Home Page

(Please note: web links in the following review were accurate at the time of writing. They may not be so in perpetuity.)

Everyone sees the World Wide Web differently. To some, it is a living, growing thing - awkward and shambling, but in a constant state of evolution (call it electronic Darwinism). To others, it is a labyrinth of virtual highways and byways, many of which are unmapped. Spend an hour following links and who knows where you'll end up? To still others, it's a community - a place to meet on-line friends without having to worry about IRL (in real life) considerations like clothing, hygiene, or diction. The function of Home Page, a documentary by Doug Block (http://www.d-word.com/), is not to present some sort of all-encompassing overview of the Internet, but to offer a sampling of viewpoints and personalities, with a heavy dosage of high-level pop psychology and sociology. In the end, we get as much from inferring how Block's topics relate to our own lives as from observing what's on the screen.

Watching Home Page is like surfing the Web. There is a trajectory of sorts, but it's a strange, rambling one, filled with stops, starts, dead-ends, odd tangents, and abrupt leaps. By the end, we feel like we have gone on a journey, although it's not entirely clear what sort. Block introduces us to a number of colorful Web eccentrics and celebrities (Justin Hall, Harold Rheingold, Jaime Levy, Julie Petersen, Carl Steadman), offering glimpses into their often dysfunctional real lives. And, in a way, Home Page represents a tour of self-discovery for Block. He starts out like any other indie documentary maker, then ends up creating his own home page, exploring a new world, and re-connecting with his wife. Watching Home Page, I was reminded of Kieslowski's Camera Buff, a fictional film about a documentary filmmaker who turned the camera on himself. That's precisely what happens here.

Block began shooting Home Page in 1996, when the Web was established, but not as omnipresent as it has become. That was, for example, the year that ReelViews started as a modest list of current reviews linked from a main page (those who think the site looks primitive now should have seen it in its early days). Although I had been reviewing movies on-line since 1993 (1992 if you count a local BBS), 1996 was when I first staked out my own corner of cyberspace. By that time, Swarthmore University student Justin Hall (http://www.links.net/) already had a cult following. His site, "Justin's Links from the Underground," was receiving more than 7000 visitors per day - people who returned regularly to read Justin's unexpurgated accounts of his life. Nothing was sacred to Justin - he recorded graphic details of his sexual experiences (including giving names), posted nude pictures of himself, and divulged his deepest secret ("When I was 14 or 15, I figured out... I could fellate myself"). So it was to him that Block went in search of understanding about the Web.

Justin's musings and life story take up about 50% of Home Page's running length. After spending some time with the bizarrely attired young man at college, Block follows him on a "Web evangelizing trip" across the country. They end up in San Francisco, where Justin hooks up with author Howard Rheingold (http://www.rheingold.com/) and begins to work with the older man setting up a (now defunct) site called Electric Minds. While filming in the City by the Bay, Block encounters Justin's former boss at HotWired, Julie Petersen (http://www.awaken.org), who once published an on-line account of an affair she had with another website designer (her husband, Jim, read it regularly to check up on his wife's whereabouts). After devoting a segment of Home Page to Julie, Block moves on to others, then eventually ends up back with Justin.

Some readers might wonder whether, being something of a public Web figure myself, I know any of Block's subjects. The answer is no. The Web is a huge place - bigger than many people realize. Being recognized in one section of it does not convey instant celebrity status across the entire electronic landscape. There are as many reasons for using the Internet as there are users. Research, chat rooms, e-mail, games, muti-media entertainment, cybersex (which, as Roger Ebert once noted, sounds "a lot cooler than 'masturbating in front of... PCs'") - those things are all out there. The Web is what each individual makes of it, and this is one of the points that Block drives home over the course of his 102-minute shot-on-video movie.

One of the issues addressed by Home Page is what underlies the growing trend of on-line exhibitionism - men and women who place the most intimate details of their life on the Web (either via tell-all journals or the ever-popular cams, which often leave nothing to the imagination). Different theories are espoused, but the most convincing is that people do this because they crave the attention that making shocking revelations will earn them. They want their 15 minutes of fame, and outrageous content on a home page offers that opportunity. Justin and Julie are prime examples of people who do things off-line primarily so they can write about those experiences on-line.

Another theme Block explores is how the growing sense of alienation in society has given birth to a generation that is becoming more comfortable with the anonymous, faceless communication of the Internet than with the face-to-face rigors of interpersonal interaction. Real-life communities are being replaced by virtual ones. Some Web denizens spend more time in chat rooms than hanging out with flesh-and-blood friends. One interviewee in Home Page admits that she feels "way more comfortable typing things" than conversing about them. Another comments, "I have retreated to the virtual world. It's much easier to deal with than the real one." And Justin admits, "I don't talk to my friends... The Web is my outlet." Certainly, not everyone under the age of 30 is like this, but there is a growing segment of the population that finds life in cyberspace to be more appealing than life outside of it. (This is, by the way, an issue that many mainstream filmmakers have been grappling with. Fincher, Kubrick, and Cronenberg - to name a few - are all interested in how depersonalization and alienation in society are affecting the human experience.)

One of the more interesting things Block does is to represent how three generations in one family (his own) react to the on-line experience. The filmmakers' parents, especially his father, make limited use of a computer, but are reluctant to buy a modem and explore the Internet (they have relented by the end of the film). Block's daughter in enamored with the Web, stating at one point that "I love computers more than television." His wife knows how to go on-line, but is uncomfortable about it. And Block, who starts the film as a Net novice, turns into something entirely different by the end.

Block is not a newcomer to the filmmaking world. His previous credits include co-producing Silverlake Life: The View from Here and Jupiter's Wife. His directorial debut was 1991's The Heck With Hollywood!; this is his second movie. In the final analysis, Home Page is probably more intriguing and interesting than it is compelling. Block doesn't offer any astounding revelations and his techniques are a little rough around the edges - this is not slick, accomplished filmmaking, but, considering the low budget, it works. The movie was shown at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, where it was a success, aired on HBO, and has been given a short theatrical run. More importantly, however, Home Page was made available via a webcast. What could be more appropriate for a movie with this subject matter?

© 1999 James Berardinelli