That’s “Canadian Content” for those of you in my audience unfamiliar with the term.<\/p>\n
I don’t remember how I stumbled across this, but yesterday I discovered “The Devil at Your Heels”, a 1981 documentary by Robert Fortier which is available at the National Film Board of Canada’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n Perhaps surprisingly to some people, this is not a movie about blues music. “Devil” is a documentary about Ken Carter, a semi-famous Canadian stunt driver, and his attempt to jump a car from the Canadian side of the St. Lawrence River to the US side: a distance of about one mile.<\/p>\n According to the background blog entry on the film<\/a>, Fortier originally intended this to be a short documenting the jump.<\/p>\n It took five years<\/strong> just to get to the point where Carter was actually able and ready to make the attempt. And Fortier kept filming in spite of the setbacks: rain interfering with construction of the jump ramp, exploding rocket fuel tanks, Carter’s attempts to raise money…<\/p>\n I “watched” about 55 minutes of it yesterday while puttering around doing other things, and plan to finish watching it in the next couple of days. There is a twist at the end which I spoiled for myself, but I won’t do that to you. (If you search for “Ken Carter” or “The Devil at Your Heels” on Wikipedia, you’ll find the twist.) From what I saw, I think this is another Canadian documentary that’s worth your attention. It isn’t quite as bat guano insane as “Project Grizzly<\/a>“, but it’s still fun. <\/p>\n The whole movie is also available in high-def on YouTube, again thanks to the NFB:<\/p>\n