If you know what I mean about doing it clean, then you need to beat it on over to a screening of the earthshaking addiction documentary Maquina, written and directed by Joaquim Adria Pujol. The film opens with footage of Pujol’s dad, Marcel Enric Pujol, from 12 years earlier, still looking half healthy and speaking about following the light. The film then jumps to the ravaged shell of the father that was left behind at the bottom of a lake of vodka. It is pointed out that during the dad’s abuse of booze and drugs that he stuffed a house up his nose, his kids up his nose, and his life up his nose. Pujol grew up through this and later started to drink with his Dad, until he ended up getting strung out on the sauce as well.
Pujol is trying to break out of his alcohol addiction by getting him and his dad over to Colorado for an experimental drug treatment. They will be taking Ibogaine, a powerful psychedelic drug from Africa, which the dissociative effects of are suppose to help addicts break habits. The pair loads up into an old Winnebago, bringing along Pujol’s younger brother, Xavi Pujol Berlanga, to handle the camera. The camper van breaks down over and over on the way. So does the father, as he just can’t seem to stop stabbing himself in the face with vodka. Once the drug is taken, all the destructive patterns that keep repeating melt down like a rainbow in a gasoline puddle. But will it be enough to stop the descent?
Despite all the accomplishments with playing music live and writing for Film Threat, the biggest achievement of my life remains getting out from under the lash of alcohol. Five years of drinking myself to sleep each night resulted in suddenly having to drink when I woke up, at which point everything started disappearing fast. Film school went right out the window, as did my ability to put on pants. Then the liquor store down the street refused to serve me pantless anymore, because the trench coat I kept covered with was covered in vomit. Instead of a palm tree rehab, I did 90 AA meetings in 90 days in Toledo, with sleepless nights filled with seizures, and late shows. It was the death of fun forever and it was impossibly awful.
“… Pujol grew up through addiction and later started to drink with his Dad …”
I never wanted to quit. No one who needs to quit ever wants to quit. There is also endless resentment that you are cut off from the one thing that made life livable in the first place. And that booze is for sale behind everything neon sign. You have to re-wire your entire expectations of existence. It is a brutal fight with lots of lost battles, with many never getting out alive. So, once again, I am so lucky that I am 28 years on the wagon, which I have rode to much happier places than when I drank. But the director’s dad is not so lucky. He stayed off the wagon and looks like he has had several wagons roll over him while he was off. And that the son got hooked by trying to both cope and bond with his father is gruesome in its injustice.
The opening older film footage of the father gives way to a startling Dorian Gray-like contrast of the toll of decades of abuse with his appearance 12 years later. If you need proof of how badly alcohol breaks down your body, take a gander at dad. He will show you both the ravages of being hooked on the juice and the impossibility of leaving it alone. The father’s desire to get obliterated is close to magnetic, with the water glasses full of vodka drawn to his hand like metal particles. The director’s brilliance shines through how we instantly pick up the whirlwind between father and son without a lot of background specifics. it takes just a few conversations to fill in the blanks with the wreckage.
While grounded in capturing reality, some documentaries get artistic. Some sport a metaphor or two, with an image caught on camera that encapsulates a concept perfectly. Maquina is a parade of stunning visual metaphors for the struggle with addiction. I was floored over how expressionistic the journey out west was in relation to the inner turmoils. The central metaphor of the Winnebago constantly breaking down, symbolizing how unreliable their dependency lifestyles have become. The changes that much occur within get show outside in the form of narrow passages through walls of rock. There are quiet moments captured, like when the father is saying “It’s a beautiful day” with these light motes all over. Maquina takes a horrible ordeal and turns it into a permanent work of art. You can drop the bottle, as this film is the real strong stuff
"…a parade of stunning visual metaphors for the struggle with addiction."
