Blood Brother, 2013.
Directed by Steve Hoover.
SYNOPSIS:
Blood Brother is an intimate portrait of Rocky Braat, a young man who longed to find a family. He didn’t know it, but this desire would lead him to an AIDS hostel in India, a place of unspeakable hardship, where he would find almost more love and need than he could bear.
The cynical British critic in me walked into Blood Brother with quite a bit of trepidation. Reading the synopsis of a man who gives up his life to go and look after HIV and AIDS-stricken kids in India sounded like a self-congratulatory documentary version of a ‘pat on the back’. However, after wiping away the tears from my eyes, I am happy to say that I was very, very wrong.
From the outset of the movie, you know that Blood Brother is going to be a harrowing experience. The dark shots of India as Rocky rides a motorcycle with a dying girl in a desperate attempt to find a hospital instantly grabs your intention and it never lets go until the final credits.
The film does a really good job of balancing out the potential problem of Rocky coming across as a ‘white saviour’ to these helpless Indian kids by showing his true genuine love for them. The early scenes of him back in America while he waits for a new visa show him in this zombie-like state where absolutely nothing matters. This is coupled with beautiful moments of the kids loving him back just as much (if not more) and treating him like “big brother” they perceive him to be.
Rocky himself is an incredibly likeable person. Even without the good that he is doing for these children, his personality shines through as we see him just as his best friend (and director) Steve Hoover sees him. I would argue that it tries to hard to nail this point in by showing Rocky living in a rat-infested dive because he doesn’t want to be seen as the ‘rich white guy’ but these scenes do tie in nicely to the story. His love for India in general comes across with every sentence he says up to and including his attempts to get married so that he can stay there forever.
What I really liked about Blood Brother is that it never at any point feels like a relief video. Unlike those ‘donate money for clean water’ TV adverts, this documentary is about the triumph of human spirit while showing you a side of the world some people would like to ignore. Hoover does a great job juxtaposing American suburbia and the slums of India and he never at one point makes you feel like you should take out your wallet and donate money. Of course there are moments in the documentary where Hoover highlights the struggles Rocky faces from the community who shun these kids out (and those that help them) but it never dwells on these facts because it’s a story of a one man’s selfless act.
While the film is beautiful, it is heartbreaking too. For all the happy moments we’re given of Rocky and the children having fun, we’re dealt a few blows with some truly tragic scenes of illness and death. As I said before these are never glorified, but Hoover never allows you to look away. Never at any point does he cut the camera away and just when you think it you can’t take anymore, he shows you something even more tragic. Some could argue that these highly personal moments – including on-screen death and burial – should be kept private, but these only add to Rocky’s story to see how far his selfless act has taken him. Even the stoniest of hearts will struggle to get through Blood Brother without welling up at some point. I shed a few tears myself.
Having said that, I was almost taken out of one moment in particular when I noticed that Rocky was wearing a Christopher Walken ‘more cowbell’ t-shirt. But that’s beside the point.
It will come as no surprise that Blood Brother was praised when it was screened at Sundance earlier this year where it won the Grand Jury prize as well as the Audience award. It is quite possibly one of the most moving documentaries I have ever seen and one that I won’t soon forget. I’d be hard pushed to say you’d want to watch it more than once, but you should definitely seek out a chance to see it. I hope that it gets some form of distribution as it deserves to be seen.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Luke Owen is one of Flickering Myth’s co-editors and the host of the Month in Review show for Flickering Myth’s Podcast Network. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
Originally published April 25, 2013. Updated November 6, 2019.
