Joybubbles

“4.5 out of 5 Cats 😺“

Brett says: “Some of the best documentaries take a unique but relatively straightforward premise and have it go places one never thought that one premise could go. And the best seem to always have something to root for or invest ourselves in. Both are firmly planted in JOYBUBBLES, a documentary about man born blind who finds extreme joy in connecting with the telephone.”Again, a viewer’s first inclination about hearing there is a documentary about a man who finds interest in telephones may be to question how sustainable the concept really is over the course of a feature-length film, but the fascination in it for this reviewer is finding those new revelations in just how far that can go. In fact, the documentary becomes more than just a device and flesh and blood — there is a transcendent quality that eventually develops, and any opportunities we get to take leaps off of the earthly plane, we should all sign up.

“At first glance, one aspect that would seem to work against the piece is that it is mostly recapitulated through voice-over narration from the subject himself; that is, the audience is told about a lot that happened rather than getting firsthand documentation. However, the filmmakers manage to do a superb job of finding artifacts from the time in which the stories are being told and overlaying those images with the narration. Additionally, clips from metaphorically adjacent forms of media are also effective overlays throughout the stories. There is even one particular minimalist animation that I found to be really fitting with the variety of visual sensory abstractions tied between the phone and Joybubbles himself. These all connect the stories with the narration that make it feel like one is not merely listening to someone talk the entire time. What’s more is that the editing team does a marvelous dance among narration and interviewees and news clips to keep the story moving seamlessly and not just one voice throughout.

“Even with all that, the story itself is something worth gathering ’round to campfire as is. Just when it feels like the story has gone as far as it’s going to, further twists and additions sprout new ways to appreciate the totality of this experience. There are extra dimensions to what a man and his telephone can do that no one can see coming. When these discoveries are revealed, the audience feels like they’ve developed along with the subject of the film. That experience is the uplifting and root-for-something/someone aspect that so many great documentaries pull off. In this case, it feels like a collective victory because our lenses are expanded and it feels as if we are part of it as well.

“4 CATS OUT OF 5”