"Helicopter." A film about his mother's death

by Roger Ebert  |  May 9, 2012  | 

From Ari Gold:

When I was twenty, my mother was killed in a helicopter crash with rock music promoter Bill Graham, whom she had recently begun dating after a nearly two-decades courtship. To many rock musicians and fans, Graham was a god; to my brother, my sister, and me, who hardly knew him, it seemed his death was so big it just took our mother with it.

"Helicopter" is a recreation of the emotional aftermath of sudden loss. Nothing could have prepared me for the loss of the person who knew me better than anyone in the world. Nothing could have prepared me for the absurdity of a "famous" death.

My sister Nina performed the voice of our mother, and my brilliant twin brother Ethan composed the music for the film, but, not wanting a documentary, I used actors (actually friends of mine) to play the three of us on film. The movie combines re-enacted scenes--and a few photos and videos from reality--with several kinds of animation which are close to how I actually experienced the truth.

I made "Helicopter" with so many different unreal elements in order to draw a chalk circle around a very personal event, in the hopes that by the last frame of the film, a viewer sees through the circle to his or her own life. I wasn't interested in presenting objective reality--I preferred the subjective reality of a young man, still wanting to talk to his mother about romantic troubles, who suddenly finds that his mother no longer exists. This is the reality of a person trying to comprehend death.

Finally, the film is about the way the mind can filter through any cacophony to find life's core, the one thing that matters: love.

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