Hot Docs: 112 Weddings Review

112 Weddings (2013)

Director: Doug Block
Country: USA
Genre: Documentary | Romance

Editor’s Note: The following review is part of our coverage of the 2014 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival. For more information please visit hotdocs.ca or follow Hot Docs on Twitter. The film premieres in June on HBO.

Two decades ago, professional documentary filmmaker Doug Block began to film weddings as a way of making money on the side. Gaining access to, and providing a record of, the most important day in a couple’s life felt like a noble way of making a living and brought happiness to everyone, including himself.

After over a hundred weddings, Block began to reflect on the nature of marriage and what became of the happy couples that he got so momentarily attached to. So this ultimately led him to follow up on some of their stories and create a feature-length meditation on the nature and purpose of marriage…

The film intercuts Block’s original footage that he shot at the weddings with new interviews that he conducts in the couples’ homes to create a kind of time-capsule/before & after representation of what it means to be married in the early 21st century. Some of the stories are happy, some are more tragic, yet all of them give an insight into suburban middle-class married life.

Block pitches the narration at just the right tone throughout, combining a childlike distance from and curiosity towards the process of getting married.

Even thought the nature of the documentary is a lovely idea (on paper), the couples that agree to shine a spotlight on their marriage after a number of years clearly have a lot to lose onscreen. Without naming names, I have to admit that a number of them come across quite badly and almost all of them admit to children being their number one source of discontent. So even though there are moments of genuine poignancy, some of the close ups and camera angles reveal a deep seeded tragedy in the faces of the characters.

Block pitches the narration at just the right tone throughout, combining a childlike distance from and curiosity towards the process of getting married. His secular commentary encourages reflection on the absurdity of this most ancient ritual whilst simultaneously reinforcing the personal and modern choices that some couples make in order to refresh the whole process.

Overall, it is hard to predict how audience members will respond to the film. It’s clear that newlyweds and hardened divorcees will have completely different interpretations of the many stories on offer. But the diversity of weddings and amount of tears and smiles should surely win over all but the most hardened cynic.