Technology in Red Hook Summer

Lee unsurprisingly seems to make a paradoxical statement, and in this particular film, one of these statements is about technology. Similar to Get on the Bus with the college student making the film documentary, Flik captures his world – a film within a film so to speak – with his iPad 2. Also like GotB, Lee incorporates a montage at the end of the film, presumably from the iPad as we are able to recognize scenes that have already come to pass and that appear to be coming from Flik’s perspective. What’s interesting about this particular montage is that it is light-hearted and nostalgic even though the film’s conclusion is not one in which we are left feeling warm and fuzzy.

Flik sees a world that is unfortunate and very unlike his own. This particular part of BK is dilapidated due poor socioeconomic institutions, gang violence, and drug use. His grandfather, seemingly the only source of “goodness” left in the area, we come to find out has engaged in pedophilia and that his only reason for even being in BK is because of his being kicked out of his parish in the South. Flik’s grandfather reveals to him that the only reason he has this iPad, this comfortable, privileged lifestyle,  is because the parish his grandfather belonged to paid him a large sum of money to leave. Yet, somehow we have this warm ending. Granted, Flik does get a relationship with a girl that he seems to think very fondly of, and the other parts of the montage paint his Red Hook summer in saturated colors and light. However, the montage ends with an awkward, almost ironized rainbow effect that made me intellectually think differently about the message of the film. Does Lee want us to think, that even thought Flik has to deal with many serious conflicts that have very much to do with him and his family, he has taken something very important away from the experience, or, does he want us to see the oddly affective montage as a jarring ending that makes us reflect back on the issues?