A Collection of Culture
Take it to the MAXX, puts pastiche and the genre of period pieces into opposition. Contemporary films are considered to be documents of the time they were made, but because of the system of interpretation they operate under they do not fall into the genre of "period pieces". Take it to the MAXX challenges this principle; it is a contemporary film that documents this generation's obsession with pastiche. It is therefore a period piece covering the 80's through the filter of 2010, via the style of appropriating the past (the 80's in particular) in youth culture.
Take it to the MAXX captures this style of pastiche and reference through object based cinematographic collections. Boom boxes, shoes, and settings are all collected here to provide a visual aggregate of 80's youth and aurally through the original score by Wilson Cameron that provides an audio collection of the stylistic tropes of 80's electronically synthesized music. The Toronto of today is documented through the opposition and synthesis of sound and image. The voice over narration provides a detailed aural catalogue of the iconic recognizable neighbourhoods of Toronto such as The Annex, Little Italy, Queen West, Cabbagetown, Kensington Market, and Leslieville while image displays the hidden unfamiliar side of each neighbourhood – the graffiti covered laneways. These laneways present the perfect backdrop of the film, with their strangely eclectic uniformity allowing for an editing style that makes use of creative geography � the suturing together of each neighbourhood into one cohesive route along which the main character dances. The route has the illusion of being one continuous space, while the soundtrack presents the diverse side of the facade of the neighbourhoods, the familiar side is never shown in the film but heard.
The film ends with an iconic shot that serves to date the film, on the macro level with a skyline of Toronto, which allows for a keen eye to deduce the year of production based on the skyscrapers which do and don't exist and on the micro level with a vacant lot, a scar of Queen West from a historic fire. The lot dates the film perfectly because several weeks prior to production a row of historic buildings would have occupied the levelled block, and a few months later a new construction will occupy the valuable real estate.
Stylistically, the film takes the formula of a music video and was made using period 16mm cameras and magnetic sound recording equipment. The film pays homage to the now dying music video format which was popularized in 80's television and now replaced by internet video streaming. The first minute of the film references Bruce Conner's avant-garde film Breakaway (1966) starring Toni Basil which is arguably the prototype for the popular form of music video, which later dominated youth culture. Breakaway which features Toni Basil dancing to her own music is an avant-garde film done in the formula of a music video. Take it to the MAXX is a music video done in the "formula" of an avant-garde film. This style adds to the theme of pastiche by presenting these concepts structurally and stylistically as well as through the content of sound and image.
Take it to the MAXX is a film about collecting the past through the present. Boom boxes, shoes, clothes, music, dance, neighbourhoods, graffiti art (which necessarily changes over time), and genre based style document a time in which a generation is pre-occupied with preserving a past they haven't lived or were too young to remember.