“This is what makes the world interesting.” Almost exactly in the center of the 5-part docuseries “Conbody vs. Everybody,” this line truly captures what works about Debra Granik’s wildly ambitious project, now on the Criterion Channel. Filmed over seven years, Granik’s never-uninteresting series reminded me of the work of Steve James: humanistic, character-driven filmmaking that captures not just a very specific story but also feels like a profile of a major American city at the same time. The personal and the political intertwine in this moving, novelistic series, a reminder that Granik is a filmmaker who deserves to be mentioned alongside the best working today.
The director of “Winter’s Bone,” “Stray Dog,” and “Leave No Trace” sets her camera on Coss Marte, starting in 2014 and filming him and his business partners for 8 years. Long before meeting Granik, and before he could legally drink, Marte was running one of the most lucrative drug operations in the Big Apple, reportedly bringing in over $2 million a year. He was arrested at 23 and sentenced to six years behind bars. While in prison, he dedicated himself to getting in shape, losing 70 pounds in just six months. Other inmates noticed, and he ended up being a correctional variation on a personal trainer. When he was released, he decided to apply the lessons he learned there to a business. Conbody was born.
Not only does Conbody promise a prison-level intensity workout, but it also prioritizes rehabilitation for ex-cons, hiring people straight out of custody to serve as trainers and employees. Marte isn’t just an excellent, forward-thinking businessman; he sees the value of lifting up his entire community and rewriting the future for ex-convicts who don’t have many employment options once they reach the “have you been convicted of a felony” section of the application. Much of “Conbody vs. Everybody” sees Marte sticking to the value of building bridges and breaking patterns, even as potential investors are scared away by employees fresh out of incarceration.
Granik avoids the traditional rise-and-fall structure of a project like this one, which doesn’t take the predictable route. Many filmmakers would have overemphasized the speed bumps put in Marte’s way, trying to craft an overwritten narrative from his life, but Granik understands how to stay out of the way of her subjects, letting the storytelling come organically and even mundanely. We see Marte spend time with his wonderfully sweet son, get nervous before pitch meetings, and, of course, work out enough that it made me feel even lazier than usual, but none of it feels pushed on the viewer. It’s like James or even Frederick Wiseman in its unobtrusive approach.
Granik extends a similar aesthetic to several of Marte’s collaborators, all of them charming and riveting in their own way. She recognizes that none of these stories is exactly the same, and often just spends time with people like Derek Drescher, Syretta Wright, and Tommy Morris in their own spaces, living their normal lives. So much filmmaking about prison and prisoners focuses on just their behind-bars experience, or the crimes that got them there. Seeing Derek feed his cats or talk to his mom about her Jewish background says nothing specific about him being an ex-con, but it adds so much texture to the overall piece. Tommy gets tired on the train as he struggles to make ends meet; Syretta falls in love and gets engaged. All of it is against the backdrop of their biographies, but those details don’t define them. That’s what Conbody is all about: redefining both the physical form and the stigma surrounding the people helping others change their lives through fitness.
Of course, it helps that Marte is such an open, charismatic documentary subject. Typically half-smiling, he sees Conbody as more than just a job. It’s a step to a better life for him and people who are so rarely given a realistic chance to avoid recidivism. “I become attached to their success,” he says. “I care about their outcomes.” And we believe him. He’s downright inspiring in his commitment to everything Conbody is about, which comes directly from his heart and mind. He also knows the value of a good mani-pedi.
Chapter five, which gets to the chaos of 2020, could almost have been its own feature. How Marte and Conbody navigated both the pandemic and the protests of that summer is riveting stuff that feels a bit too quickly sped through, especially when one considers how Covid also impacted prisons. In one scene, Marte and Drescher are actually sewing masks to send to prisoners, who were notoriously under-supplied during the pandemic. It feels like Marte legitimately wakes up every day trying to make the world a better place for his clients, family, friends, and even strangers behind bars. The world would be a better place with more people like him.
Now on Criterion Channel.
