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THE BIG RACE

By Daulton Dickey | July 24, 2005

“The Big Race” is a documentary that follows two poor kids from a third world country while they make a small racecar out of a tin can and a chunk of wood. It is five minutes long. Thank God for that. Essentially a musical montage, it show these kids building two cars, tying them to string fastened to a stick, and joining several other kids to race their cars.

This short documentary is designed to extol the virtues of the human spirit and how it can overcome such incredible poverty and diversity, blah, blah, blah. Actuality it doesn’t convey any of that. It is a five-minute video set to incredibly annoying clanking that pretends to be music. And of the five minutes, the first two minutes shows these two kids walking around. Exciting. “The Big Race” is an exercise in style and aesthetics, nothing more. Stupidity, ladies and germs, does not simplicity make.

But, hey, it’s only five minutes long. Did I mention that?

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