left by SALESMAN, arguably the Maysles brothers’ best work and certainly one damn bleak portrait of America. Equal parts bravado, delusion, hope and desperation, WELLNESS offers up the failed and failing American salesman as the most poignant of all figures. He is so, not because he has lost faith, but because he has to keep up the front, even when he no longer believes in either his product or himself.
4. Docs Love The Young – And The Old Since the success of previous SXSW entry SPELLBOUND, followed by MAD HOT BALLROOM, docs on American kids doing their thing have become a sort of documentary sub-genre. SXSW 2008 offers FRONTRUNNERS, the story of a high school election at New York’s most prestigious public school. However, YOUNG@HEART was the fest’s feel-good documentary, a look at a senior’s choir devoted to performing rock hits.
The