Carts of Darkness- Vancouver Premiere

While on the surface, Carts of Darkness appears to be a simple story of bottle collectors bombing down hills in shopping carts, something you might stumble across on Youtube. But by putting himself into the documentary, Murray Siple creates an insightful exploration of the human condition. This is no ordinary feat. The traditional role of documentarian is to maintain a calculated distance from his or her subject, lest the subject become too aware of themselves as a participant in the filming process. However, given the outsider nature of binners, the challenge instead was to gain access to their lifestyle. But how does one achieve this without taking on the cheap sentimentality that can infiltrate the storyline, as is often the case with such films as Bowling for Columbine? Here it is Siple's disability that works for and against him, giving the film an underlying tension. The binners are obviously less threatened by Siple and let him in, but at the same time his condition offers a physical barrier that prevents him from going too far.