HIT 2 PASS
Dir. Kurt Walker, 2014
Canada, 72 min.

SUNDAY, MAY 3 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, MAY 14 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, MAY 26 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, MAY 31 – 7:30 PM

In Kurt Walker’s magnificent debut HIT 2 PASS, what initially appears a goofy road trip movie soon gives itself away as a scrupulous documentary dig into the Auto Racing Association of Prince George, British Columbia (billed on its website as “the playground of power”), and its annual “hit to pass” marathon. The rule is that drivers must collide with another car in order to pass it, and the film gives chase to three weeks spent by a future contestant and his father refurbishing a hot rod for the tournament, with special attention given to the endless nuts-and-bolts work that will make possible a few hours of summertime fun for a small crowd of spectators. In the first half of HIT 2 PASS, Walker’s command of multi-camera montage proves a delight, with cameras affixed to drones, mounted within the vehicle and even handed to children watching the track during the derby.

The simple phraseology of these rituals (the film’s very title a “sequelization” of an existing event, explicating that documentary is, unto itself, a dubious format of adaptation) begin to take on chewier, more socio-historico-politico-cultural kinds of meanings following the film’s one unedited, isolated sit-down interview. Walker is not just after cheap thrills, or even their material costs, but rather a vast and complicated cross-section of remembering and spectacle (itself a kind of willful un-learning). Unassuming at first blush, his images hang in memory as if glimpsed from a passing car on a long ride home, like a magic-hour graffito that reads, “OIL = DEATH”. Hit 2 Pass is as sincere, funny and mysterious as contemporary experimental cinema gets.

“Imagine Red Line 7000, the unforgettable race film by Hawks, crossed with Miguel Gomes’ Our Beloved Month of August via the intermediary of a ZX Spectrum and this would give you something resembling Hit 2 Pass.” – Francisco Ferreira, publico

“The atmosphere is all small-town affability and thick-sliced hoser accents. This alone would make a fascinating feature, but Walker ups the ante by making the assembly of the film just as interesting as the assembling of the Storozinkis’ hot rod. Segments organically trail off where other docs would cut. Off-screen questions and banter are left in. Many sequences look like abstract geometrical compositions scored by field recordings. Rather than make the film feel sloppy, they invigorate Hit 2 Pass with a vibrant sense of playfulness.” – Derek Godin, Dim The House Lights

“Hit 2 Pass is an act of genuine and tender interrogation and self-discovery that explores the gap between the immaterial excitement of video games and the complexity of life. Like the most humble and earnest first features, Walker’s film is open about its own imperfections so as to carve out its own distinctive and tentative place in the saturated imaginary of contemporary cinema.” –Giovanni Vimercati, Film Comment