The Flying Scissors

By Kate Xian

A surprisingly adorable film by New Yorkers Blake Harris and Jonah Tulis, The Flying Scissors is a mockumentary following the cutthroat sport of Rock Paper Scissors. Obviously modeled off of documentaries on seemingly mundane “sports” such as Spellbound and Mad Hot Ballroom, The Flying Scissors pokes fun at the absurdity of serious competition on, well a rather mundane game of chance.

Starring an ensemble cast, filmmakers Harris and Tulis take advantage of all the indie filmmaker tricks in the book and finish with a film of fine execution. Though Scissors is rather light in story, its fairly heavy in character. Multitudes of character. Some border on the cliché, but that in fact seems to be the joke. We’ve got the hot blonde, the stay at home dad, recent divorcee, the granola feminist and others with low ambitions and full hearts.

With a cast of well over half a dozen, Tulis and Harris did a terrific job in balancing all the characters - none were particularly favoured more so over another nor were any underused. Quite a feat and an arduous task in filmmaking. There are few films that succeed in doing so without one being weighted more heavily than another. However. The ‘ensemble cast’ houses a double-edged sword. On one hand it ups production value and interest, on the other, storylines and arcs have a tendency to get muddled and, I admit, I can’t give you a name for the life of me. And ironically enough the clichés are its saving grace. The characteristics and storylines are embedded into these clichés, which helps in telling apart the slacker college kid from the mass of brute force named The Rock.

Although, at times, these clichés unfortunately became borderline stereotypical. I know, I know, we’re not supposed to say it, but that’s the beauty with working for JXM. We get to say what we see. “Expose the truth!” as my boss would say. There’s the trashtalking black man and the math obsessed uber Asian geek. There are more socio-political ramifications here than I care to mention. They’re ultimately harmless, but turning the expected into the unexpected usually drives a viewer deeper into the world created onscreen. That’s one of the things that makes movie magic magic.

Despite my little rant, The Flying Scissors is truly exemplary filmmaking from the indie perspective. Smartly done and cleverly written, Scissors upholds its humour and pushes its absurdity through and through to the end. You may not know who to root for in the end, but that’s part of its charm. They’re all a little goofy, a little loveable and they make us want them all to win as a victory, no matter how seemingly small, uplifts their spirits and even ours too.

Release Date: November 6, 2009