Review: "Helvetica"

There's just no way to sugarcoat it: Helvetica is a documentary about a font. It's primarily street shots and talking heads. Most of the people are old, white European designers. And did I mention it's about a font?

For those with no interest whatsoever in design, Helvetica does very little to rile up passion. But it does a great job of preaching to the already converted. It makes a great case for the perfectly-designed titular font that certainly does seem to be everywhere, from street signs to advertisements. And it's embraced by post-modern designers and governments alike. The film is brief on history, but lengthy on opinion-gathering. Helvetica is called everything from ingenious and perfect to, half-jokingly, the "cause of the Iraq War." The filmmaker clearly has deep love for his subject and every interviewee has something surprisingly unique to say about Helvetica (I had no idea it was so polarizing in the design community!).

One annoying bit: in the last minute of the film, one of the talking heads discusses how, because of sites like myspace, the general public--specifically the younger generation--is completely reframing how they create and perceive visual communication. Everyone is becoming more attuned to beauty of negative space and font design. But because so many amateurs are throwing their hats in the arena, it creates an even bigger necessity for something clean. I really wish they would have expanded on this, but alas, they had credits to roll. Considering the doc is only 72 minutes, I think thy could have afforded to explore this idea a little more.

But the star is Helvetica, not lofty theories on visual communication. So I guess I (begrudgingly) understand.

Notes: Helvetica is available on Watch Instantly on Netflix. Also, this review is in Arial, what someone in the film calls "Windows' ugly version of Helvetica." Fair enough.

NPR talks to the filmmaker: