mushinnoshin

A few people have posted about the fascinating film still playing at the Belcourt called The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, which I saw Friday night. I don’t have a lot to say about it but did want to make one observation.

Unfortunately I ‘m not entirely sure I have the right words to capture what I want to say. I’ll try, but bear with me.

I think what makes the film so compelling is this — on one level, it takes a story about a topic so trivial as to be absurd but uses a human interest element to make it fascinating, but moreso, the film knows that it’s doing this and does it right in front of us, and this very dichotomy in fact is the story, and it’s captured right there in black and white.

In the deliberate humor found in the angle of the light shown on Billy Mitchell’s arrogance, we see that the film recognizes the overblown pomposity in believing that these games somehow “matter”. Billy Mitchell takes himself way too seriously in precisely the way that you think the film might take itself and its topic too seriously, but doesn’t. But then we meet Steve Weibe, and in the earnest heart of someone who doesn’t take it too seriously except insofar as being a way to challenge himself and find a sense of pride and self worth — we discover exactly why it all should be taken seriously, at least as seriously as anything and everything else with which we thinking animals occupy ourselves — because people care about it, and because everyone wants to be the best at something they enjoy.

Sure, Donkey Kong is just a game. So is life.