The unhappy front The problem of excess weight is becoming more relevant day by day due to the growing food security of the population, and the fact that the average person needs to move less and less. This leads to an increase in overweight in many people, which is certainly not particularly good. However, on the other hand, such people are bullied only because they are fat (as the heroines of Army Plus put it), which is also wrong. "Army plus" is, by the way, in the original Fat Front, that is, "Fat Front" or "Fat Front". Actually, about the struggle of such people for their right to be fat / fat (no matter how absurd it may sound) and tells the film.
He says strangely: firstly, there is not a single man among the heroes, as if the problem concerns only women. It's far from that. Secondly, bullying, but the fact that obesity leads to negative health consequences, the film mentions only in passing. Of course, everyone is free to decide whether to be fat or thin, athletic or loose, but obesity is harmful to health, as, for example, smoking, alcohol or drugs. No one wants to prove that smoking is a good thing.
To say that "Army Plus" is a "bold and candid film" is possible only if ... although perhaps not, you can not say so. Directing raises questions: the film looks long, shot with a claim to art, but in general, not at all fascinating, even boring, and very eclectic. The director failed to put these 4 stories together, weave them into a general narrative, so after about half an hour of watching, you begin to regularly look at the clock with the thought: “How much is left?” Well, frankness is also a problem: if you consider frankness that there every 5 minutes show a naked body, it is not frankness at all, but rather just plain eroticism, and that the body is flooded with fat - these are details. Frank can only be called the stories of the heroines told on camera, and this just clarifies a lot in themselves: by the end of the film it becomes clear that only one of the heroines accepts herself as she is and does not care at all about her appearance and the attitude of others - this is Martha. The rest, as it turns out, have serious psychological problems, and participation in the body-positive movement does not contribute to their solution, it either aggravates them, or pushes them to the background. One of the girls grew up with an alcoholic father, abandoned in fact by her mother, the other from childhood complexed about her body (she was larger than other children, while not fat, just large), then lost weight, and grew fat to its current size after the breakup of relations, and the third in her teens was harassed by one of the people close to her and was not supported by the family. In all of them, something has broken and they all give the impression of deeply unhappy people, for whom all body-positive activism is nothing more than a sublimation, and not a solution to their problems. All of them, except for the above-mentioned Martha, cause sincere sympathy personally, but the attitude towards the body-positive movement is rather negative.
There are not many filmings of the main characters in the crowd, on the street, and we can clearly see that their presence does not cause any reaction in other people. All their problems lie not in the social sphere, but in the sphere of relationships either with relatives or with themselves. It is also well shown how some (for example, an unnamed friend who also opened a clothing store) quite successfully monetize the internal split and grief of fat / fat people, and body positive movement for them is something like a marketing move.
Of course, the bodpositive movement is important - it is necessary to help people to fit in with their own body. This, by the way, applies not only to those suffering from obesity, but also to those suffering from anorexia. But “Army Plus” rather shows that it is of no use: all the activists are shown cornered, deeply unhappy and unable to overcome their complexes. They try photoshoots, candid photos, eccentric behavior and other activities just to drown out their pain, and the only heroine who coped with their fears, no body-positive activist is not, but just lives his life.