Longtime Running (2017)

Directed by: Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier | 97 minutes | documentary, music | Starring: Gord Downie, Paul Langlois, Gord Sinclair, Bobby Baker, Johnny Fay, Justin Trudeau

Living in the face of death sounds romantic, albeit only for those who don’t have to experience it themselves. Gordon Downie, singer of Canada’s number one cult band Tragically Hip (in the Netherlands briefly hip in the 1990s), was saddled with incurable brain cancer in early 2016 and passed away in 2017. In the meantime, he underwent brain-sparing surgery that would almost certainly cause disability, but stretch life for another year. During that period Downie spoke and walked with difficulty; he managed to learn the lyrics of the songs with a coach, after which he went on an emotional farewell tour with the band, which also had an excellent live reputation in the Netherlands.

Remarkably, Downie’s flamboyant delivery after the operation was even more intense and menacing than before. With the approaching farewell, the myth surrounding ‘The Hip’, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s favorite band, even became gigantic. The closing concert in hometown Kingston, Ontario was broadcast live on national television and followed in market squares.
There’s a good reason for that. The repetitive, gritty guitar rock of The Hip was taken to a higher level by the storyteller, a level that the band managed to maintain for decades, as Downie always managed to conjure another Canadian fairy tale from the top hat.

Things fell into place in 1997 when cult hit ‘Courage’ became the title track of ‘The Sweet Hereafter’, a Canadian take on ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’. The final tour in 2016 is described in ‘Long Time Running’, referring to a song title by The Hip. Nothing wrong with that, not with the band, not with the performance, and with the frontman, who was still able to contribute to this documentary. The true enthusiast misses a bit the real-time emotions of the already extensively covered farewell. The passion of the Canadian fan is again difficult to follow for the layman, because the makers simply assume that everything is already known. Touching highlight: the final round of applause from the thousands in Kingston, with Gordon Downie staring blankly into nothingness.