Detropia Review

We went to the Main Art Theatre and saw Detropia this afternoon. Detropia is a documentary of Detroit in decline and decay. I was really looking forward to seeing it and came away disappointed, on a lot of levels. Detropia begins at the Detroit Opera House with what looks like all white wealthy patrons listening to an expansive Wagnerian-style opera.  The opera house director then comes on stage and begs for money. Cut from there to what some people call “ruin porn” and introduction of the recurring characters.

First, the good. A lot of the urban landscape shots (ruin porn) are first rate. I’m in the heart of Detroit five days a week and I was surprised by the rawness of some of the images. The dudes salvaging scrap metal and trying to pull down derelict buildings with their pickups trucks were colorful and gritty. That’s about the only good things I can say about Detropia. Detropia descends from there, and quickly.

I found Detropia cliched, self-indulgent and rambling. Frankly, it was boring. Why? The operatic metaphor didn’t work for me, and it’s reoccurrence quickly became tiresome. The film rambled, almost endlessly. The performance artists featured were hugely untalented and the Detroit videographer portrayed was irrepressibly obnoxious and self absorbed. The lengthy soliloquies of the blues bar owner and UAW local president were ill informed and filled with bizarre illogic.

The film, and audience, would be better served if the focus was on the bitter conflict between the Mayor, City Council and city unions. Chronicling the struggle to keep the city on life support versus the preservation of union entitlements and benefits and a dwindling police and fire department working daily twelve hour shifts would have painted a more relevant picture of Detroit. That at least would show viewer what is really going on in Detroit, every single day.

This film does not reflect the real Detroit. Real Detroit is infinitely worse, and infinitely better.

Be your own judge and see it, but wait until it rolls around on Netfilx or Redbox, or even YouTube. That’s what I wish we would have done. In my opinion it’s not worth going to a theatre to see.

Here’s a review that says it better than I do:

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/09/26/scene-in-detroit-detropia-fails-in-idealism-irony-and-integrity/

Here it is on imbd:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2125490/

Here’s the Detropia’s website:

http://detropiathefilm.com/