Carts of Darkness
2008 · 59m · Canada
Directed by Murray Siple
Genres: documentary
Tones: darkly comic, provocative, tender
Homeless men in North Vancouver race shopping carts down steep hills at high speed while sustaining themselves through bottle-picking.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Homeless men racing shopping carts down North Vancouver hills — Jackass with a conscience and 6.4 million views says something true. NFB knows the rare doc that refuses both poverty-porn and inspiration-porn.
Siple's NFB documentary about homeless North Vancouver men racing shopping carts down hills — refusing both poverty-porn and inspiration-porn — is one of the great Canadian documentaries of the century, and 6.4M views over eleven years confirms what the form does at its best. A genuinely important work.
NFB feature-length documentary at 59:31 with 6.4M views over 11 years — Murray Siple shooting this from a wheelchair after his own spinal injury reframes the whole craft of how he observes mobility and risk. That biographical lens is what saves it from poverty-porn.