage shot by soldiers stationed in Iraq, and Blessed By Fire, an Argentine film about the lingering effects of the Falkland Islands War, took top prize on the International Narrative Competition. In the New York-specific categories, the best doc award went to When I Came Home, which explores the post-war experience of Iraq veteran Herold Noel, while The Treatment was named best feature. Also recognized were Egyptian epic The Yacoubian Building (best new feature director), The Play (best new documentary director) and The Cats of Mirikitani (audience award and special mention in the New York docs category).Apart from The Cats of Mirikitani, I didn't see any of the winners -- and most of the films that impressed me most were screened outside of competition. That said, my favorite of the weak narrative pool was easily the Croatian comedy-drama Two Players from the Bench, and my choice from the competition docs (a pool in which I saw a fair number of films) was probably Blue Blood, a charming, intimate piece about the Oxford Boxing Club. Those of you who were able to attend the festival, feel free to chime in here and let us know which competition films were your favorites -- what do you think of the results?
Tribeca Review: Blue Blood
Filed under: Documentary », Independent », Sports », Tribeca », Theatrical Reviews », Cinematical Indie »
It’s a wonder no one has a made a documentary
about the Oxford Boxing Club before: The contrast between the brutality of the pursuit and the intellectual reputation
of the school is an obvious hook, and the story of young men in search of greatness is a theme that is guaranteed to
hook an audience. With so much handed to him, however, the task of the filmmaker who takes on the subject is in some
ways even more daunting -- how to take the film beyond the obvious? How to surpass our exceptions, and show us more
than the children of privilege, taking a brief, protected walk on the wild side? In Blue Blood, director
Stevan Riley confronts these challenges head-on and, in many ways, succeeds admirably. Focused on just a small handful
of boxers, his film is wildly engaging and cleverly constructed, faltering only, oddly enough, during the climactic
annual match against Cambridge. The keys to Riley’s film are his athletes, and he chooses them wonderfully. One wonders how many students he filmed before finding five as diverse as the bunch he settled on, but the process was clearly worth all the time and film it took. From Kavanagh, a first-year studying philosophy who looks to weigh all of 80 pounds, to Justin, a gung-ho American Air Force Academy graduate in pursuit of a PhD in astrophysics, Blue Blood’s boxers come from far-flung corners of society. Though Charlie comes from the privileged background with which Oxford is stereotypically associated, Fred grew up poor with a single mother, and has a real fear of not fitting in in his new environment. The only thing the five have in common is a desperate desire to be “a blue” -- to fight a varsity bout for the University.
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