MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Kurt Walker
Runtime: 72 minutes
More than any year(s) since 2006, 2015 has become the first year in which digital technology has, both within independent and major studio productions, felt like a powerful force in cinema, utilized in various intricate ways. Unfriended and Blackhat explored human connections and interactions in an age of digital interactions: while the former focuses entirely on the ways we use technology to socialize; Blackhat focuses on merging of physical and digital worlds. While it was technically released in 2014, most theatergoers would have seen Godard’s Goodbye To Language 3D, which, as its title implies, continues his fascination with digital as a new language in cinema, the death of film, and the most astounding usage of 3D and one of the greatest examples of the latest capabilities of cinematic innovation. While Kurt Walker’s Hit 2 Pass isn’t at the level of Godard’s or Mann’s innovation (and, quite frankly, no one is), it is an ideal entry point for those interested in films which explore digital capabilities, and a great film in its own right; a stunning debut which remains a fascinating text on modern movies and a deeply personal film with a underlying sense of longing; nostalgia, and hope for the future.
The narrative of Hit 2 Pass, a mostly free form documentary, concerns a father and son who have decided to build a car to race in the latest rendition racing event, which the last competed in during the days of the son’s youth. As they build a car from spare parts for the race, the audience is shown the process, the event, and the people who gather for it. As its scope slowly widens, Hit 2 Pass becomes not only the story of two people reconnecting, but a tale of the memories and experiences of a collective community.
Walker’s influences are apparent within certain aspects of the film — Mann’s fascination w/non-toxic masculine friendship and his exploration of the merging between physical and digital; Godard’s propensity for changes in form and perspective. One shot of a slightly ajar door immediately recalls a recurring motif in what is, perhaps, the first major film about the new digital age: Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse. Hit 2 Pass serves as guidebook and loving homage to the directors carrying the torch for a new type of movie.
Of course, what makes Hit 2 Pass so special is that neither the personal nor experimental threads are counterintuitive, both are intricately designed to compliment each other, in a unique move which recalls the Ross Brothers’ free form documentary Tchoupitoulas. But Walker’s home footage aesthetic and subjects give Hit 2 Pass an unexpected emotional backbone, in which the new age technology merges with past and present memories, documenting the rebuilding of a car, nostalgic plights. The personal merges with the abstract as the film goes from the eyes of a child (in a fantastic sequence in which the camera moves with the child as he fumbles with and peers through a pair of binoculars) to an interview segment with a young man, searching for his roots in the Aborigine culture he was born into by lineage, but did not inherit through upbringing and nurture; he was given up for adoption at birth. In a lengthy static sequence, the young man discusses his longing to get back in touch with the traditions of the Aborigines (this being, perhaps, another metaphorical representation of the shift from film to digital; from heritage to the future). Cinema allows a permanency to memories, capturing events — intimate, insignificant, or otherwise — within the confines of the frame. What one sees is a manipulated version of such events; an idea Walker coyly plays with through his employment of various digital technologies throughout the film. The film is, not coincidentally, ended with a montage of video games: the new era is digital, these are its capabilities. But film and digital have archived memories we will never forget.
KURT WALKER’S HIT 2 PASS IS AVAILABLE FOR FREE NOW THROUGH NOVEMBER 22ND AT H2PHTTF.TUMBLR.COM (please consider donating to Walker’s next film project while you’re there).
Hit 2 Pass (trailer two) from Kurt Walker on Vimeo.
