How best to describe Peter Boyd MacLean’s film Lummox about the artist Millree Hughes?

Well, firstly, it’s not your typical heads-and-clips, or long interview with the artist as saint, no. Rather like the best of Peter Boyd MacLean’s work it critiques and re-invents the form of the documentary as something startling, new. and exciting

It’s a bit like having a conversation with a smart kid, who makes you reassess exactly what you think you know.

For example, one day I was accompanying my friend’s five-year-old daughter home from school, and in the silvery twilight of a spring evening, we were talking about how far we could see. “I can see the houses at the end of the road,” my wee pal said. “I can see the trees in the gardens beyond them,” I replied. “I can see the tower blocks away in the distance,” she said. “I can see the hills away over at the horizon.” “How far is that?” “I dunno, several miles away, I guess.” “I can see further than that,” wee McDoodler said. “I can see thousands of miles further than that.” “Really? You can’t see that far.” “Yes, I can. I can see the stars.”

Boyd MacLean can certainly see the stars.

I’m probably biased as I’ve known Peter for quite a while—since not longer after he made his name as part of the Duvet Brothers, producing award-wining scratch videos for the likes of “Pump Up The Volume.” Since then, he’s been making television series and documentaries, all of which bear his distinctive creative style as a film-maker.

Lummox is a collaborative documentary with New York-based Abstract artist Millree Hughes. It follows Hughes’ disillusionment with his lenticular Abstract work, and his desire to include a figure within his dynamic landscapes. (Sadly, the film only gives a slight idea of how truly beautiful Hughes’ work is.) The film also questions the role of the film-maker, asking how much of a documentary is the story of its subject rather than the film’s creator. Boyd MacLean builds Lummox to an emotionally powerful, yet chaotic, entertaining and bizarre “Glam Roque” finale.
 

 
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