Jessica Yu's documentary Protagonist is a provocative exploration of the age-old question: Is character fate? To answer this question, Jessica selected four men to tell their personal stories. At first, as the film unfolds you wonder what these four men have in common that could shed light on the question given their disparate experiences: Joe Loya, a former bank robber turned journalist; Mark Pierpont, a former televangelist who suppressed his homosexuality for years; Mark Salzman, a kung fu fanatic and self-described recovering ‘machoholic’; and Hans-Joachim Klein, a former Red Army Faction terrorist who renounced violence as a justifiable means to accomplish political goals after hi jacking an airplane.

My conversation with Jessica started with the opening question of whether fate exists in the modern world. Most people today subscribe to a mixture of free will and unlimited opportunity that allows us to believe that we are in control of our destiny. At the beginning of the film, all four men also retell making decisions that they thought would change their lives.

His widowed father, a respected member of the local church, raised Joe Loya and his younger brother. He blamed his two young sons for his wife's death.

He regularly beat them. Joe watched, powerless, as his father's rage became more violent. Joe's decision to stab his father when he was 16 in order to protect his brother was a psychological and emotional catalyst that lead to the life of an outlaw. Joe believed that by embracing the "dark side," he was being more honest than his father about the true nature of the world.



Mark Pierpont describes growing-up in a fundamentalist Christian household in a culture that considered homosexuality a sin that would lead to eternal damnation. As an adolescent he realized that he was attracted to men. As an adult, he decided to not only deny his own desire but to encourage others to do so by embracing Jesus. He became a missionary and then televangelist, teaching that homosexuality was an affront to God to crowds of thousands.

Mark Salzman was the smallest boy in his class who was physically picked on. His parents dismissed his complaints and told him to tell his teachers. Mark discovered Kung fu and his identity transformed from victim to invincible black belt who could defeat any opponent. 

Hans-Joachim Klein rejected his father's world of law and order by joining a secret cell of the Red Army Faction. He describes the road to violence as a logical extension of his own idealism that sought to create a world without violence, injustice or oppression. I pointed out to Jessica that his story in particular raises the uncomfortable question of whether or not idealism is ever a virtue, especially if taken to a political, or today's world, religious extreme.

Jessica replied that all four men recognized that their character determined their actions. Each man, as he recounts his story, explains that he considered his actions to be an extension of his idealism and their respective choices were logically coherent within their own individual moral systems. When selecting her four subjects, she did not want it to be a "parade of excuses" and she selected her four subjects because they did not claim that Fate absolved them of responsibility.

"Hans is still someone who is very tortured about what he did. All four men took responsibility for their actions and were aware of their decisions."

The challenge each of them faced was what to do once they recognized their tragic flaw. In the case of Mark Pierpont, he shed a belief system and found the middle ground rather than a new extreme.

"There is a sense of catharsis but not an external change. Each man went on a dark journey, but it's what happens after, when you're back to reality. You can't stay a child, sometimes it takes the journey to come back."

 

Elizabeth Sheldon, Editor

In the documentary film The Protagonist, Academy Award winning director Jessica Yu masterfully weaves four contemporary stories into a provocative narrative that does not seek to judge its subjects or make political pronouncements, but rather to use these stories as a window into human nature.

Her four protagonists are average men and extremists. At the heart of each man's story is the quest to transcend his imperfections. While each man's motivation is highly personal, the stories demonstrate how the individual struggle between fate and character can have far-reaching consequences.

The Hollywood Reporter describes Protagonist as "…a fresh and bracing slant to the psychology of personality…her documentary look(s) at four lives defined by fanaticism," and according to Andrew O'Hehir at Salon.com, Protagonist is “…also a highly original and at times thrilling use of the documentary medium, and one of the most revealing films about the troubled nature of contemporary manhood I've ever seen.