By including Danny’s elation, the non-fatal overdose, and Cliff’s street economy, Harrison facilitates a nuanced conversation about an element of party culture that is often stigmatized or glamorized in movies. What works about Groove isn’t merely its affecting portrayal of a seldom depicted world, but Harrison’s commitment to creating a complex ensemble of engaging characters who gather around the maypole that is PLUR (peace, love, unity and respect). With Groove, Harrison isn’t trying to sell you a fantasy about some beat-heavy, utopian underworld. Conflict emerges at the rave. People spar as they tend to do. But through his narrative, it is clear that he firmly understands the transformative power parties can have, how they help people return to themselves, how they make life more liveable.
MJSays concurs: “There ain’t nothing quite like rave culture—and when I say ‘rave culture,’ I don’t mean something like Coachella or Burning Man, where wide-brim hipster hats and Instagram egos take up most of the dancefloor—I’m talking about those now-forgotten underground parties hidden away in industrial warehouses or isolated pine forests, where bottled water was the highest currency, freedom of expression reigned and getting lost in the music was always the sole objective of the night.”
In March, Atlanta’s Audio Video Club asked me to program a film for Cinelogue, their cinema and dialogue series. Surprise, surprise: I chose Groove. The night opened with an interactive exhibit about the film outfitted with printed behind-the-scenes stills, copies of the raver’s manifesto, bubbles, citrus fruit, flowers. After we screened the movie, local DJs spun off vinyl and USB drives for a dancing crowd of attendees. What moved through the space wasn’t just a collection of house heads and giddy, sweaty Southern cinephiles. There was an aftertaste of casual sublimity, the seedlings of Greg Harrison’s cinematic efforts still coming into bloom after a quarter of a century, the succor of experiencing something new in the transcendent presence of strangers.
To my delight, as the subwoofers were loaded up and chairs folded, a few people thanked me for screening the film and attested that they’d tell their friends, roommates, co-workers, and lovers about it too. On departing they gave me the nod.
