THE DOPE ON DOPE AND DOPES

Grass:
A documentary on marijuana prohibition in America. Narrated by Woody
Harrelson. Written and directed by Ron Mann. At the Bloor.

Beyond The Mat:
A documentary on the private lives of professional wrestlers. Starring
Terry Funk, Mick Foley, Jake "The Snake" Roberts and Vince McMahon. Written
and directed by Barry W. Blaustein. At the Varsity.

Show me a film documentary without an agenda and I'll show you a
boring movie.

The concept of "the whole truth and nothing but" may be defined by law
but not by life or art. Reality is always filtered by personal
prejudice, and the better filmmakers instinctively know this and work
with it.

Documentaries must strive to be truthful, but in the context of
presenting a point of view. If they entertain while doing so, all the
better.

Ron Mann's Grass, and Barry Blaustein's Beyond The Mat, both new to
theatres today, fit the bill on all counts. Mann wants us to see U.S.
marijuana laws as hazy and stone stupid; Blaustein seeks human
kindness for professional wrestlers who inflict cruelty on one
another. But both filmmakers want us to enjoy their sermons.

The two are at different stages of their careers. Mann's a veteran
from Canada, whose previous pop culture forays include Twist (1991)
and Comic Book Confidential (1988); Blaustein's a first-time director
from the U.S. who used to write for Saturday Night Live.

But they share a passion for telling their own version of the truth,
as incomplete and arguable as it may be.

Mann's Grass almost needs no introduction, since it has been getting
free publicity from the same kind of sod-headed bureaucrats it so
happily skewers.

It was briefly banned by Ontario film censors (the ruling was quickly
rescinded when saner heads prevailed) because of a brief scene of
archival footage showing laboratory monkeys being put through
marijuana smoking tests.

That Mann would have to fight censorship in his home province is
ironic, given that his film is entirely about U.S. repression.

Narrated by pro-pot actor Woody Harrelson, Grass uses archival footage
and whimsical animation to track the anti-marijuana hysteria, paranoia
and hypocrisy of American authorities throughout the century just passed.

It chronicles not just high times, but crazy ones. It stretches from
the early days of the 1900s, when anti-pot laws were used as racist
ammunition against Mexican fieldworkers; to the 1940s, when jazz
singers and Hollywood actors were deemed insane and immoral by dint of
their weed use; to the 1960s, when getting high was equated with
treasonous civil unrest; to the current decade, when a toking (but not
inhaling) Clinton administration has charged a record number of pot
smokers.

A hundred years after Americans first started getting high, nothing
has really changed, and Grass sure wants you to know it. Harrelson
seems barely able to restrain himself at times as he adds up the
billions of dollars spent, the dozens of studies made and the untold
political promises broken in the continuing war on pot. What a bummer,
man.

The movie is highly didactic, but not humourless. The statistics and
arguments are considerably enlivened by many Pythonesque cartoons and
Claymation zingers created by art director Paul Mavrides, an
underground artist who Mann met while making Comic Book Confidential.
My favourite segmentis a pot version of Monopoly where a bong is
suddenly let out of jail.

The sound editing is also outstanding, mixing themed songs like Bob
Dylan's "Rainy Day Women #12 and #35" (the "Everybody Must Get Stoned"
song, a soundtrack coup) with amusing sound effects and political
weasel words.

Grass succeeds admirably as a pot-smoker's polemic, except it doesn't
go quite far enough. At a brisk running time of 79 minutes, it never
really explains why politicians have remained consistently anti-pot,
including the current baby-boomer residents of the White House,
members of the Woodstock generation who had sworn to change the status
quo.

Mann only hints at the answer: pot use is still outlawed in America
because most Americans either want it that way, or they don't care
enough to fight for change. Way back in 1982, Rolling Stone shocked
its stoner readers with a story titled "The Dog Is Us," which made the
astonishing claim that getting high was no fun anymore. Mann makes no
mention of it.

Grass points out that alcohol Prohibition was abolished by
overwhelming public demand, but it doesn't examine why there's no
similar demand for the repeal of pot laws. This Grass is clipped a
little too short.

Beyond The Mat, on the other hand, goes on a bit too long (nearly two
hours) in seeking sympathy for professional wrestlers. It's a labour
of love for wrestling fan Blaustein, with all the punch-pulling and
maudlin sentimentality that implies. Could WWF kingpin Vince McMahon
really be as reasonable and caring a guy as this movie suggests? Do we
really need this much footage of down-on-his-luck former superstar
Jake "The Snake" Roberts?

But Blaustein has nevertheless fashioned a revealing and eye-opening
look at the real people behind the cartoon characters who spill their
blood and testosterone in the arenas and domes of North America.

He wants us to think that inside every masked assassin screaming for
vengeance, there's a family man who just wants to get home to his
wife, kids and TV channel changer.

The film follows Mick Foley, a genial giant who fights dressed as a
Texas Chainsaw Massacre wannabe named Mankind; Terry Funk, a violent
grappler who, at age 53, is facing the retirement his battered body
demands; and Roberts, whose '70s heyday as a snake-charming ladies'
man has yielded to his current life of scrappling for palooka change,
fighting cocaine addiction and seeking the love of his estranged daughter.

For a sympathetic fan essay, Beyond The Mat frequently lands
unexpected hard punches. Blaustein and his subjects freely acknowledge
that the matches are staged and rehearsed, but we also see how even
the fake fights can lead to accidental injury. And no one could fail
to be moved by the sight of Foley's young children crying at ringside
because they believe daddy is really being hurt. Foley's remorse about
scaring them seems genuine, too.

Grass and Beyond The Mat may not tell "the whole truth" about their
chosen subjects. Nor should they. But they tell enough to make you
want to learn more, and they do it in ways that make their messages
easy to take.