If Henry Biggs were really swimming to Ferguson, he would have started in the Mississippi and made his way up Maline Creek, although he would have had to walk part of the way to get there.
What Henry Biggs is really doing is swimming around Manhattan Island. Although more a runner than a swimmer, Henry planned to swim 28.5 miles around Manhattan. It isn’t just the distance that makes this hard but the fact that he is swimming against current, tides and in areas more accustomed to seeing boats than swimmers.
This open-water marathon is an impressive swimming challenge but what does that have to do with Ferguson? Biggs says he was deeply affected by what happened in Ferguson in 2014, after unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was shot by white policeman Darren Wilson, and he is using his athletic feat to raise money and awareness for Ferguson. The fundraising is admirable and doubtless Biggs is sincere. but it seems like people are already pretty aware of what happened in Ferguson, so it feels a bit more like Biggs is using Ferguson to draw attention to his swimming feat than the reverse.
Part of the problem is that title. While one can easy accept that Henry Biggs was moved by what happened in Ferguson and wanted to do something to help, what does ultra-marathon swimming really have to do with Ferguson?
Well, nothing really, which leaves director Derek Elz with the problem of figuring out how to link the two topics. The documentary tries to solve this by moving back and forth between spotlighting Henry Biggs and his swimming challenge, and a discussion of what happened in Ferguson.
To its credit, when the documentary focuses on Ferguson, it mostly features people who were there or have an real connection to events, rather than just outside experts and pundits. Among those featured are Michael Brown’s father, Michael Brown Sr., a voice less often heard than the teen’s mother McSpadden The documentary also strives for some degree of balance in viewpoints, although everyone agrees that events escalated out of control and that it sparked a national conversation.
The documentary is very polished and professional, following the usual format of on-camera interviews, archival stills and footage, including some of the swimmer training, promoting his fundraiser before crowds and then the marathon swim itself.
Henry Biggs seems like an interesting character, a middle-aged white man who comes across as a colorful character with diverse interests and apparently a lot of money. Biggs also seems very well-connected. Among the people who speak about his planned swimming marathon are sportcaster Joe Buck and a host of champion marathon swimmers.
The personal side of Henry Biggs is covered by friends and family. Henry’s wife Theresa, an adjunct professor of Italian at St. Louis University, describes her husband when she first met his as a kind of scruffy, disheveled “dude,” but that dude earned a PhD, an MBA, a law degree and a Masters in computer science. He also participated the Boston Marathon and Iron Man. Other interviewees include a pair of African American friends, Henry’s “Little Brother” from Big Brothers, Jamyel Collins, now CEO of JDC Vending, and an assistant dean at Washington University (where Biggs works), Dr. Harvey R. Field, Jr.
Biggs himself says he wants to raise funds for educational initiatives in Ferguson, particularly mentoring programs, inspired by his 30 plus years working with Big Brothers Big Sisters. To prepare, Biggs swam six hours a day, in pools or open water.
As part of the swimming section, the film briefly gives some background on marathon open-sea swimming, focusing on feats like swimming the English Channel, and covers the unique challenges of those kinds of athletic attempts. Among the difficulties swimmers face with the English Channel are the cold water temperatures as well as waves and weather. One marathon swimmer described the channel as “the Mount Everest of open-water swims.” Still Henry was among those who swam it as a young man.
Actually, Henry takes the swimming challenge a bit further, when he learns that Manhattan Island and the English Channel are two of the three legs in the open-water “Triple Crown,” and he decides to try to swim the third one, around Catalina Island, also as a fundraiser for Ferguson. It is footage of this swim that is presented in the documentary, rather than the swim around Manhattan.
In the Ferguson sections interspersed throughout, the documentary does feature people close to the events in Ferguson, including Michael Brown Sr. talking about hearing his son was laying in the street bleeding. Many people in the St. Louis region watched in horror and embarrassment as authorities engaged in a series of bad decisions, at the local, regional and state level, that led to escalating violence, as the whole nation and even the world watched.
Besides members of Michael Brown’s family, those offering commentary on what happened are include by Captain Ron Johnson, the black Missouri Highway Patrol captain who was appointed commander of the police response as things began to spin out of control. Johnson attempted to de-escalate tensions between police and protesters by changing the tone of police interactions and backing off the paramilitary approach, but he arrived too late to turn the tide. Other voices offer another perspective, defending Darren Wilson’s actions as a judgment call or the authority’s responses. Among the voices are Ferguson mayor James Knowles II, who says that events in Ferguson were “a spark that set off the emotions of people who hadn’t been heard. There were so many people there for so many different reasons, and it became a situation where people who were there to protest peacefully were now intermixed with people there to do harm.” an insight authorities at the time did not grasp until it was too late. “Water finally boiled out of the pot.” as Capt. Johnson put it.
The discussion on Ferguson is thoughtful and well-balanced, and its greatest strength is that is it the people involved who speak, not outside pundits. Still, what is discussed perhaps does not really add much to what has already been said about what happened or its significance for the country.
Throughout, the film feels like two different documentaries mashed together: one a thoughtful discussion on events in Ferguson by the people who witnessed it, and the other a personal profile of an accomplished middle-aged man attempting a daunting athletic feat. What happened in Ferguson launched the Black Lives Matter movement and a national conversation on race and police, as well as some elected officials losing elections and an increase in black political participation in in the St. Louis region. That is serious stuff compared to one man preparing for a marathon swim, and the documentary really does struggle to connect the two. It really does not, and instead focuses on each story, the swimming challenge and Ferguson, by turns. Even the tone does not match, as the Ferguson section is serious and socially reflective, while the swimming portion feels more personal and lighter, no matter how difficult the marathon swim.
These subjects would have been better served by two separate documentaries. This awkward combination, however well-meaning it may be, makes this film an oddity that might have a fairly narrow audience.
SWIMMING TO FERGUSON opens Friday, Sept. 14, at the Tivoli Theater.
RATING: 2 out of 5 stars
