Finding Love and Beauty in the Most Unlikely Place A Stunning Look at People Society has Forgotten
Written by Rebecca DeRosa
In The Nine, which premiered at DOC NYC on Monday, photographer turned director Katy Grannan turns the lens on a community of people—many of whom are drug addicts, prostitutes, and victims of abuse—living on South 9th St. (the Nine) in Modesto, California.
Kiki (a.k.a. Artimise Fairley), the main subject of this breathtaking film, introduces us to the neighborhood she calls home saying, “The Nine is where people go to die. I think God is here though. Right in the places people forgot to look.”
Grannan finds beauty in unexpected places: cats playing among trash, a woman’s eyes after talking with her daughter on the phone, weeds along a river. Her masterful camerawork and editing (with help from Assistant Director Hannah Hughes) compels the viewer to pay attention without flinching at the devastation and poverty.
As producer Marc Smolowitz said after the screening, “We want to avert our gaze. What the film allows you to do as a viewer is to keep looking.”
Grannan said she was drawn to the residents of the Nine because her childhood best friend ended up in a similar situation—she became addicted to drugs, lived on the street, and died at a young age. She wanted to delve into this world of people who have fallen through the cracks because as she said, “They deserve to be heard. They deserve to be remembered.”
Because of Grannan’s empathy and honesty with the community, the residents open themselves up to the camera, allowing her to document their most intimate and vulnerable moments. We see them playing in the dirty river, dancing in the parking lot, helping each other put on make up before going out to solicit sex, and nodding off catatonically after shooting up.
Kiki’s poetic observations are laid over striking visuals: “I like watching the birds singing love songs to each other. I watch them collect twigs, leaves, and even bits of string if they can find it. They can build something beautiful out of nothing.”
Grannan explained that she wanted as much of Kiki’s input as possible and even bills her as a co-writer. “I felt that it was important that she tell her story her own way,” Grannan said. “She’s so smart, so wise. Her intelligence and insight came through in the narration.”
The Nine is a brilliant piece of visual storytelling and an examination of our own humanity
Rebecca DeRosa is a writer, musician, and yoga teacher living in Brooklyn. When she’s not writing reviews for Tom Tom Magazine, she is playing drums in the band Fisty.
