Masculinity Interrogated in Local Sightings Film Fest
Local Sightings Film Festival returned to Seattle for its 28th year from Sept. 19-28 at Northwest Film Forum. I was able to catch the second weekend of the festival and view three feature-length documentaries from Pacific Northwest filmmakers as well as the All in My Head horror shorts. A tendency in the weekend’s selections was examining large-scale social issues from a personal place, following people enmeshed in the heart of these issues. I noticed a clear thread in several of the films I saw: They contained powerful interrogations of masculinity.
In Sarah Hoffman’s Wolf Land, we follow Daniel Curry, a range rider who works with ranchers in eastern Washington to mitigate wolf attacks on livestock through non-lethal management. Meanwhile, Portland-based filmmaker Kenzie Bruce takes us to southern California in her film Firebreak, which centers on co-founders of the nonprofit FFRP (The Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program), Royal Raimey and Brandon Smith. Smith and Raimey, both formerly incarcerated firefighters, founded the program in order to recruit and train current and previously incarcerated people for sustainable employment as firefighters. Finally, in MASC, Seattle-based director Andy Motz interviews men and nonbinary people about what the construct and socialization of masculinity means to them, how it has harmed them, and the potential for detoxifying it.
Andy Motz interviews his dad in MASC
Press Kit via NWFF
MASC is a poetic, visceral exploration of masculinity, with a particular focus on queer men and their relationships to the word. The film intersperses interviews with video footage Motz made as a kid with friends; three of the interview subjects are also childhood friends of his. These home videos struck me as potent artistic tools, and reminded me of the feeling I got seeing home videos of myself crying when a birthday cake was set before me or telling stories with my stuffed animals—they contained truths about myself and the world that shaped me, and it was impossible to look away. In one standout moment which had the entire audience tense, Motz, as a closeted child, interviews his dad, a fundamentalist Christian pastor, about why he left his congregation due to its tolerance of LGBTQ+ people.
Another theme which sizzled under the surface of MASC was the psychological toll that suppressing emotion has on men’s mental health. In one moment, an interviewee breaks down into tears when explaining the feeling of being “nothing” that results from not being seen as masculine enough by people in his life. In a moment of cruel irony, he then apologizes for crying.
There is a similar moment in Firebreak. Towards the end of the film, Raimey and Smith are honored with a mural dedicated to their work’s impact. While accepting the mural, both men begin to cry. Smith acknowledges that he is getting emotional, and behind him, Raimey tries to stand stoic, but there is an evident battle going on in his face to keep the tears back. Meanwhile, the camera cuts to women in the audience beaming at the men’s displays of feeling.
Firebreak doesn’t shy away from the reality that FFRP, while operating at the intersection of social and environmental justice, does not actively dismantle larger problems within the American carceral system, particularly its disproportionate targeting of men of color. While Smith takes a more critical, abolitionist approach to prisons, Raimey sees incarceration as having completely transformed his life and given him a sense of purpose. Despite Raimey and Smith’s differing opinions, they come together through a shared vision of transformation for the trainees they work with, and a nontoxic masculinity focused on self-work and communication.
Daniel Curry and Jerry Francis in Wolf Land
Press Kit via NWFF
Like Firebreak, Wolf Land also centers on a working relationship between two men: Daniel Curry and Jerry Francis, a cattle rancher who Curry has been working with for around a decade. Both Curry and Francis are committed to achieving peaceful coexistence between wolves and livestock. Curry even says at one point, “I’m here to stop a war,” referring not only to the animals, but to the “Stetson hats and Patagonia jackets” who are facing off on the issue of wolf reintroduction along political lines.
On appearance alone, Curry, trekking through the wilderness on his horse with his gun, is a modern prototype of the rugged outdoorsman. But his adamance for de-escalating violence and protecting animals and people on all sides of the conflict shows a radical gentleness. Similarly, the dynamic between Curry and Francis turns out to be an unlikely, extremely wholesome friendship. In a seminal scene, the two men are standing by a fence post, looking out at the land—a classic Western cinematic shot—and Francis begins telling Curry how much he appreciates him. In a post-screening Q&A, Hoffman explained that the conversation came about while taking portraits for the film’s poster. She urged them on a little, but then just let the camera roll as they launched into this “bro conversation,” or as she described it, “saying ‘I love you,’ but in a really chill way.” The film is a beautiful example of two men trying to figure out how to embrace softness in real time in more ways than one.
Finally, for a more lighthearted addition to the masculinity conversation, there was the short film Softboy, which was part of the All in My Head horror shorts collection. This film, directed by Tommy Meisel, takes the stance that to investigate toxic masculinity, sometimes you have to take the satire as far as it is possible to go. This is a whimsical short that uses fantastical set design and plenty of dark humor to imagine what would happen if a man’s fantasies of being the center of the universe were actually true.
Meisel explained that the film was partially inspired by Ted in How I Met Your Mother, a prototype of a hopeless romantic who sees the world as being made for him, in a way.
Eric goes on a journey in “Softboy”
Press Kit via NWFF
