Film Review: Life on Wheels

Mother’s Day 2020. Mid-pandemic. I read Bill Gates’ “Pandemic 1" about finding our way through COVID-19 and I watched a documentary on Prime called “Life on Wheels” by David and Hi-Jin Hodge about finding our way beyond the automobile.

Two “next normals”. Each hopeful. Both demanding patience and hard work. Both necessitating that we extend our reach. By a lot.

One analogized to World War II, the other to moon landings to scale the challenges we are now forced to face. "Forced" because the virus cannot be put off. And forced because the virus has exacerbated the quarrel between car and human in our cities — a quarrel we've have been kicking down the road for a century.

Because I experienced these two works in adjacent hours, I saw parallels. Both describe a scourge on our cities and civilizations. Both are sobering in their clear descriptive force. Both offer solutions. Both make it clear this will not be easy.

And both are beautifully executed — Gates’ writing is crystalline; David Hodge’s videography and Hi-Jin’s editing are by turns stunning and superb. They're a happy couple if their marriage is as beautiful as their craft.

One of the highlights in Life on Wheels was an interview with Salvador Rueda from Barcelona. A bold planner, his warmth is unsurpassed among all the thought leaders Hodge filmed.

"I want to dream a city for citizens. …because we include inside of this idea a place for the little village inside of the big city. And at the same time, you are sure of the functionality and mobility and organization of the city.

“If you can do this, you will have the best city that you can dream.

“What is the most important inside of cities?

“People.

“In the end, we want to develop a city for citizens, not for cars."

We are blessed to have people like Rueda, and some 40 others in the film, dedicated to giving us humanized spaces. And blessed to have these filmmakers willing spend the better part of five or six years to document this.

Here is a longer review by Lance Eliot that includes a link to the film on Prime.