In the West, we are all guilty of one thing. It may be that you don’t even know you’re guilty of it, but you are. We are all guilty of the persecution, or at least allowing the persecution, of gingers. If you are now saying you never made a ginger joke at school or whenever, you’re either a liar or ginger. In schools up and down the UK, the ginger children are fair game for a joke. It seems to be one of those characteristics, like wearing glasses or being fat, that will forever make you a playground target, no matter how unacceptable we are told it is. But what happens to these put upon children once they’ve grown up?
Being Ginger is the story of Scott P. Harris, a man searching for ever elusive love. To do this he must first overcome his biggest issue; being ginger. On his quest to make peace his gingertude, he must face public opinion, his friends and his own past in the hopes of being able to find that special person; the one who can look past his hair colour.
There is an interesting mixture of styles which, while not pushing any boundaries, is solid story telling. There are the odd obviously fake moments, but Harris points out the set-up nature of some of the film. A stand-out was the charming stop-motion animation sequences, brimming with character as well as the genuinely funny and shocking interviews. Despite this, it isn’t poorly shot, but it isn’t enthralling either. Fortunately, this is unimportant as the focus is on Harris himself.
Being Ginger sits in shadow of films like A Complete History of My Sexual Failures, and there is a touch of Chris Watts in Harris. However, while Watts plays off of how (apparently) unlikeable he is, Harris’ strength comes from how quickly you can warm to him. We want to follow him and want him to find someone, creating an engagement that is rare in a documentary based around the documentarian (look at anything Nick Broomfield has done and tell me he’s “loveable”).
Something truly surprising is the mixture of the farcical and emotional. The title and the beginning of the film sets it up to be a light-hearted, jaunty journey through a silly subject. Then we are thrown into Harris’ worries and scars caused by what we think is something silly. The true, raw emotion that Harris displays is heart wrenching at times, really driving home the importance of the seemingly silly focus to him and the audience.
The aesthetic and production is steeped in a low-budget, student feel which I found very endearing. You know it was edited in the same suites that are shown in the film, and this makes everything more personal and intimate. This also affects the drive of the film, as it seems slightly disjointed at points. There obviously isn’t a clear means to achieve the films goals at the beginning, but we see it discovered as the film goes on.
The moments that really caught my attention were the over the shoulder shots where we are watching Harris watch an interview he conducted. It’s quite strange how organically the film seems to blend it’s subject while also pointing out the medium of documentary, which has become something of a staple of the genre. The fact that he is making the documentary is integral to it, constantly reasserting that the subject is his life. We are shown things that aren’t necessarily directly related with his being ginger, but we are shown them because they are affected by it.
Being Ginger is an articulate balance of subject and form, flawed, but full of character and real emotion. This is the film that is made when a new talent is finding their feet.
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