A Michigan family confronts police injustice, drugs and gender identity in 'North By Current'
Some of the most compelling documentaries begin as one thing and end up something else entirely.
Just ask Angelo Madsen Minax, whose “North By Current” began as an investigation surrounding the death of his 2-year-old niece. The feature, which plays Thursday at the Detroit Film Theatre as part of the Freep Film Festival, eventually turned into a portrait of his family, himself included, over nearly five years.
It juggles several narratives that touch on the power of memory, generational addiction, police injustice, Mormonism and gender identity. Peppered throughout are painterly landscapes around Grayling, Michigan, where the film is set.
“It’s a love letter, an exercise and an exorcism,” Madsen says of the film, which has been screening at international film festivals since he completed it earlier this year. Madsen will appear at Thursday’s screening of the film, which will not be available for streaming like other films in the festival.
“North By Current” is narrated by Madsen, who shot the film while travelling back and forth between his Grayling hometown and Vermont and New York City, where he teaches filmmaking. The movie begins in 2016 with his family still reeling from accusations that his younger sister Jesse and her husband were responsible for the death of their tiny daughter.
Though the charges were eventually dropped, effects and suspicions still linger. Jesse struggles with suspected spousal abuse and drug issues while raising three more children. The movie is broken up by year, ending in the middle of 2020, near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The movie shows dramatic changes in Jesse as she weathers various challenges that sometimes result in her and the kids moving back with her folks. The parents, who are Mormon, have their own challenges in accepting the lifestyles of both Jesse and filmmaker Angelo, who identifies as transgender.
One memorable scene features mom, dad, son and daughter sitting across from one another in a booth at the 1950s-themed Dawson & Stevens diner in Grayling, unable to communicate, while J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers’ “Last Kiss” plays on the jukebox. The “Where oh where can my baby be?” refrain resonates throughout the film.
Madsen’s essay-style approach also features footage from his family’s extensive home movie archives. These range from 8mm images of his parents from the 1960s to video recordings of him and his sister shot mostly by his father two decades later.
“Editing is where I live,” according to Madsen, who says he knew he was done with the movie when “there was no tension left in the air to cut.”
The filmmaker considers “North By Current” the most “narratively conventional” of the projects he has done so far. The tone of the film is partly driven by the change of seasons in Michigan, beginning with frigid rural landscapes and ending with thawing ice and running water, perhaps a reference to the “current” of the title.
Madsen, who attended the Art Institute of Chicago, cites the late underground filmmaker George Kuchar as an early influence, but finds his biggest inspiration in contemporary documentary filmmakers whom he connects with at events like the Freep Film Festival.
He believes that documentaries have come a long way from the days of PBS-style talking heads and stock footage, but adcknowledges that his idiosyncratic, first-person filmmaking style can be a challenge for some viewers.
Audiences, he says, “feel entitled to information, exposition, because they want to understand. … I still think it’s more compelling to consider the questions over the answers.”
Freep Film Festival
Wednesday-Sunday
Various locations in metro Detroit
Tickets and lineup info at freepfilmfestival.com
"North by Current" screens at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Detroit Film Theatre at the Detroit Institute of Arts