LONG TIME RUNNING GALA D: Jennifer Baichwal, Nick de Pencier. Canada. 97 min. Sep 14, 3:30 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox 2. Rating: NNNNN
Long Time Running follows the Tragically Hip on last year’s cross-Canada tour, which was both to promote their new album, Man Machine Poem, and to say goodbye after frontman Gord Downie’s diagnosis of terminal brain cancer. It is deeply sad and positively triumphant. It’s everything we need it to be.
Co-directors Baichwal and de Pencier (Act Of God, Manufactured Landscapes, Watermark) are friends of the band, and with editor Roland Schlimme they’ve constructed Long Time Running as a celebration of the Hip, and as a farewell for Downie. He knows it – there’s no way they wouldn’t have discussed it – and in his interview segments he offers up a couple of wonderful stories that would not be out of place at a wake.
But a wake isn’t all downbeat, and as we experienced after the deaths of David Bowie and Prince last year, it’s impossible to listen to the Hip and stay sad. Their songs can get dark but they have a hell of a beat, and the half-dozen numbers that Baichwal and de Pencier include in their entirety will raise your spirits even as you blubber through them.
It’s a chance to see the band at their best, and a way to say goodbye.
