No endgame in site
By John Esther
Banned from Slamdance Film Festival for no explicable reason, director Danny Ledonne's documentary, Playing Columbine, made its World Premiere debut at AFI Film Festival 2008 last night to a surprisingly and disappointingly small attendance.
Inspired by the awful events that took place at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999, in which two demented teenage students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, waged a murderous assault on their school, Ledonne made a video game called Supergame Columbine Massacre RPG!.
Naturally the immediate kneejerk reaction to the game was to view it as "exploitative," "obscene" and hopes that Ledonne would meet the same fatal fate as Columbine students Rachel Scott, Daniel Rohrbough, Kyle Velasquez, Cassie Bernall, Isiah Shoels, Michael Kechter, Lauren Townsend, John Tomlin, Kelly Fleming, Daniel Mause, Corey DePooter and Steve Curnow, plus teacher and coach Dave Sanders, met that day.
If critics had bothered to actually watch the game -- where it seems there is no way out but hell for the killers, victims linger onscreen longer than usual video game storyline, and an emphasis on the amount of sorrow brought on by such actions is displayed -- these conservative critics may have come to understand that this low grade, amateurish video game was breaking boundaries by using the video game medium as a form of social engagement.
Using his journey from creator to "monster" to spokesperson as the narrative arc, Ledonne chronicles his own plight against the larger social context of video games as the emerging 21st medium. Gathering interviews from critics, fans, lawyers, politicians, video game makers and players alike, the best documentary I have seen at this year's festival weighs in on the values and responsibilities that come from having and maintaining the First Amendment, video games as art, targeting new audiences that may not typically engage themselves in social issues, and historical context via previous forms of art, namely cinema. To its credit, Playing Columbine slowly and surely bares out that form and content are never inseparable.
Screening today at 3:15 at Arclight Hollywood, Ledonne's impressive debut is a worthy companion to two other films which have addressed the Columbine massacre, Michael Moore's famous documentary, Bowling for Columbine and Gus Van Sant's eloquent yet problematic film, Elephant.
For more information log onto http://www.afi.com/afifest
