If any of you have ever had the opportunity to attend a large film festival you may not know the hysteria going on behind the scenes. In 2006, my theater had the privilege of being part of the Minneapolis/St Paul International Film Festival. The festival lasted two weeks and our theater averaged showing 4 films a day. This meant we typically had 8 films a day that either had to be built up or broken down. Couple this with the fact that many of these films don’t arrive at the theater until an hour or two before they need to be on screen, resulting in less then ideal conditions for working with these prints. Hell is less stressful.
Alex Karpovsky (General Impression of Size and Shape) has spent too much of his life shooting karaoke videos, when what he really wants to do is produce and direct his own television show entitled Provincial Puzzlers. So when a opportunity presents itself in a small Minnesota town, Alex recruits a camera crew and heads out from Boston for his one shot at glory. But once he arrives he discovers a significant detail has been missed that threatens to derail his both his project and his dreams.
One of the supposed perks of working a film festival was we had passes to any movie showing during the festival. Of course, the four of us who worked as projectionists at our theater were so busy with film work we rarely had any free time to see the films. So of the over 100 films at the festival that year I had the chance to watch one, and that film was The Hole Story.
Though I had done a fair bit of research on which film to watch, I had lucked out with my selection. With its documentary style, complete with both scripted and unscripted moments, The Hole Story is difficult to classify. It is neither docudrama nor mockumentary and its existential bent will make it difficult to garner a mass audience. But The Hole Story is a well crafted yarn that begins as a blissfully ignorant farce before taking a dramatic turn towards something with far more depth and humanity then originally planned.
Now I am sure you are wondering, “But what is the film about?” I could provide a scene by scene synopsis to satiate your curiosity, but The Hole Story works far better as an experience when you possess as little information as possible and merely allow the film to take you on its intended journey. But for a film that attempts to answer deep philosophical questions resorting to cheap gags about desperately searching for a life size Paul Bunyan statue would hardly seem to fit with its intended message. But the genius of the film is finding humor in its unabashed desperation while also nurturing its inevitable descent into depression It is a delicate balance that could unravel at any moment, but Karpovsky deftly maintains this harmonious mingling of levity and dourness for much of the film.
One thing I was a bit surprised by, was The Hole Story being compared to a melding of Woody Allen and Werner Herzog. Stylistically, this couldn’t be further from the case. The Hole Story possesses neither Allen’s trademark frantically neurotic dialogue nor Herzog’s unabashed cinematic brio. But The Hole Story does have key elements of obsession that should resonate with fans of either director. The Hole Story may appear to be be just a silly tale of a man putting everything on the line, but Karpovsky has opened the door to his experiences for all to see his failures and his inability to come to grips with his dreams slipping through his fingers. It’s a far greater undertaking then even his Provincial Puzzlers would have you initially believe.
