Filmmaker finds himself in lens
Newton man's documentary looks hard at US and himself
In 2002, in the deep freeze of winter, a half-mile hole opened in the ice on a lake in Brainerd, Minn. Why North Long Lake had open water when the other 464 lakes in the region sported ice thick enough to drive across quickly became a national mystery and a siren call to one filmmaker from Newton.
As tourists came to stare at ''the black hole" and residents guessed at causes from thermal vents to aliens, Alex Karpovsky made a beeline for the hole with his film crew. For years he had unsuccessfully pitched a television series on small-town mysteries to cable networks, and he was sure that making a pilot about the hole, on his own dime, would change his fortune.
But everything -- really, everything -- went wrong. As obstacles unraveled his dreams, Karpovsky worried he would have to return to his bleak routine of editing karaoke videos for bars in Russia. And as he fretted, his cameraman turned the lens on Karpovsky himself.
The film he returned with is no television pilot. Instead, it's a hilarious account of Karpovsky's maniacal search for success, meaning, human connection, America, and a 40-foot Paul Bunyan statue.
At least that's what happened to Karpovsky in the film, ''The Hole Story," which debuts tomorrow at the Independent Film Festival of Boston. The intellectual twist to this genre-bender is that, like small-town legends, the line between truth and fiction in the movie is as secure as springtime ice (just as it was in ''Fargo," the Coen brothers flick that also starred Brainerd).
Shot in documentary style, focused on a fictional Alex (but based on and starring the real Karpovsky), and set in real situations with real people who may or may not be acting, ''The Hole Story" is neither feature film, documentary, or mockumentary. Perhaps it's time to start talking about ficumentaries.
''I wanted people to question what is real and not real," said Karpovsky, interviewed in his basement office in his parents' Newton home, where he spent the last 18 months editing the film and where he sometimes edits karaoke videos.
''The line between fiction and nonfiction films is really interesting" he said. ''With the advent of cheap digital video cameras, where more people can make films and follow far fewer rules, and with the advent of reality TV in tandem, the fine line between the two is slowly disintegrating, and fascinating things are happening."
Karpovsky emphasized that his film ''is not just a gimmick." Rather, he said, he is after what makes for truth and how we get at truth.
''I tried to make a film that was not just funny, but that interwove fact and fiction to express points that I really believe about America, suburban sprawl, existentialism, meaninglessness," he said. ''Stuff I really think a lot about."
The film has no sex, no violence, and no stars, but it doesn't need them. It's what you could call an ''out loud" movie: one sure to leave audiences laughing out loud at its gentle ironies, groaning at Karpovsky's outrageous attempts to save the project, and gasping at least once. Moreover, it combines a good story with a compelling arc and a portrait of a real place, its people, and life's unexpected poignancies.
It is an impressive effort for a first feature film, but this is by no means Karpovsky's first movie or script. The Newton native began dabbling in film in his early teens. ''I used to fool around with the video camera a lot and would make stupid little comedies with the VHS we had, but I stopped when I got to high school," he said.
Karpovsky, 29, stopped because Newton South High School was home to his awkward years. ''When I was there, I was introverted and shy, and doing anything theatrical was inconceivable, as it was my first few years in college," he said.
After studying philosophy and anthropology at Boston University, he enrolled in a graduate anthropology program at Oxford University in England. There he started writing plays, got a few into the prestigious Edinburgh Theatre Festival, and quit school to write. ''I thought since I got into the festival it meant I was set," he said.
Not quite. The next few years landed him in New York City producing his own way-off Broadway plays, editing corporate videos, and writing screenplays no one bought.
The karaoke editing came as a sideline. ''Karaoke just took off in Russia in the last few years, or rather it exploded over there," he said. ''And the funny thing is they don't sing Russian songs so much. They sing American pop songs and country western is really big."
So Karpovsky edits Russian scenes, like couples walking in Red Square, and ships off the tapes destined for bars in Moscow and other Russian cities.
Not surprisingly, the cerebral Karpovsky needed a more intellectual creative outlet, so he started making short films. One, about a mysterious hum heard in Kokomo, Ind., would ultimately lead him to Brainerd's hole.
''People reported hearing this strange humming sound, like a train in the distance never rolling into the station," he said. ''They hired these expensive acoustic engineers, and after weeks of testing they detected a sound but couldn't pinpoint its source, so then it became a phenomenon called the Kokomo hum."
A strong believer that ''there's a part of our soul that really needs mysteries," Karpovsky went to Kokomo.
''I made this documentary where the hum was sort of a background character, but it was really focused on the relationship between the people who did and didn't hear it," he said. ''The people who heard the hum thought the others were in denial. The people who didn't thought the others were crazy. So there was a lot of tension in this small town."
After he showed the film at small screenings, he began receiving e-mails about weird rural phenomena. When someone tipped him off to the hole, ideas started to jell. Some bare-bones production funds came from Spot Creative, a film company in New York. Then both Alexes -- both the real and film Alex -- went to Brainerd, believing that all their dreams lay in a black hole of water surrounded by 9 square miles of ice.
''It was horrible," Karpovsky said. ''When we got there it was minus 21 degrees. It's the coldest place in America except for Alaska." As his crew shot and shivered, the arctic temperatures drained his equipment batteries and froze his cellphone.
Despite help from friendly locals, mounting problems drove most of his unpaid crew to abandon him. The budget ballooned. ''If I hadn't been the lead character, I would have quit, too," he said.
Eventually, his frustration became so great he checked into a clinic, realized that his own crisis was the heart of the story, and put more of himself into the film.
Karpovsky was watching fact and fiction merge in his own life. ''My character's relationship to the pilot very much became my relationship to the movie," he said.
But now, the cold, the struggle, and the months spent alone with his computer editing suite and a cardboard box full of footage are behind him. With help on the final cut from filmmaker Sam Neave, a friend he calls ''a fearless, brilliant editor," Karpovsky finally has his film and his first festival.
''I'm really nervous about showing it, because it's such a personal movie," he said.
As for what's next, Karpovsky is hoping to get ''The Hole Story" into more festivals and picked up for cable or theater distribution. He is also moving back to the Bronx with notebooks scribbled full with ideas and plans to start shooting his next film in the fall.
''I'm not going anywhere cold," he said. ''The next film, I'm shooting in the Caribbean."
''The Hole Story" plays at Somerville Theatre (617-625-5700) at 5 p.m. tomorrow and at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline (617-734-2500) at 8 p.m. Sunday. Advance tickets are available at www.iffboston.org. 