A documentary chronicling the career of Brett 'The Hitman' Hart, in the run up to the infamous 'Montreal Screwjob' which ended his tenure with Vince McMahon's WWF.
Wrestling occupies a strange place in my headspace - I have only watched a few matches, but I am really interested in the history, the personalities and the moving parts of matches. In no way am I an expert so in case you are, hold fire.
The film adopts a fly-on-the-wall approach to Hart, following him as he trains, spends time with his family and wrestles with his place in the wrestling business. It does a really good job of breaking down the key components of story-telling in the ring, the importance of wrestling characters, and the growing conflict between Hart's understanding of these things with the massive changes thing place in his industry.
For Hart, wrestling is basically about basic drama - good versus evil, one defined character facing another, with storylines that progress in a way that is natural with the personalities of the characters the wrestlers are performing as.
As a film, I found its focus... interesting. While Hart is the centre, the filmmakers seem to be aware of what Hart is leaving out, or what he is refusing to see. I felt this specifically in terms of Brett's relationship with his father Stu Hart. One sequence intercuts Brett and others talking about his father with shots of his childhood home. As the camera moves through the empty rooms, the soundtrack blends in old audio recordings of his father training/torturing would-be wrestlers. The juxtaposition of Brett talking about looking up to his father with the sounds of young men screaming in pain undermine the wrestler's romanticised view of his upbringing.
While this aspect of the film adds some nuance to Hart, the most fascinating element of the film is the conflict between Hart's old-fashioned approach and the new 'Attitude' era of ambiguous characters and shock tactics. Hart is a man out of time, struggling to find his place.
The film climaxes with the Montreal 'screw job', the match which was supposed to see Hart hand over the title belt to Shawn Michaels in a DQ, a way of handing off the title without damaging Hart in front of his home crowd before he headed off to rival promotion WCW (which was in the ascent at the time).
Instead of what Hart believed was planned, the match ended with Michaels pinning Brett for a count-out. Having the camera crew there on the sidelines adds an added layer of tension, as the camera darts after Hart as he storms from the ring; his wife interrogating wrestler Triple H; Vince McMahon stumbling down a hallway with a black eye.
The film has been assembled to build toward this betrayal, almost like we tracking a great tragedy like the Titanic. The movie opens with a tease of what is coming, and the film repeatedly foreshadows what is to happen, with scenes of Brett questioning the motivations of his boss, Vince McMahon.
While Hart was able to get out of McMahon's employ, I left the film with the sense that Hart was still questioning his purpose in the business he had dedicated his life and body to.
Wrestling with Shadows does a pretty good job of explaining wrestling, without getting too lost in minutiae. It is more interesting as a character study of Hart, and as a conflict between one individual's creativity and the commercial imperatives of their employer.
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