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Lion's Roar

 

by Melissa Starker

 

Talk about your mixed blessings. The word "raves" is too lame to describe the response to the documentary A Lion in the House by Yellow Springs filmmakers Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, which screens at the Wexner Center May 16-17.

 

Yet the couple is facing perceptions about the film that make audiences wary, as well as a personal battle that's brought them closer to the film's subjects than they'd ever imagined.

 

As Lion premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and screened at several other fests, critics called it "astonishing," "riveting" and "immensely rewarding." Among the many trophies it's received is the Audience Award from viewers at Hot Docs, the largest documentary festival on the continent.

 

Still, in topic and scope, the film is a challenge. Made over six years, A Lion in the House follows the lives of five families dealing with cancer at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.

 

At more than four hours with intermission, it's the longest documentary ever accepted for competition at Sundance. And in its course, some lives end much too soon.

 

By phone, Bognar admitted, "A lot of people have said to us, 'This is a scary subject, I don't know if I can watch it.' But once people see it, their feelings have been so positive."

 

"You really don't know until you start seeing it with audiences what you've done," Reichert said.

 

The hospital's head oncologist, Dr. Robert Arceci, contacted the couple with the idea of creating something like the high school basketball doc Hoop Dreams in the cancer ward at Cincinnati Children's. He didn't know that the filmmakers' own daughter, Lela, had just finished successful treatment for cancer. The experience gave Reichert and Bognar the resolve to say yes.

 

"I would've never considered taking this on if I hadn't been one of those moms, because it would've been looking in on someone else's heartbreak," Reichert explained.

 

The film builds an intimate relationship with the families, the disease and its treatment. During production, the filmmakers grappled with how involved they should be with their story, and whether there was a right time to back off.

 

They decided that given the circumstances and the close quarters of a hospital room, they had to interact, with a question or a fresh cup of coffee for a parent. It was only human. They'd leave boundary-setting to the subjects.

 

"If these families are willing to go through this very intense stuff on camera, we should not be the ones who flinch," Bognar said. "If they don't tell us to leave the room, which they had the right to do at any time, then we were going to be responsible to the level of trust they'd given us, and to the story we wanted to tell."

 

"One day we looked at each other and said, 'We're really in over our heads here,' and we realized we had to become stronger and bigger people to keep going," Reichert recalled. "It was scary. I would say our commitment, though, grew and grew as time went on, because we got closer to the families."

 

As the filmmakers found out in January when they got off the plane for their Sundance premiere, another connection developed between Reichert and the film's young subjects. The results of a biopsy came in while they were in the air. Reichert's doctors found a rare form of lymphoma in her chest.

 

Between rounds of chemotherapy at Ohio State's James Cancer Hospital that have tested Reichert's endurance, but have also shrunk her tumor, she's been participating in every screening she can make and has worked closely with the film's co-producers, the Independent Television Service, using Lion as a tool to educate families dealing with cancer about the resources available to them. A panel discussion on the subject will take place at the Wex May 21.

 

Her news may cast another dark shadow on perceptions of the film, but having been at one of those Sundance screenings, I've got first-hand experience of the movie's power over audiences, and I agree with every positive word it's received.

 

What sticks with you isn't the loss of health and life but the preciousness of these things, and a strong feeling of respect and gratitude toward these great kids and their families for sharing such a fragile time. It is a challenge, but it's so worth your time to take it.

 

May 11, 2006

 

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