Screening Reaction: 'Blue Vinyl'

Blue Vinyl (2002), dir. Judith Helfand and Daniel B Gold
Blue Vinyl is not a bad film. It’s actually got a lot of very strong stuff in it. It is an interesting expose of the vinyl industry and makes a very convincing case against it. Helfand manages to avoid bogging the film down in chemistry and legal wrangling by keeping a firm focus on the human element of the issue. It is Helfand’s extreme luck that a number of the key players in the story are engaging characters. She also makes the great decision to keep in small details that are not relevant to the issue at hand, but give a wonderful sense of who these people are. Two of these moments are actually my favorite parts of the film: one where the lawyer fighting the vinyl industry describes the beauty of the plant at night, and another where an Italian scientist very strictly lays down how Helfand should go about interviewing him. In a film filled with great characters, it is ironic that the film is hurt so much by its main character: Judith Helfand.
Helfand makes a big miscalculation by featuring herself so prominently in the film. Her gimmick in the film is that she goes everywhere with a little section of vinyl from her parent’s house. I found it to be an unbearably obnoxious decision. Whenever I was getting into the film, Helfand would appear with that piece of plastic and I would get mad. My main complaint is that it feels self-aggrandizing. She chronicles many amazing people who are trying to fight these corporate giants, but she cannot resist reminding us (in the most twee way possible) of her presence and actions. She certainly deserves credit for shining a light on this issue, but to credit herself so obviously and persistently becomes grating.
I understand why Helfand includes herself: her narrative is the only one in the film with any hopes of being resolved in a satisfying manner. The whole film is framed as a quest to find out the truth about her parent’s vinyl siding and to get them to replace it. The conclusion she builds the audience up for is that she will find a cost effective solution and a sensible way of discarding the vinyl. If she had managed to do that, I could have forgiven her heavy inclusion of herself. However, she manages to achieve neither goal. Her parents reject the solutions she comes up with, driving her to an option that is, by her own admission, prohibitively expensive. Her solution to disposing of the vinyl is a silly crafts project that essentially pawns the material onto other people. It is a sloppy, dull, overly long, and unsatisfying conclusion to an interesting documentary, and it unfortunately taints the whole film.