An energetic crowd filled the ByTowne Cinema for a much anticipated second screening of The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man on Nov. 19.
The movie, a two-year-long passion project by director Braden Sitter Sr., was loosely based on attacks in Toronto in 2019 that saw five people covered in feces. Based on the true story, the movie follows main character Miguel’s spiral into paranoia after repeated drug usage with themes of science fiction and telepathy on top.
The movie includes moments where Miguel experiences telepathic communication and leaves it ambiguous to the viewer whether or not Miguel has some sort of foot in reality. Miguel’s spiral continues until the titular moments, where he throws feces and urine on passers-by in the streets of Toronto.
“The initial crime spree didn’t inspire me,” Sitter said. “A couple of years later, and I thought, ‘Oh, this is really fertile territory,’ and then I was excited about it.”
The ByTowne Cinema was almost full, with seats hard to come as the movie started. When Sitter asked during the Q&A if anyone had already seen the film, around 30 people already had, with at least two people cosplaying the titular main character.
First-time viewer Brian Vance said he came to see the movie because “it was well acclaimed.”
The movie used absurdist humour while portraying the spiral of untreated mental health. The humour contained a fair amount of feces puns, including twisted covers of songs including The Tragically Hip’s “Blow at High Dough” and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” rewritten to be about stool.
“It was humorous, but it felt like I had done drugs, but I was completely sober,” said audience member Anosh Rabbani.
Audience members said the different ways you could interpret the movie was part of its appeal.
Was it a harrowing picture of drug abuse in large cities? A commentary on how society allows people to reach this point of desperation through mental health issues and self-medication? Or was it simply 90 minutes of poop jokes?
With most things, the answer lies somewhere in between for most viewers.
“[The movie] is funny … but a couple of people … have told me that it’s a very sad movie, and I agree with that. I think it was very sad, but like Mary Poppins, you know, ‘A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,’” Sitter said.
Sitter said he hopes his film will contribute to the film scene by inspiring people to create something that delights them, even if they don’t have a big budget or team.
“What I’m hoping is that more people will see that they don’t need such a big budget to try something,” he said. “Make something that delights you, that you’re excited about, and trust that if you’re excited about that, other people will be excited about that [too].”
Featured image by Bianca McKeown/The Charlatan.
