If an artist sees beauty in rubber skid marks, does that make it art? That's what this quirky and surprisingly thoughtful film tries to figure out. Video artist Ariella Pahlke wondered who was expressing themselves all over the two-lane blacktop near her rural Nova Scotia home. Her video investigation lead her into a new world of burnouts, muscle cars, abstract art and contemporary music.
Burning Rubber (tonight, 7 p.m., Bravo!) delightfully plays to two completely different worlds: the grease monkeys and thrill-seekers who don't get the art angle, but love destroying several sets of tires a week; and the Swiss artist who does peel-outs on his motorcycle in his studio and then hangs the burned rubber on the wall. Pahlke also attends a burnout barbeque, meets a musician who composed Pneu Musique (a melody inspired by skid marks), and a Toronto artist who burns rubber with a custom-built, one-wheeled machine.
The film gets really interesting, however, when an art gallery at St. Mary's University brings the two worlds together for an exhibition performance. Smoke, testosterone and abstract art take over a parking lot outside Halifax, and there's enough melted rubber to make everyone happy - even if the two sides never do understand each other.
More docs
Orgasm Inc. on The Passionate Eye (Sunday, 10 p.m. on CBC News Network). A documentary filmmaker once took a job editing erotic videos for a pharmaceutical company, which was testing a female orgasm cream. Here she discovered the industry's race to find some kind of Viagra for women and cure "female sexual dysfunction." She interviews doctors, drug-makers, scientists and people who think women are being exploited.