Comments on: Protagonist: Now Available on DVD

By: dean brandt

dean brandt — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 05:31:40 +0000

hey. we purchased a copy of what we thought was Protagonist (i mean, it has the Protagonist label on dvd), but it turns out that the actual movie on the dvd was Workingman’s Death, another Alive Mind title (which we also have). and it’s not even a good copy of Workingman’s Death, with no menu & oversized picture. any feedback from Alive Mind?? dB

By: Rain

Rain — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:50:11 +0000

I just finished watching this film, and it was absolutely fascinating. The men speak so eloquently about their lives, and the editing is superb. Most of all, I was intrigued by my reaction to the “protagonists’” stories. I felt both extremely different from them (the intense need to fulfill a preconceived notion of masculinity or religiosity and push that identity to its absolute boundary is something I have never experienced) but also very similar to them. The men in the film all seemed to be motivated by a need for control over their lives that we are all told we should be able to achieve but that, ultimately, does not exist. I, too, have gone through the sorts of struggles that the men in the film describe–although on a less dramatic scale–and am still coming to terms with my lack of power over both certain aspects of my personality and certain aspects of society. This film is one that every viewer will probably identify with on some level, and yet is still “exotic” enough that it will captivate from beginning to end. Five stars.

By: Jacob

Jacob — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:21:41 +0000

I’ll admit I was a little skeptical about watching a documentary about Euripides featuring puppets, but after some initial skepticism, I was won over by the stories of the four men. To some, the puppets may be jarring (this might be the only movie I’ve ever seen featuring puppet violence), but they do play an integral role in tying together four very different, but similar stories.

The four protagonists- Mark Salzman, a martial arts enthusiast yearning for dignity, Mark Pierpont, a Christian evangelist struggling with his homosexuality, Hans-Joachim Klein, a left-wing German terrorist, and Joe Loya, a serial bank robber- each have a fascinating story to tell, and Yu interweaves their narratives with quotes from Euripides’ The Bacchae in a way that provides a cohesive structure to the movie.

What struck me about the stories is how much these men grow up in the shadow of their families, in particular their fathers. The expectations and demands of masculinity haunt and shape their lives in a way that inevitably leads to agony for them and those around them, and this is where I think their tales most closely mirror Greek tragedy. Inevitably, each man experiences a painful ‘catharsis’ that dramatically reshapes their lives.

What I find truly unique about this documentary is its focus on the masculine experience, how our parents and our backgrounds can set men’s lives in seemingly irreversible directions, and how the sometimes crushing
demands of manhood can overwhelm any other motivation. Intending to do a documentary on Euripides, Jessica Yu reminds us that Greek tragedy, too often relegated to required reading for disinterested high schoolers, is
still incredibly relevant to contemporary life.