Grass

The media coverage in recent years about The Drug Problem (and yes, you’re supposed to say that in a low voice with a big dramatic orchestral sting playing underneath it) has once again ignited debate about marijuana, the only commonly used recreational “drug� that’s consumed in its original, natural form. While regarded by many as a “soft� drug, considerable effort has been made by governments and private citizens alike to demonise it, with recent efforts focussing on a two pronged approach - the fact that it might be bad for you, and the fact that it could lead you on to “harder� substances (ignoring, of course, the simple truth that it’s the illegality of marijuana that puts those who want it in contact with the people that sell those harder substances in the first place).

As in the days of alcohol prohibition, though, marijuana’s very illegality makes it attractive to many people - and, of course, creates a thriving black market for something that a huge percentage of the population, both here and in the US, have tried. And so in an era of mass alcohol abuse and with huge numbers of people addicted to legal prescription drugs, marijuana is still very much illegal and considered by many as “evil�. Ever wondered why?

Ron Mann has. An experienced and acclaimed documentary filmmaker with a reputation for tackling the more difficult topics, Mann was rightly astonished by the fervour and viciousness with which marijuana users are pursued in the United States - laws on personal marijuana use in Australia are lenient by comparison, with many US users serving long, long jail sentences for indulging in one of nature’s more unconventional gifts. The result of Mann’s five years of research and his long journeys into film archives is Grass, a slightly tongue-in-cheek (but still quite sobering) look at just how marijuana came to be illegal in the USA, and at how and why the authorities there have made jailing those who dare to use it their number one priority.

It’s important to point out that Grass is not a pro-marijuana movie. Not really. It actually has more in common with Michael Moore’s documentary work in that it presents a series of facts (mostly through the use of archival film - much of it genuinely hilarious US Government propaganda material that makes the enemies’ World War 2 efforts seem positively benign by comparison, some raw news footage complete with silly reporter stuff-ups, and some terrific animated computer graphics by Paul Mavrides) and laces them with some sarcastic humour in order to make a point. The point in this case is to show how unjust the laws against marijuana in the US have been (and indeed still are) - how they destroy the lives of innocent people for the sake of political point-scoring, how they create criminals out of otherwise law-abiding citizens, how hundreds of billions of dollars is spent enforcing the anti-marijuana laws while 60 million Americans happily and harmlessly smoke away, how the US Government deceived the UN and got dozens of other countries to follow their drug policy, and particularly how the prejudices of one single man, the remarkably deluded Harry J Anslinger, made all of the above happen. Whether or not you smoke the stuff - and indeed, whether or not you’re for or against it being legalised - won’t affect your enjoyment of this intelligent, thought-provoking and entertaining film.

Produced at an aspect ratio of 1.66:1 and therefore letterboxed but not 16:9 enhanced on DVD, Grass obviously isn’t going to be demonstration material for those who get off on such things, simply because most of the visual material used here is from archival footage, and much of that is in black and white. But the transfers of that material have all been done with obvious care, and any film damage that may exist in this material is completely irrelevant in evaluating the quality of this DVD in any case. A better indicator is the computer-graphics work used throughout, and that’s not only wonderfully colour-saturated and razor-sharp, but also completely free of any film problems at all. There’s at least one reel-change mark visible during the film, though, which is surprising - such things have been a no-no in video transfers since the laserdisc days. Generally, though, everything here looks as good as could be expected - and there’s not a compression artefact in sight.

The two-channel Dolby Surround mix is surprisingly lively considering the nature of this film - a lot of effort has gone into the sound mix here, particularly during the CG segments. The music score (by one Guido Luciani!) is also very vibrant. There are some rather noticeable audio sync problems during some of the archival footage, but this is not an authoring error - it appears to have been a product of the original mixing process. It’s not a major problem, and the amount of footage it affects is relatively small.

The narration (by noted pot advocate and actor Woody Harrelson) is clear and clean, and the encoding of the audio track on DVD is up to the usual high AV Channel standard.

There’s not a lot here for the extras addict - though the superbly animated main menu, designed in-house by the Madman team, is terrific. The menus are themed after the subject matter, though the design doesn’t necessarily give a good idea about the general intent of the film.

Behind The Smoke: Three short bios, for director/producer Ron Mann, narrator Woody Harrelson and CG artist Paul Mavrides.

Scene Selection: If you’ve ever wanted to know what it feels like to be so incredibly stoned you can’t make sense of a simple list but don’t want to actually get stoned to find out, this scene selection menu will do the job for you. It makes sense if you look closer, but most will take one look and do a passable impersonation of Neil from The Young Ones being bummed out. Man.

Madman Propaganda: As the title suggests, this section contains advertising for upcoming or currently released DVD titles, in the form of trailers. There are trailers here for Grass itself along with Shadow Of The Vampire, Mick Molloy’s penis-twisting documentary Tackle Happy, Amores Perros, The Girl Next Door and an astonishingly dreadful trailer for a doco called The Hemp Revolution, which looks like it’s made all the mistakes that Grass didn’t, on a budget that wouldn’t fund an hour’s electric power on the set of a feature film!

Regardless of your personal opinion on the morality or legality of marijuana, Grass is compelling viewing simply because it illustrates just how easily a government can take a personal agenda and use it to manipulate its citizens under the guise of “doing what’s best for them�. Ron Mann (who insists he is not a pro-marijuana activist) has wisely chosen to let the facts speak for themselves - and the facts, as they have in a few other documentaries in recent years, tell a familiar story. The moral of that story is, of course, an obvious one - that politics and individual rights very rarely eat at the same diner.