SXSW 2008: "Bi The Way."

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Written by Alison Willmore, the all-seeing Indie Eye blog reads the news so you don't have to. (Well, maybe just the A & E section).

Alison Willmore

is the editor of IFC.com's film coverage and one of the site's video hosts. Follow her at twitter.com/indie_eye

Email: ifcblog (at) ifc dot com

By Alison Willmore on 03/09/2008

Filed under: Festivals, Reviews

There's an interesting doc to be found somewhere in the recent surge in the cachet of showing an openness to sometimes bat for the home team, or at least make out with the shortstop on a friend's couch after a few beers. "Bi The Way" is not it. The first film from Brittany Blockman and Josephine Decker, "Bi The Way" would like to be an exploration of our nation's shifting sexual mores, but it's so unfocused that it never really manages to argue its thesis, one that some of its own interviewees are hesitant to endorse. Is bisexuality actually on the rise? A slo-mo replay of the Britney-Madonna VMA kiss does not an argument make. Closer looks at a few subjects — an 11-year-old from an unconventional family, a male dancer getting into his first relationship with another man, a theater type with mother issues, a teenager girl, a couple exploring bringing in a third — are surrounded by interviews with academic and journalistic talking heads, and by footage of the filmmakers on a road trip, talking to people across the country about bisexuality. It's a very literal approach to capturing the cultural zeitgeist, I suppose, but stooping to footage of how your scouting process involves asking a Utah fast food drive-through attendant where one would find a bisexual Mormon doesn't come across as a cute joke, it comes across as an insulting flaunting of lazy filmmaking.

But the film does contain one fascinating figure — Josh, a kid on the cusp of puberty who's the son of "Tarnation" director Jonathan Caouette from an early fling with a female friend. Raised by his mother, but in touch and on good terms with his father and his father's boyfriend, Joshua can seem disturbingly grown up and over-informed, but also extraordinarily free, a child sprung from an experimental petri dish of openness and supportiveness in which his determining of his own sexuality is as close as it can come to being no big deal.

[Photo: "Bi The Way," Brittany Blockman and Josephine Decker, 2008]

+ "Bi The Way (SXSW)
+ "Bi The Way" (Official site)

Tags: Bi The Way, Brittany Blockman, Josephine Decker, SXSW 2008

Alex L

Is Bi the Wayâ€”a documentary on bisexuality by freshmen filmmakers Brittany Blockman and Josephine Deckerâ€”any good? Yes, it is. But, more pointedly, does Bi the Way succeed as a documentary? I think it does â€“ given certain expectations.

Best to start with what the movie is not: itâ€™s not a Michael Moore-style polemic. The movie adamantly refuses to frame a problem in certain terms, then pick up a thesis and beat its audience into bruised intellectual submission. So, with due respect to Mr. Mooreâ€™s excellent work, Bi the Way is not a blunt instrument masquerading as documentary.

What the film is, however, is something a little bit more wonderfully nebulousâ€”Bi the Way is more a mash-up of reality televisionâ€™s most introspective moments with the more human side of investigative reporting; call it Paris is Burning meets Quarterlife meets 60 Minutes. And while the film asks for some work on the part of its audience, this lightness shouldnâ€™t be mistaken for a lack of substance.

In fact, one of the tacit questions animating this upbeat, road trip, buddy-movie of a documentary is whether bisexuality ought to be taken as a proper category at all. The filmmakers not only initially raise this question through scientific and expert testimony, but also present it as one of lived experience in some truly poignant moments. Take Tahj, deeply in love with another man, but crossed with a seemingly earnest desire for women, musing something to the effect of, â€œWhen I die, Godâ€™s going to ask me, â€˜What were you doing?â€™â€ Both Tahj and the filmmakers are smart enough to not answer the question too directly.

At its best, the film taps into the subtle issues surrounding bisexuality, producing some of its most beautiful and insightful moments. One of the movieâ€™s most memorable scenes is of Taryn and Rageâ€”a modern dancer and cage fighter, respectivelyâ€”â€œsharingâ€ an experience with another woman. This sharing is juxtaposed with sensuous cuts of Tarynâ€™s dancingâ€”as a result, a swinger party takes on a different tone.

To its great credit, the film avoids painting its subjects cheaply in frank discussions both before and after the party; it refuses to draw too much from Real World influences and constructing a melodrama of potential betrayal and adultery. Even if the shadow of that anxiety dances in and out, the film addresses it, rather than allowing such unease to overpower. The film allows its subjects to speak on their own terms.

And itâ€™s this earnest, lightness of touchâ€”and the film most definitely exudes its own whimsical charmâ€”that is so easily mistaken for a lack of argument. The claim that Bi the Way might profit from some more cohesive structuring is true, but the lack of a highly didactic framework is largely to the filmâ€™s benefit. Bi the Way self-consciously avoids black and white answers, asking its audience to draw their own conclusions; the film seems to want nothing more than to be what it is. In doing so, the film faithfully mirrors its subjectsâ€”searching, yearning, in-between.