SLIFF 2017 Review – GABE

GABE screens Friday, November 3rd at 7:30pm at .ZACK (3224 Locust St.) as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. Director Luke Terrell will be in attendance. 

Review by Stephen Tronicek

Documentaries, just like any other movie, can be based some way things that just emotionally work. You really can’t explain why, or how they work, but they do. Something just inspires you, something just feels right. That is what GABE feels like. As a documentary, one could easily call it somewhat conventional, but the material at the center and the filmmaking of the enterprise creates what might be one of the most entertaining and inspiring documentaries of the year.

Gabe follows a few years in the life of Gabriel Isaac Weil, a young man with a rare form of muscular dystrophy, who is attempting to experience the world as he can. Gabe, certainly lead an interesting life, graduating from Washington University and eventually aspiring to become the owner of a juicing business.

There’s no way around the fact that GABE works because it is a perfect combination of filmmaker and subject. Director Luke Terrell knew Gabe intimately and he captures the sacrifices but also the gains that everybody surrounding Gabe made with a masterful eye. There’s an ever present tension to the piece because we know the fragility of Gabe’s condition, but there’s always a sense of hope behind that because of the strength on display in the face of that tension. GABE, as a film, never tries to define its subject by the disease that he must face and always tries to break through to human qualities, giving a sense of dignity to Gabe, but also engaging the audience in making us contemplate our own definitions of people

Great documentary filmmaking can take you and place you in the shoes of another person, and GABE really is great documentary filmmaking. Gabriel Weil was an excellent subject and he got an excellent film, one that will live up to the courage that he inspires in all of us.