Minding the Gap Review

"Being black is cool because you get to prove people wrong like every day"

I have been very curious and excited to watch Minding the Gap for a very long time. I remember the initial rumblings of it at Sundance Festival last year, and then throughout the year, I would see more and more tweets or articles about this documentary. I purposefully went in knowing almost nothing about it, because I find that documentaries work better for me that way. All I knew about the movie was that it was about skateboarding and a small group of friends. I had heard about how great it was and how impactful it was on anyone who watched it, but I had no idea how. In my head I was like, "Oh I really like mid90s a few months back, I'm sure this will be a lot like that but documentary instead of scripted." While that film tackles the idea of adolescence and figuring out who one's self is, this is a journey of truly accepting one's self and how to actually grow up. Bing Lui has instantly jumped up there on my list of documentary directors to keep on my radar because his first outing is something special.

*Spoilers Below*

Movies have always done a great job of raising awareness of social issues, where we need to be better. Minding the Gap takes this idea and rather than telling us a story of why domestic abuse happens, it shows us what it does to people. It reminded me of Blindspotting, where it just shows the world that these people live in, but nothing is ever scripted. Zack and Keire are just speaking their minds over the years that this was filmed. This process helped elaborate on how different people react and view their own troubled past. Even the director, Bing, is making the film to deal with his own past abuse, and watching the path these real people journey on is emotional and personal.

The film toys with the idea that you never know who is capable of physically hurting someone else, and this was so well portrayed through Zach. Up until the point of the movie where you find out he is actually beating Nina, he is viewed as the hard-working father that is trying his best to make ends meet. At this moment the film opens up and expands into the decisions he makes and his negligence to take the responsibility thrust upon him. Bing balances the line of showing his inadequacies with the personal struggle he faces very well, saving his final confrontation on his domestic abuse until late in the film when we see Zack be genuine for the first time in the film. The film never makes you hate him, he's never the antagonist because you are rooting for him, you want him to be better because you can see he is capable of being better. This is perfectly juxtaposed by Keire.

Keire is a young man who realizes he finally needs to grow up and move on from his abusive past. He has always struggled to control his anger because of how his dad treated him. We get to watch him grow and succeed at getting a job and start to finally feel good about himself. There are moments when he takes a step back and think about his demons and he breaks down. He doesn't want people to hate his father for what he did because at the end of the day he still loved his dad and looks back fondly of him. He is always wishing that his dad could see how he has grown up because he knows he'd make him proud. His dad always told him how honored he should be to be a black man, and watching Keire approach these moments with pride was inspiring. He's on camera when he connects so many of the things his dad taught him in his youth. In these moments, he will have a large smile on his face, and it is magical.

Bing is not in his own movie very much, but he has a heartbreaking interview with his own mother. In these moments you see his eyes quiver and his voice get shaky and it makes the film that much more real. This is a survivor amongst his friends putting this out into the world, not an outsider just trying to expose an issue. This is as much a personal journey making the film, as it is the subjects that are living it. His mother is filled with so much regret for bringing a harmful man into their house. There's another interview with a skate shop owner that further exposes how deep Bing's conflict has been buried in him. Although the film has the least focus on him, I truly hope he has found some sort of peace throughout this whole process.

Speaking of the process, I was blown away by the movie. It felt like a buddy just picked up a camera to film everything and after a year decided to actually make it a documentary. There are shots of people hanging out in a messy room that feel like a moment where we were invited over to hang out, contrasted by some gorgeous compositions of the actual skating. These shots are so smooth it feels so freeing to have just a moment of clarity amongst all the turmoil going on inside the guys' heads. Their lives are filled with nothing but bumps until they are on the board and they can just glide for a couple minutes. Accompanied by the superb score, these few pieces really connect the film and provide the emotional core that it needs.

In a movie about domestic abuse, we find a lot of parallels to skating. They skate because they love the challenge and even when it hurts them, they wipe the dirt off and keep going. They skate outside because it's how they feel when they were at home, but at least they have control over the board.

Final Score: 10/10