Movie Review: Crip Camp

Crip Camp **** / *****

Directed by: James Lebrecht & Nicole Newnham.

 

When you hear the basic premise of Crip Camp, you probably have an idea in your head of just what the film is going to be. Here is a film about a camp for disabled teenagers – focusing on a group that attended in the early 1970s – and who had several attendees go onto become key figures in the disability rights movement – a movement that shamefully took a very long time to achieve their goals. So right off the bat, you have a merging of several kinds of docs that we’ve seen countless examples of in the past – the inspirational documentary about people struggling with disabilities, but who do not let it define their lives, an issue based documentary looking at a very important social issue, and a documentary about the 1960s counter culture. When you find out that one of the directors – James Lebrecht – was among those who attended the camp, you get another sinking suspicion that the film is going to be hagiography as well. It feels, based on all of that, like the type of doc that inspires respectful, but not enthusiastic reviews – you don’t want to appear insensitive to the issues it raises, or dismissive, but at the same time, it’s all just sort of bland – been there, seen that. So it makes the fact that Crip Camp mainly avoids those pitfalls all the more remarkable.

 

The title is designed to immediately shock you – no one would refer to disabled people as crips anymore and not immediately get cancelled. But it’s a necessary title, as it takes you back to that time, when these disabled teens really were treated like that – as invalids to pity, but then pushed aside to not make people uncomfortable. The camp is Camp Jened – which ran in the Catskills from the early 1950s until the late 1970s – and as becomes clear in the film, it was a freeing experience for those who attended. For once, they weren’t the “only” one like them in the room, getting pitying glances. They weren’t treated differently from everyone else. They were allowed to be themselves, to find themselves, to express themselves. It was an empowering time.

 

Most of the documentary actually takes place after the subjects have left the camp – and went on to become key members of the disability rights movement – culminating in the 504 sit-in of 1977 – when dozens of people refused to leave the department of Health, Education and Welfare until their demands were met. A documentary solely focusing on that – and the surrounding issues – would be interesting in its own right. What makes Crip Camp more though is those early scenes at the camp – which puts what comes later into a wider context, and shows just how important those earlier, formative experiences were. It gave those who attended the confidence to do what they had to later on.

 

The film doesn’t entirely avoid the pitfalls and clichés of its genre – truly, they couldn’t have picked a more obvious soundtrack for the film, featuring one song after another, that have become clichés for movies set in this period. And the film undeniably still has the goal to inspire and uplift. But it never lays it on too thick, never goes for the obvious moments to try and make you cry, to try and make your heart swell. You do those things anyway, because of the way the film has been assembled – from excellent period footage, and new interviews with the people that shows you everything you need to know. All of this combines to make Crip Camp the rare documentary of its kind that earns that sense of importance – and becomes a must-see for more reasons than because it’s “important”.