Product: Shades Of Gray (2009)
Rating: 4.0
Investigator! Prankster! Believer?
Shades of Grayis a finely done, warm portrait of Gray Barker, legendary in UFO circles for bringing some of the more interesting facets of UFO lore/history (you decide) into the general consciousness. He was the first to report on the infamous Men in Black, was right there for the entire Mothman series of incidents, covered by John Keel inThe Mothman Propheciesand by Barker in his own, more focusedThe Silver Bridge: The Classic Mothman Tale. Truly this pioneer in the modern UFO field is worthy of a profile of his own.Through the course of the film, Barker's friends and colleagues share reminisces, highlighting both his stronger points and his key faults as an investigator (an occasionally impish sense of humor that led him to perpetrate a hoax or two along the way). Do these hoaxes make him less reliable on other incidents? My personal belief is that they don't. For a movie that could have been just a series of talking heads, it's incredibly interesting. Through the use of interviews, old footage of Barker, bits and pieces of old news footage, and just a touch of reenactment, the director crafts a multi-layered narrative that never gets boring, and is often fascinating.The only criticism I have for the film is that it presumes familiarity with all of the subjects discussed in the movie. The general public may well be mildly versed in the lore of the Men in Black (thanks to the film and the X-Files) and the Mothman (the film), but how many people outside of the UFO field are familiar with the Flatwoods Monster or George Adamski? The filmmakers provide us with very brief (1-2 minute) overviews of each incident before getting into Barker's handling of them, but this isn't nearly enough for the layman. The film is only 72 minutes long...surely they could have added more comprehensive overviews without making the film feel padded or overlong. I'm not talking about much...another 3 or 4 minutes each, maximum. I feel this would have made Shades of Gray much more accessible to someone with only a mild interest in UFOs. As it stands, it's really for the devotees only.I really enjoyed getting a closer look at the occasionally enigmatic Barker, but I came in knowing something about him already. Still, it's an intimate portrait of a man who devoted big parts of his life to the study of something that eludes us all...the unknown.