HotDocs 2022: Sam Now
hotdocsSince its earliest conception, film has been used as a form of therapy. Therapy for a society going through hard times; therapy for groups who feel alone and need to feel connected to the world around them; therapy for filmmakers who need to get ideas and expressions off their chest. Naturally, the documentary genre has grown to be a powerful tool for this type of expression, with true stories of pain and love being shared and pushed. Screening as part of the 2022 HotDocs, Reed Harkness' documentary Sam Now is exactly this. When he was just a teenager, Sam Harkness' mother mysteriously left her family behind to start a new life somewhere else. Without any warning or possible signs of unhappiness, she left her children behind, leaving a void and scar on the family that never truly healed. Years passed, and while police were able to confirm that she was healthy and not being held against her will, nothing ever formed past this. Finally in the early 2000s, Sam's older half-brother Reed decided to help his brother find her. Brought together by a tight bond from making short films growing up – where Sam created his superhero character The Blue Panther – the two grabbed a camera and hit the road to make their best film yet: The Blue Panther finds his mom.
Immediately what stands out in Sam Now is the heart within the project. Love is a common point of analysis for the film, yet even in its filmmaking core, the emotion is felt. Being an intimate production between the brothers and their family, it is impossible not to feel the bonds and love shared between them. From the interviews – which carry an extra weight of a family finally being forced to rip open a wound and communicate their emotions surrounding a tragedy – to the hope that the film carries to truly help Sam and this family recover, there is an endless vast of empathy and emotion that feels infectious. The innocence found in things like the character of The Blue Panther is wonderfully juxtaposed with the raw tragedy of the story to create a complex identity that replicates what the characters themselves are going through. The editing of the feature by Darren Lund and Jason Reid is stunning, as they blend home videos with newly captured footage beautifully to create a dynamic yet meaningful ride through the emotional ups and downs of the story. The sheer amount of understanding and direction given to the feature on a purely emotional level is rather extraordinary and really shows the talents of all those involved both in front and behind the camera.
It is only helped that the story itself is so emotionally raw and layered. With a completely authentic lens given to the development of the story that embraces vulnerability and uncomfortableness, the impact and trauma of the event are devastating in the best of ways. It is hard to think of many other features to truly capture the ups and downs that can come from a turbulent relationship between child and parent. Held together by the social pressures and true desire for love and a healthy relationship, the hope and joy that can come from small successes only for everything to turn on a dime and the complex pain of reality leave everyone and everything in a state of diastrophism is all too real and authentic for anyone with similar experiences. There is a pain found within the feature that is ironically built and defined by the concept of love. This exploration is only made more worthwhile when it comes to the perspective the film has. Not only does the audience get to see and experience the emotions Sam holds in his teenage years, but the film continues into his adulthood, where the scars of this relationship linger. The trauma never goes away; instead, it transforms and manipulates in different ways which is a perspective rarely seen or understood, yet Sam Now illustrates it beautifully.
While this personal intimacy between subject and artist is a clear overall benefit for the project, it does leave one issue: some of the narrative developments within the film. Questions like why his mom truly left are never really answered, leading to a conundrum of thought. While naturally these individuals have a right to privacy and are not by any means required to share every intimate detail of their lives, narratively it feels frustrating to have various questions like this ignored. There is also a period of time when his mother came home after being away for a few months and this is never expanded on. These are natural questions that form in the heads of audiences, and on one hand, it is completely understandable that some of these wounds might be too deep or personal to expose to the wider world, as a narrative there is an undeniable frustration.
Still, when it comes to capturing family dysfunction, there are very few projects as impactful as Sam Now. Balancing a dynamic energy with haunting emotions, the film is a focused slice of real life that captures a truth so powerful and complex that it simply can't be fully understood in the realm of fiction. The feature is touching in all the right ways and stands tall as one of the best films of the year.
