Art rises from ruins of Detroit
Once the shining example of U.S. industrial might, Detroit now can barely keep the lights on and the police force operating.
Decades of factory shutdowns, outsourcing of production to China and Mexico, and the decline of the Big Three carmakers are among the official reasons, leaving the hardpressed residents of Motor City to pick up the shattered pieces of their city and of their lives.
Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, Oscar-nominated for their earlier Jesus Camp, aim a compassionate and artful lens in their new documentary Detropia, finding signs of life in the ruined city. They spent a year there, watching it through all seasons.
They find lots to eulogize about a city that’s now better known for destruction than construction. Much of the commentary is wordless: gleaming office towers opposite ruined buildings and vacant lots; waving flags juxtaposed with swirling plastic bags. When people do speak, it’s often to state the obvious. “These are houses that are never coming back,” a TV pretty boy unhelpfully notes, as he and his camera crew watch a demolition crew. We also meet people who still believe in the audacity of hope. People like retired schoolteacher Tommy Stevens, who owns and now also cooks at the Raven Lounge, a restaurant and blues club near a GM plant. “There’s no buffer between the rich and the poor,” says Stevens, something of a philosopher. “The only thing left is revolution.” What kind of revolution? The film isn’t clear, and Grady and Ewing aren’t inclined to offer pat solutions for a city where even the mayor glumly states, “The city is broke.” The problems have been a long time coming, and they won’t be quickly solved. Detropia also follows George McGregor, a UAW local president, who has to try to persuade his workers to accept a pay cut of more than $3 per hour if they want to keep their jobs at an American Axle plant that might otherwise close. Art triumphs, at least. Video blogger Crystal Starr attempts to make visual poetry out of the advancing dystopia. And the light at the end of the tunnel is the surprisingly large influx of young people from other states, many of them artists, who are attracted by the city’s dirtcheap rents. They may not be able to save Detroit, but they could be the start of a vibrant new metropolis.