WRITING CULTURE 2012: Film, Food & Beyond

Frankly speaking, I did not know that Detroit is going through a major economical crisis: many people just have no jobs, so the majority moves out, the housing and land drastically decreased in price: the filmmakers give an example of a house in a remote neighborhood that was sold for $6000.

My major is journalism, so I loved the way this documentary was put together and filmed in general.  You could see that the filmmakers did a huge job in terms of shedding light to both sides of the conflict, interviewing people who relate to this story from different angles: workers of the big company who lost their jobs, social workers that help these kinds of people, politicians who try to help the dying city and rearrange the neighborhoods, land purposes and budget, the citizens who disagree with the latest, people who crumble down  the growing amount of abandoned houses, those who try to survive in these conditions by collecting and selling scrap metal and those who own a business on the outskirts of Detroit, and finally those, who move in to this city drawn by the housing cost.

I loved the small details that underline the general gloomy mood of the movie: they were showing a lot of old and abandoned houses,closed theatres with a bunch of rotten furniture (they even invited an opera singer to one of these theatres to sing in an empty and shabby walls for the contrast), but the word on the wall, made from remaining letters of the former “auto parts” store sign, which now said “utopia”, seemed to be the apotheosis of the whole comparison of how prosperous the city used to be in the 30-s and how this city is now. It took the filmmakers quiet a while to film all the parts of the movie and put all the pieces together: some parts of the movie take place in the winter and some in the summer.

In general, the movie is just telling us a story of  once “the fastest growing city in the world”  becoming basically shrinking city with falling rate of jobs, and it seems that the only thing that is raising here is crime rates.

I dont think I really liked the movie, and I guess it is because it is lacking the sensation, something extraordinary and extremely interesting. The filmmakers are just showing what is happening very slowly, just like a time bomb, which when once explodes, will give a better movie.

The pictures are taken fromhttp://www.google.com/imgres?q=detropia&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1228&bih=598&tbm=isch&tbnid=rDFALnpWCDCfeM:&imgrefurl=http://detroit.curbed.com/tags/detropia&docid=CSKGkINf-kH3rM&imgurl=http://detroit.curbed.com/uploads/Screen%252520Shot%2525202012-01-20%252520at%25252011.06.11%252520AM.png&w=500&h=282&ei=kJFzULSwOufi0gHM1YCIAw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=103&vpy=158&dur=473&hovh=93&hovw=169&tx=159&ty=109&sig=118304664772334435137&page=1&tbnh=94&tbnw=169&start=0&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:7,s:0,i:95

and

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=detropia&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1228&bih=598&tbm=isch&tbnid=l9lLgD8MuZBbxM:&imgrefurl=http://www.sundancechannel.com/sunfiltered/2012/01/the-sundance-review-review-detropia/&docid=mbuL1lZ7wQyEGM&imgurl=http://www.sundancechannel.com/sunfiltered/wp-content/uploads/detropia-01232012.jpg&w=560&h=385&ei=kJFzULSwOufi0gHM1YCIAw&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=313&sig=118304664772334435137&page=1&tbnh=127&tbnw=160&start=0&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:5,s:0,i:88&tx=55&ty=72