We are still at the beginning of the wave of documentaries that will be released about life in the United States in early 2020. It will be determined by the human cost of the pandemic, but this historic event has also shaken up a number of other issues, including economic disparity and racial inequality, among other things. The most important film to date about this era is David SeifTouching and luxurious, Bad Ax is a film that has already won awards on the festival circuit and is now getting its limited theatrical release. I thought about this movie more than any other movie this year. It is no exaggeration to say that it inspired me through some difficult times in 2022 as it is a picture of family resilience in the face of adversity. Many of the aforementioned non-fiction films coming out in 2020 and 2021 will suffer by trying to tell every story at once — "Bad Ax" only tells one story and yet it tells a lot in one way or another.
Bad Ax is a small town in Michigan that, despite growing up in the same state, had never heard of it. It is one of those societies that most people drive to on their way to another place, but these are the places that often produce the most unity among their residents. Everyone knows each other in a small town like Bad Ax, everyone knows the family restaurant Rachel's and its owners, including director Siev Chun's father. Being a Cambodian refugee from Killing Fields at a very young age, Chun built a family and a life in Michigan—David could have told his story powerfully even without the events of the past few years because it is a story of trauma and resilience, and of how those two things coexist in many immigrants to the United States.
Of course, Siev's story changed forever with COVID-19, which sent David home the Bad Ax of his life in New York City. He chooses to document the people around him as they struggle with losing businesses, health insecurities, and even feeling like their community has turned its back on them. "Bad Ax" truly understands how much the national anxiety of the 1920s widened the chasm that already existed in our society, pitting politically different people against one another in ways that historians will forever debate. Much has been written about the divisions emerging in the big cities, but there is something very concrete about how the pandemic has exposed structural weaknesses in small towns like Bad Ax, where families were not sure the businesses that put food on their tables would survive. Standing on his feet, people saw their neighbors on different sides of the protests. Saif captures the raging debate over whether it is even safe for Chun to go to work given his age and the raging pandemic in 2020 and the fear of illness not only from a health standpoint but from a business standpoint is palpable.
Lighter fluid is sprayed on an already burning fire in Bad Ax when the 2020 civil rights protests come to Michigan. Jacqueline's daughter, who poignantly puts off much of her life to be there for her family, posts BLM support on the restaurant's social page and goes to a county rally that may have gone so hard for Trump. This all adds to the tension in the Siev family, and "Bad Ax" gets even richer as it questions how much we're willing to sacrifice for the causes we believe in. How many people keep silent because they fear what will happen to their company or family if they speak out?
One might dismiss "Bad Ax" as a home movie block because it is indisputable that the director had access no one else could have. This is a hollow critique that ignores how Saif masterfully puts together what must have been hundreds of hours of footage filmed over several months in 2020. He crafts what happened to his family into art, moving naturally from major events to minor ones, and piecing together his story into place. He feels connected to everyone, on both sides of the political divide. Bad Ax would have been an angry movie, one that would have screamed back at a community that has arguably turned its back on the director's family. Still, it's a loving, graceful, and kind movie, and the movie that knows the best way to make you care about people like Sievs is to get to know them. In this sense, it is an argument for empathy, a plea for people to put aside their differences and just listen to each other's stories. It's the only way to bring us back together.
In a limited theatrical release today.
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