Murderball

Saw Murderball, a sports documentary about quadriplegic rugby. We follow the American team and the Canadian team. It quickly dispenses with the main characters' handicaps. They all came from fairly active lives or were born with neurological diseases. They don't want pity, just respect. Once this is done, we get to the close ups and jump cuts and slow motion which is the bread and butter of sports docs. It was really interesting.

The teammates are really driven people, people for whom sports is their whole life. Their disabilities are terrible blows. One guy when he gets back from the physical therapy center is looking at his room, beautifully retrofitted with arm-rails on the toilet and a lowered bed, and says "this sucks." His family defends the new modifications but he clarifies "no, that's all great but I'm still in this chair." What can you say? It does suck. But then, soon he's moving about in a "murderball" chair and smiling. His injury is a setback, but it's not death. It's not the end.

This is a film about and for tough guys who need to find new ways to live, both in the sense of navigating the world and, higher the hierarchy of needs, how to continue to compete in physical combat, how to keep fighting the world. I have to say I think they're confusing compassion for pity sometimes, and that for all their fighter spirit, I probably wouldn't enjoy having a beer with them (in fact, directly due to their fighter spirit.) But they're all a lot stronger than me and are finding new ways of being. An interesting film.