Where Are You Go

So last Friday was a big night in Toronto. Where Are You Go was making its hometown screening at the Royal Cinema on College St here in Toronto as part of the Bicycle Film Festival. You can check out the trailer here. It was also an impromptu reunion for former staff and participants of the Tour d’Afrique living in the area.

It would have taken a lot for this positive upbeat crowd to not like the movie, but let’s – for a moment – take a critical look at the film from my amateur eyes.

Positives:

• Beautiful cinematography
• Excellent interviews
• Captured the “essence” of the tour to some degree

Negatives:

• No focus or theme
• Lacked structure and conclusion
• Intro didn’t fit with the movie
• Making a docu film where the subject of the film is the filmmakers screams “I couldn’t find any other storyline in my footage”

First let’s talk about the positives of the filmmaking, and bare in mind that this was the first collaboration between Brian Vernor and the Zenga Bros and the their first full length documentary. But there are some obvious strength that each of them brought to the table.

I am going to credit most of the beautiful cinematography to Benny. My experience with Benny while I was with them for the first few weeks of their filmmaking in Egypt and from the shorts of his that I have watched is that he has a unique and creative style that is fresh and fun. There use of both sharp focused images mixed with grainy shakey retro looking footage and “handy-cam” style bits here and there gave the film a certain uncomfortable feel that fit the nomadic and constantly mobile state that the filmmakers and the tour is always in. It also expresses the discomforts of how they were living – often tired, often wanting a shower after a long day in the heat, and always ready to get up at the crack of dawn and ride, ride, ride.

The interviews throughout the film drew us in. They really are meaningful and my suspicion is that Brian was behind a fair number of these. It takes a skill to draw out real emotion and deep thought. After a long day cycling, to be asked about your day, it would be easy to say “I’m tired, I hurt, I don’t want to talk.” But to get real content they either got lucky, or have a bit of a nack for it, or they had lots and lots of bad interviews they had to sort through to find these.

My bias, as someone who has met almost every TdA cyclists since its inception and my extensive time on the tour, might have helped me relate more to these interviews, but I believe that anyone can listen to them and relate, and it could alter the impression many people have of what it’s like to travel in Africa and to cycle such a distance.

There was no focus or overriding theme to the film. There advertised theme is the “endurance of human curiosity” but if that was there theme it was weak, and it diverted to other focuses on several occasions.

The film lacked structure and the intro did not fit the film. It started with black and white footage of the team in Amsterdam on their layover on a flight from North America to Cairo. Like a children’s book it walked us through the fact that these guys were going to Africa to make a documentary. Then it flashed to some older black and white footage of Africa to give some historical context to the Tour d’Afrique and the route from Cairo to Cape Town. It all looked nice but it just didn’t mesh with rest of the film.

Lastly, making a film about themselves told me that they had (A) not been able to determine a central focus before the start of the filming and (B) that they had not been able to filter through their mountain of stunning footage wel enough to make it about something other than themselves. The only thing they could grab onto was themselves and their tall bike and their interaction with the people they met along the way. But in the end I think that worked, having them as characters in the film was ok and didn’t seem awkward or out of place or arrogant.

In conclusion, I write as if writing directly to the three filmmakers – Benny, Chirstian, and Brian have put a huge amount of energy into this project for the last two years, and they deserve the wonderful reception their film is getting. I believe Benny once told me that they had over 400 hours of footage they had to work through upon returning from Africa. That’s over 15 full days of footage! Imagine how long it would take to edit this. The few times I saw Benny in the months leading up to the premiere in New York, he look completely exhausted, and I imagined long days and sleepless nights of watching and re-watching hours upon hours of footage.

I am sure they have learned a ton about filmmaking, working in the field, and all my critical comments above are not meant to be destructive because I do hope they read this and can take from it some useful tips.

For me at Tour d’Afrique this film is invaluable in promoting our tour and giving people a glimpse into what it really is. Congratulations to Benny, Christian, and Brian. Job well done.

…oh, and if you’re wondering what the title of the film is all about – “Where are you go?” and “What are you doing?” and “Where is your home?” are common things we hear from the children as we cycle our way through Africa.