QUEST
***1/2 (out of four)
DIRECTED BY Jonathan Olshefski
STARS Christopher “Quest” Rainey, Christine’a “Ma Quest” Rainey
In the manner of the classic Hoop Dreams, director Jonathan Olshefski’s Quest looks at the triumphs and travails of a lower-class black family over the course of several years. And like many other documentaries (The Queen of Versailles springs to mind), it’s a nonfiction piece that began as one sort of project before the real world shaped it into something different.
Quest, screening as part of the Charlotte Film Festival, was initially conceived as a look at the neighborhood music studio created by Christopher “Quest” Rainey, who lives in North Philly with his wife Christine’a “Ma Quest” Rainey and their bright daughter Patricia “PJ” Rainey. Filmed over the course of approximately a decade, this powerful and poignant picture moves well beyond its original niche to examine a family that eventually has to contend with the tragic specter of violence as it directly impacts them and ensures that nothing will ever quite be the same again. Other characters — family members, neighbors, supportive cops — float in and out of the narrative, but the focus is never far removed from the formidable trio at its center.
Quest primarily unfolds throughout the Obama years — indeed, the elections occasionally pop up in the story — but with the dawning of Trump’s AmeriKKKa (the tyrant even shows up briefly, imploring African-Americans to vote for him), its importance as a document of the marginalized and the victimized looms larger than ever.
(Quest will be shown at 7:15pm Friday, Sept. 29, at Ayrsley. For more information on this and other Charlotte Film Festival offerings, go to www.charlottefilmfestival.org.)
This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 3, 2017.
I want to thank you for helping trump gain a second term.
Hey hey say say bay bay day day no peaceful USA. Hahahaha!!!
Protest. Protest. Protest!!!!
Hahahaha!!!!!!
Hahahaha!!! You have a couple reasons to take a knee, dontcha? Hahahaha!!!!
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John Baker, you sound like a repugnant human being.
Scott, you have no idea. John Baker is indeed repugnant. I made the mistake of replying to his initial childish taunt that he sent via e-mail and he then flooded my inbox with dimwitted comments, most of which I didn’t even read before relegating his future correspondence to Spam — although I did see that he used words like “snowflake” and “cuck,” since Trump groupies are so utterly devoid of imagination and basically just parrot each other. He also started stalking me on Facebook and Twitter. He’s a racist and homophobic moron, pure and simple.
Incidentally, John Baker was too gutless to actually post these comments and instead sent them just to me. But since they were sent to my work e-mail, that qualifies them as Letters to the Editor, and I’m only too happy to expose his prejudices.
Hilarious. I know a John Baker here in Charlotte and this is definitely him. Yeah, he’s a tool. He’s into golf and I often chuckle thinking how he probably cries himself to sleep because Trump hasn’t called him yet to invite him to play a game.