Despite numerous other documentaries on the subject, as a masterwork of craft and technique, Alain Renais’ landmark Night and Fog still evokes the mind-boggling obscenity of the Holocaust with maximum impact. Renais forces us to witness the horror and digest those horrible images which, once seen, never leave one’s mind. While the breadth of Claude Lanzmann’s work is missing from Night and Fog, Renais’ vision in documenting the Holocaust is close to being the first and final word on the subject.
Showing posts with label Documentary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Documentary. Show all posts
Thursday, 21 July 2016
Wednesday, 12 March 2014
A Brief History of Time
The story and science of renowned astro-physicist Stephen Hawking was given the Errol Morris cinematic treatment in A Brief History of Time in 1991. Morris’ ability to probe deep into unique idiosyncratic characters is put to the ultimate test in Hawking, the wheelchair bound genius with no way of communicating other than his hand controlled clicker and computer-translated voice. And yet through his inert facade emerges perhaps the most enlightening character study he’s ever made.
Thursday, 11 July 2013
Shoah
The masterful comprehensive examination of the Holocaust never fails to mesmerize on all levels of cinema, history and humanity. Though never having seen Claude Lanzmann’s lauded and landmark 9-hr film on the Holocaust until now, the effect of watching it today is probably more powerful than it was first released, and likely will become more revelant and revelatory with each passing year.
Wednesday, 10 April 2013
Room 237
Perhaps the ultimate cinephile's playground, 'Room 237' details the obsessions of devoted fans of Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining', the now legendary, much discussed and debated horror film, which at a glance appears to be a simple story about the breakdown of a psychologically damaged writer from the effects of isolation. Yet, with microscopic frame-by-frame analysis there emerges some equally deranged but sometimes irrefutable dramatic subtext that deepens this already beguiling film.
Friday, 15 March 2013
Chronicle of a Summer
Chronicle of a Summer, a unique collaboration of sociologists and filmmakers interviewing a number of Parisian working class men and women discussing themes personal and political, is a treasure of documentary cinema. Made in 1960 in Paris, not only do we get to see the rich flavour of the romantic city in the 60’s, Morin and Rouch’s documentary shows us the thrill of classical cinema verite at its most relevant and revealing.
Friday, 18 January 2013
Samsara
Samsara, another the eye-popping cultural visually essay, shot in high gloss 70mm with Fricke's trademark pristine compositions and dizzying time lapse photography, is even more sumptuous and satisfying than 1992's Baraka. With such a huge canvas it's impossible to be subtle with this picture, so critiquing any of it's heavy-handed theme or statement making is an exercise in futility.
Monday, 7 January 2013
Qatsi Trilogy
Even as much as our brains have been desensitized to the time-lapse cinematography the film pioneered and even after two other entries in the trilogy, not excluding Ron Fricke’s own documentaries Baraka and Samsara, 30 years hence, Godfrey Reggio’s original ‘Koyaanisqatsi’, is still a visual and aural marvel. Reggio images in the first film, as shot and cut by Ron Fricke in time with the grand music compositions of Philip Glass, are as potent and powerful visual essay of sorts, but surmounting the didactic connotations of an experimental ‘essayist’ film.
Wednesday, 7 November 2012
Crossfire Hurricane
It's a snappy and appropriate title to Brett Morgen's entertaining HBO documentary on the Rolling Stones. While the phrase comes from the memorable song Jumping Jack Flash, it also expresses the aggressive public lifestyle of the Stones, and the theme on which the movie is based - counter-culture icons and the epitome of the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll persona.
Crossfire Hurricane (2012) dir. Brett Morgen
Documentary
By Alan Bacchus
The arc of the Rolling Stones from swinging '60s Beatles rivals to massive drug-using psychedelic superstars to their status as venerable arena supergroup veterans is entertainingly put together by Brett Morgen (The Kid Stays in the Picture) and timed with the 50th anniversary of the band.
By focusing almost solely on the vagabond media-aware lifestyle of the band, the film eschews the familiar narrative style of other rock-docs. This is the story of the Stones from the media's point of view, and the Stones' evolution in tandem with the audience's perception of them. Morgen admirably concentrates on the best years ('64-'74) and only breezes through the rest of the lesser and insignificant latter years of the band.
It's a curiously rocky start to the film though, as it takes 12 minutes or so of loosely cobbled stock footage edited together without form in the opening before settling down into its formal narrative. We're saved the childhood beginnings storyline, instead jumping right into the launch of the Stones in England as a scruffy blues band looking to find its place in pop music landscape heavily weighted to the Beatles. The relationship of the band to the media is succinctly articulated by Keith Richards when he explains that from the outset the Stones were given the black hat to wear, while the Beatles had the white hat. Beatles: good - Stones: bad was the simplistic division but a comparison the band embraced and furthered to the extreme.
Morgen's assembly of black and white stock of the Stones' early days playing riotous shows in England is riveting. At every show riots were routine and security guards fighting off hysterical fans from storming the stage was commonplace. Wearing the bad boys label allowed Richards to push his increasingly hedonistic lifestyle, becoming a very public figure for drug use. Everyone in the band was doing it though, and Morgen seems to have free rein to show shots like Mick taking a bump off a Bowie knife in full view of the camera.
Audio portions of a modern interview conducted without cameras present allow the band to reflect on these fast times without us having to see them as the withered old men they are today. So it's the Rolling Stones in their full glory all of the time. The familiar events in the history of the band are given adequate attention, including the Brian Jones death, the Altamont concert, Richards' and Jagger's numerous drug-related arrests, and all the touring debauchery in between. That said, while explicit with the drugs, Morgen never delves into the sexual appetites of the men - an aspect only implied from the healthy use of backstage footage.
If anything, what we miss most is a more detailed look into the artistic process of the band, the creation and evolution of the signature sounds and the recording of their classic songs. As such, Crossfire Hurricane doesn't seem to be the last word on the band, but perhaps the leanest, most invigorating and stimulating account of the influential rock and rollers.
***½
Crossfire Hurricane premieres on HBO on November 15
Wednesday, 10 October 2012
Paul Williams: Still Alive
The once prominent singer-songwriter Paul Williams, writer of such great songs as 'We've Only Just Begun' and 'Rainbow Connection' and star of the cult musical 'Phantom of the Paradise', who became horribly overexposed in the celebrity zeitgeist of the '70s and quickly disappeared after the '80s, attempts resurrection by filmmaker/superfan Stephen Kessler. What emerges is less a documentary of Williams himself than an unintentional story about the relationship between filmmaker and subject. While the magnificent 'Searching For Sugarman' seemed to be the film Kessler was striving for - a rescue film of Williams from depressive obscurity - the film is most admirable for Kessler’s ability to adapt to his subject’s unpredictability and closed-offness and to find its story along the way.
Paul Williams: Still Alive (2011) dir. Stephen Kessler
Documentary
By Alan Bacchus
The image of Paul Williams is unmistakeable. He's extraordinarily short due to male hormone supplements he received in his childhood, which ironically stunted his growth. This event, as well as his tempestuous relationship with his father, an alcoholic who frequently drove drunk with his kids and who subsequently died in a car accident when William was 13, is recounted by Paul, but quickly shut down by Kessler, the director, in favour of questions about his celebrity. This curious interaction between filmmaker and subject is the first hint of the unconventionality of the filmmaking approach.
Why Kessler wasn’t interested in hearing Williams’ story, which clearly relates to the man’s struggles with drug abuse later in life, is strangely short-sighted. Kessler is clear to show us Williams’ disappointment as well, which for the rest of the film closes Williams off to much of Kessler’s desired access.
As Kessler follows Williams around his celebrity circuit gigs, his inability to get candid footage of Williams as a has-been celebrity is palpable. He compensates for his lack of drama by using his intrusive voiceover, which explains everything that is going wrong with his film. It’s an off-putting method, being aware of the filmmaker at all times and aware of his own shortcomings, and it doesn’t make for a story. But it seems to be the only option left for Kessler to make his film.
Gradually we watch Williams warm up to the camera and slowly reveal himself, thus validating Kessler’s approach. By completely stripping away the artifice or barrier between the camera and subject to the audience, Kessler is able to show Williams with the honesty that both he and Williams desire. He clearly had preconceptions of how Williams sees himself, which creates a unique character arc, the idea of the filmmaker himself learning and growing as a character. Kessler does manage to get Williams to self-acknowledge himself candidly and complete the film’s examination of celebrity.
In between the rocky beginnings and cathartic reconciliation, Kessler shows us a fun slice of '70s celebrity stardom. Williams is a man who started out as a creative songwriting genius, overcame his physical restrictions and found himself sharing space with the elite of the pop culture world. His downfall, evidenced dramatically by his coke-out epic-fail performance on the Merv Griffin show in the '80s, shows Williams as a victim to the powerful effects of celebrity, ego and drugs with the adulterous behaviour striking precisely at Williams’ own insecurities. It’s a familiar story but always a fascinating one.
***
Paul Williams: Still Alive is available on VOD via Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, Bright House, iTunes, VUDU, YouTube, Amazon, Sony (Playstation), Microsoft (Zune,Xbox), Blockbuster, AT&T, Direct TV and DISH.
Wednesday, 19 September 2012
Katy Perry: Part of Me
It seems that a big-screen documentary accompaniment to a big-selling album is now a requisite for emerging pop artists. Over the last few years we’ve seen the Jonas Bros, Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber all on the big screen, in 3D, a well disguised but well produced promotional swag made to heighten the brand awareness of each of these artists. That said, it doesn’t mean these films can’t also be immensely entertaining. I’m not ashamed to say I enjoyed the Jonas Bros concert film and Justin Bieber’s 'Never Say Never' - and now 'Katy Perry: Part of Me'.
Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012) dir. Dan Cutforth, Jane Lipsitz
Documentary
By Alan Bacchus
There’s something fascinating about looking behind the curtain of the creation and process of art. Whether it’s the vérité peak behind the stardom of Bob Dylan in Don’t Look Back or the sensation of following Elvis on the road in Elvis on Tour or the manicured bubble gum pop of superstar du jour Katy Perry, the process of creating celebrities is captivating.
In Part of Me, as customary to these films, we see a mix of concert footage from the recent worldwide tour, backstage antics (heavily filtered for a G rating) and a look back to the beginnings and the long road to overnight success. For Perry it began as the daughter of an evangelical preacher, thus she was a bible-thumping child who started singing Christian tunes and then (sort of) rebelled into conventional mainstream pop. After moving through a few record labels without success she found her niche, her voice and her brand in Capital Records. Her salacious “I Kissed a Girl” launched her permanently into the stratosphere of celebrity in her mid-twenties after years of toil and failure.
Her well documented marriage and break-up with Russell Brand gets good coverage and, to her credit, Perry’s not shy to show the ups and downs of the relationship, all structured neatly in classical screenwriting form.
The fact is, Katy Perry: Part of Me is good storytelling with personable characters, both genuine and real, high stakes, high pressure and a rollercoaster of emotions. What emerges in this film and in the others cited is a dedication to both the craft and creativity of the business. It’s a 24-7 job to be a celebrity with total life-immersion into the world. The perks are there, but at the sacrifice of a normal life.
I don’t own any of Perry’s music, and for me 90 minutes is just enough to learn to appreciate Katy Perry as an artist, and to tap my foot to the admittedly fun pop anthem "Firework".
***
Katy Perry: Part of Me is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment.
Sunday, 16 September 2012
TIFF 2012 - Room 237
Perhaps the ultimate cinephile's playground, 'Room 237' is a fun look into the detailed obsessions of devoted fans of Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining', the now legendary, much discussed and debated horror film, which at a glance appears to be a simple story about the breakdown of a psychologically damaged writer from the effects of isolation. Yet, with microscopic frame-by-frame analysis there emerges some equally deranged but sometimes irrefutable dramatic subtext that deepens this already beguiling film.
Room 237 (2012) dir. Rodney Asher
Documentary
By Alan Bacchus
There are some great documentary films made about obsession. The entire body of work of Errol Morris is an examination, to some degree, of obsession. More specifically, there are also a number of great films made about conspiracy theories, most recently the masterful Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles. Room 237 plays in this arena but with an even more savant-like fastidiousness.
Director Rodney Asher respects the audience and wastes no time with establishing the background to the film. He jumps right into the first analysis, which is the repeated use of Native imagery and references to this imagery in the background of many of the frames. But it's really meant to introduce and establish the characters and style.
As each interviewee gives their own personal theories we never see their faces. As such, the entire film consists of stock footage, often much of it from Kubrick's other films. But there are also memorable and non-memorable films which delightfully lampoon the notion of dramatic recreations.
The theories posited range from a very deep subtext of the American Indian genocide, allegories to the Holocaust and Kubrick's involvement in shooting the Apollo 11 fake moon landing. While many of these theories are ludicrous, what is indisputable is the number of continuity errors, which, considering the attention to detail Kubrick devotes to composing his frames, can only be purposeful.
Asher also recounts the substantiated story that Kubrick consulted advertising agencies to discuss how subliminal imagery could be used to affect an audience's perception of a film. Whether any of this is true or not is beyond the matter, as one of the interviewees adroitly reminds us of a common axiom of art criticism - the authorial intent is irrelevant to understanding the work of an artist.
Room 237 works on the level as a brilliant post-modern comedy, but more importantly it furthers the reputation of Stanley Kubrick as a master of cinema. He was so far ahead of the curve, all these years later we're only starting to break the surface of this mind-bending film.
***½
Monday, 6 August 2012
Marley
Kevin Macdonald’s epic documentary does right by the influential life and career of reggae icon Bob Marley. While it’s largely unflashy, meat-and-potatoes filmmaking, Macdonald expertly gives us everything we want to know, enough anecdotes we didn’t know and enough head-bobbing music to satisfy everything we wanted from a comprehensive Bob Marley documentary.
Marley (2012) dir. Kevin Macdonald
Documentary
By Alan Bacchus
As only a casual fan of Marley, I was surprised to know the lineage of the man. He was the son of a working class black mother and a wealthy white landowner, thus a ‘half-caste’ child dismissed by his father and bearing all the identification problems of being neither ‘black’ nor ‘white.’ Macdonald cleverly makes this Marley’s emotional throughline, including his childhood pains, which helped contribute to the monumental artistic and business successes of Bob Marley.
Macdonald takes his time tracing the kind of upbringing Marley saw as a child. His father, Captain Noval Sinclair Marley, who married Bob’s 18-year-old mother, is portrayed as the typical aristocratic plantation owner. At 60 years of age he impregnated a young woman but performed none of the assumed paternal duties.
Other formative events in Marley's youth include his ska influences in the early '60s and the creation of the Wailers in 1962 at age 17, which also then included a young Peter Tosh. Though he and his bandmates lived in near poverty, we get the sense that music was so ingrained in their culture that it didn’t take much money to convince people of their talent.
Marley’s introduction to Rastafarianism offers an informative film within a film. I admit, other than the dreadlock and ganja rituals, I knew little about the religion. We learn about the devotion to and sacredness of one’s body, as well as the curiously random deification of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Salassie as its God incarnate.
As time moves along and Marley's career grows, Macdonald constructs chapters of sorts covering the key aspects of his life and personality: his ‘womanizing’ persona, the burgeoning gang warfare in Jamaica, his deliberate political neutrality, his competitive nature and business savvy, which contrast greatly to the laid back culture of Rastafarianism and his assumed role as an international Jamaican ambassador. All of this supports Macdonald’s overarching theme of Marley’s internal struggles for peace, love and racial harmony within his community.
And we all know there’s an impending tragedy at the end of this story, although it's never referenced until Marley’s cancer is revealed to him, subliminally we can feel this emotional weight throughout the entire film. The final scenes that document the quick change from Marley on top of the world as a music superstar and father figure to millions of fans and idolizers, to the sudden realization that his body was riddled with cancer and at the short end of his life is devastating.
I’m convinced the British have a sixth sense for documentary technique. Arguably the best documentarians are British, as they're able to realize real-life subject matter with cinematic flare and gravitas better than anyone in the world. And Kevin Macdonald (Touching the Void, One Day in September), at the top of this class, dutifully does justice to this great artist and important cultural story.
***
Marley is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Eone Home Entertainment in Canada.
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
The War Room
Documentary
***½
By Alan Bacchus
With film just about gone now, almost certainly in the documentary form, we probably won’t ever see a film like The War Room anymore. Documentary verite features shot on film have the true "fly on the wall" aesthetic pioneered by the co-director of this film, D.A. Pennebaker (Don't Look Back, Monterey Pop).
Cinema verite represents a style of documentary filmmaking born in the '60s, accompanying the trends of the French New Wave. It's a term traditionally associated with the films of D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus. But with The War Room, we could be even more specific and call it ‘Direct Cinema’, using a type of filmmaking that is the least intrusive and most observational documentary technique, rendering the camera and filmmakers as invisible as possible to the filmmaking process.
With the prevalence of reality television and the use of talking head interviews or confession-cams, subjects are aware of the camera. But with no sit-down interviews, very little stock footage and voice-overs, and no direct-to-camera discussions, The War Room exerts a style rarely used in such purity.
It’s a supremely entertaining and enlightening film, justly nominated for a Documentary Oscar. It follows Bill Clinton through his immensely dramatic Presidential Campaign in 1991, during which he was labelled the ‘Comeback Kid’. He overcame a tough early loss in the New Hampshire Primary, survived a sex scandal with Gennifer Flowers and managed the GOP onslaught against his controversial draft record in the Vietnam War.
And yet the film is not about Bill Clinton, but rather the youthful, aggressive and passionate campaign staff behind the scenes controlling the action like control room directors of a live television show. Now recognizable political voices James Carville and George Stephanopoulos become the stars of the picture. They are a dynamic duo of sorts - one (Carville) tall, lanky and jovial, the other (Stephanopoulos) short and handsome, but both political dynamos.
Within the nerve centre of activity, Pennebaker and Hegedus capture the improvised spin control against a number of political obstacles with the utmost of naturalism and believability. The subjects seem invisible to the camera, as they go about their work passionately and without inhibition.
Late in the film after his Presidential victory, Clinton thanks his staff for their unconventionality and revolutionizing of how campaigns are run. And before that, in an impassioned speech, Carville describes how campaigns used to be run, with compartmentalized departments working in silos and in strict hierarchy. The film shows us Carville's horizontal approach by empowering each of the workers to innovate and improvise and take their own lead. Unfortunately, if there's anything to fault in the picture, we never get to see the other side, the old guard system as described by Carville.
But this is the filmmakers' medium of choice. By using the language of direct cinema, unless we see stock footage or other manipulative devices, this information can only be implied to us. But The War Room is not meant to be a comprehensive survey of the history of political campaigning. Instead, it's a slice of time in 1991 with these specific people, and the context of history can only be implied to us.
But we get it, and the film doesn't need expository explanations to make its point. The War Room is cinematic observation, the cinema verite form at its finest.
The War Room is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
If a Tree Falls...
Documentary
***½
By Alan Bacchus
I have to admit, I groaned at the thought of watching another heroic activist film. Yet, Marshall Curry's story of the Earth Liberation Front, the so-called 'eco-terrorist' group that aggressively pushed their agenda of saving the planet with hardcore violent radicalism in the late ‘90s/'00s, is a deceptive film, which, at a glance, would purport to aggrandize the organization. But as it gradually reveals a non-partisan approach, both championing the cause and revealing the ironies and fallacies of their idealism, the film exposes more fascinating complexities than most issue-driven films.
For Curry, Daniel McGowan is the face of the organization. He’s an environmental activist responsible for two acts of arson, which has him up for a life sentence in prison. But based on his middle-class appearance, he certainly doesn't fit the mold of a left-wing extremist. As Daniel awaits his trial under house arrest, the camera acts as his confession booth through which we learn about the E.L.F., including Daniel's involvement and the events that led to his arrest.
We learn of the environmental movement in general and their non-violent activities and protests, such as the WTO protests in Seattle where many others from his organization, in the name of the cause, were subject to brutal policing tactics. But when Daniel meets the men and women involved in the E.L.F., who in one swift stroke can physically erase the cause of environmental destruction, the non-violent tactics look grossly ineffective in comparison. Over the course of a few years in the early 2000s Daniel becomes involved in a number of arsons, deemed by the authorities to be domestic terrorism.
But at one point, upon witnessing the grief of the owner of a lumber company after touring the carcass of his charred building, Daniel has a change of heart and gets out of the organization. Here's where Curry admirably switches viewpoints, telling the story from the side of the authorities set on taking down Daniel and his cohorts.
It's a refreshingly pragmatic approach to a traditionally partisan subject, something that tarnished films like The Cove and The Corporation, proving there's value in showing both sides of a story. Curry effectively humanizes the investigators, the FBI and even the cops videotaped beating protestors in Seattle. The drive to find the perpetrators thus becomes as involving as the E.L.F.'s fight against corruptors of the environment.
And Daniel's downfall comes from a sad, tragic irony squeezed out of the movement – betrayed and sold out from within by the same extremists who accused corporations of selling out the earth for a buck. It not only makes for a fascinating twist in the story, but in the bigger picture it forces us all to confront and put a price on our own convictions.
The final act question posits whether Daniel should be considered a terrorist. Curry is clear with his opinion that Daniel is not, something I personally disagree with. Yet, it doesn't harm my enjoyment of the film.
If a Tree Falls... is deservedly up for an Oscar for Best Documentary. Please watch this film and challenge yourself to answer some of the questions posed to Daniel and the other participants involved.
Sunday, 5 February 2012
Baraka
Baraka (1992) dir. Ron Fricke
Documentary
***½
By Alan Bacchus
Ron Fricke was known as the cinematographer and key collaborator of Godfrey Reggio on his seminal 1983 film, Koyaanisqatsi. His time-lapse imagery was an innovative milestone in cinematography, and almost 10 years later Fricke went out on his own and pushed the technology of time-lapse cinematography even further by shooting his own version of Koyaanisqatsi, which became Baraka.
Baraka was shot entirely on 70mm film, the experience of which on the big screen becomes an all-enveloping immersion into Fricke's earthly spiritual journey. On the small screen, the filmmakers have attempted make the Blu-ray edition of the film a comparatively grand experience. Never-before-used 8k resolution scanning and the complete digital restoration of Baraka are billed as the best High Definition transfer of any film on Blu-ray.
Unfortunately, Koyaanisqatsi continually casts a shadow on Baraka. It's difficult not to compare the two. Similar themes of environmental irresponsibility, urban decay and mass consumption are conveyed using many of the same images and juxtaposition featured in the earlier film. But based on Fricke's evolution with his own techniques and the stunningly crisp and detailed 70mm images, Baraka has every right to stand on its own.
With the environment currently in vogue, Baraka seems even more relevant and contemporary today. Unlike the BBC's Planet Earth, Baraka is not only about landscapes, nature and the environment, but also the people who inhabit the earth. It's told without narration or subtitles indicating the location or area of the world we're in, as the imagery is meant to wash over our senses like an abstract painting.
The opening intercuts a number of different cultures' specific rituals of worship. The unifying images are the faces of the individuals deep in spiritual thought – all have the same expression. Fricke finds the right faces to draw us in. However banal they might be, without any movement, expression or emotion an unknowingly observed face seems as fascinating as any of the complicated motion controlled time-lapse shots.
The scene that jumpstarts the film into high gear is the beguiling Southeast Asian hand waving tribe. Whether it's dance or some kind of ritual or worship, we are never told which country or tribe they’re from or exactly what purpose the ritual serves. The elaborate ceremony is a beautifully choreographed movement of hands and bodies, punctuated by an intense chanting accompaniment.
Though we had seen many of the images already in Koyaanisqatsi, it’s still a wondrous way of looking at our planet. Clouds floating across mountains become animate living beings, while the mass consumption of our lifestyle appears lifeless and sanitary.
The one missing element needed to take the film to the level of Reggio's films is a musical accompaniment as big as Fricke's cinematography. Michael Sterns' atmospheric moody music doesn’t come close to the grandeur of Philip Glass.
For years Baraka was revered by pot smokers as a film to get high to and let wash over them like gentle rain. Watching the film high or not produces the same effect, a marvelous visual essay imploring its audience to get out of our bubbles and reconnect with the planet like our ancient ancestors. Enjoy.
Thursday, 26 January 2012
SUNDANCE 2012: The House I Live In
Documentary
**½
By Alan Bacchus
It's been over 40 years since the term 'War on Drugs' was coined by Richard Nixon, and the fight has still not been won. Very little has changed, and according to Eugene Jarecki and the participants in his film it's even worse now than it was then. Considering Jarecki's success with political films, such as Why We Fight and Reagan, one would think he would be capable of handling such a broad topic. Unfortunately, like the authorities who can't seem to make any headway in their struggle, such is the result of this film. With the greatest of intentions, Jarecki's film is just too broad and unfocused to make its point dramatically.
To tackle the War on Drugs, Jarecki starts off with one of the best personalities to share his experiences, David Simon, the former investigative journalist and creator of The Wire, the last word on crime on television. He provides the most articulate insights, specifically related to the police’s culpability and their internal incentive policies toward arrest stats.
Jarecki also finds some very poignant reflections from his former nanny, a black woman whose family succumbed to the damaging effects of drugs after Jarecki’s family moved away from the city. Jarecki also puts his camera in cop cars that patrol America's streets, the courtrooms that lay down the sentences and the jails that keep drug dealers locked up for life.
Including the policing incentives and the corporate prison industry, Jarecki's thesis hits a number of culprits, but none more damning than the judicial system, including the minimum sentences and the shameful bias against crack cocaine used by the urban poor vs. powdered cocaine used primarily by the middle- and upper-classes. As such, Jarecki claims the drug war is a class and race war in disguise, consciously targeting the poorest Americans.
In the final act Jarecki overextends himself by making specific comparisons to the Holocaust and its five stages of genocide – identification, ostracism, confiscation, concentration and annihilation. While the topic and themes are of grave importance, Jarecki's ambitiousness is his undoing, as he tries to cover all the bases without the sufficient connections to make a precise, powerful and effective statement.
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
SUNDANCE 2012: Searching For Sugarman
Searching For Sugarman (2012) dir. Malik Bendjelloul
Documentary
***½
By Alan Bacchus
Ever heard of the artist Rodriguez, a Detroit area folk singer from the early '70s? Didn't think so. After two unsuccessful albums he faded into obscurity. But to South Africans, through luck and circumstance, his albums became as popular as Elvis's, and part of the counterculture anthems that helped spark the anti-Apartheid movement. But no one knew anything about him other than that he was dead, a victim of a horrific on-stage suicide.
This is the starting point for Malik Bendjelloul's fascinating documentary about the myth and aura of this strange but immensely talented artist, who, according to the producers he worked with, was as talented and poetic as Bob Dylan.
Bendjelloul follows a pair of obsessed fans, who sleuth their way back in time in the hopes of shedding light on this decades-long mystery.
Bendjelloul establishes a teasing procedural narrative as the South Africans describe their analysis of the evidence available to them, including the album credits, the lyrics, the record label and the trail of money that would hopefully lead to answers.
The twists and reveals in this story are fascinating and help piece together a character of an artist whose integrity trumped his perceived failure. At the same time they give us a deafening history lesson in South African Apartheid.
Looking back there perhaps wasnt much of a mystery to tell, but the director expertly includes the point of view of the fans, who, with little knowledge and information, had to solve the case with determination, dedication and perseverance.
And what a pleasure to discover the music of Rodriguez, whose melodies and lyrics are as haunting and moving as described in the film. Searching For Sugarman is superb storytelling and a perfect example of the power of the documentary form.
Sunday, 22 January 2012
SUNDANCE 2012: Me @ the Zoo
Me @ the Zoo (2012) dir. Chris Moukarbel, Valerie Veatch
Documentary
***
By Alan Bacchus
A decent cinematic essay about the YouTube effect, that is the new millennium speaker's corner of sorts, which has become the influential platform for online personal expression.
Few people have expressed themselves more dramatically than Chris Crocker, a celebrity-chasing Britney Spears addict, but also a repressed gay teen living in the bigoted hillbilly world of small town Tennessee. Being an outsider is an understatement for Crocker, who, with the creation of YouTube, found his mechanism for expression. His self-produced video rants have made him a sensation of sorts for the 15-minute famers that YouTube creates - specifically his Britney rant, which went viral in 2007.
Somehow Chris lasted longer than most, but as per Moukarbel and Veatch's thesis, he gets spit out and demolished just like his idol Britney Spears.
Using ample YouTube videos and other footage, Moukarbel and Veatch create a unique character study of Internet celebrity. Crocker comes off as a performer at heart but also deranged and delusional - the perfect personality for this kind of success.
But they also expose the fallacy of Internet stardom and the fact that people just don't want to pay for Crocker's act, which seems to work only in the confines of his own home. His failed attempt at a reality TV shows that his kind of fame comes from the creation of unaltered truth. While Crocker's YouTube success came from a place of honesty and passion, he was simply faking it for television.
Me @ the Zoo succeeds in telling the story of the YouTube phenomenon through the voice of one of its biggest stars in an effective and innovative manner.
SUNDANCE 2012: The Other Dream Team
The Other Dream Team (2012) dir. Marius Markevicius
Documentary
****
By Alan Bacchus
The Other Dream Team is an unbelievably inspiring story of freedom and liberation from repression told through the triumph of the Lithuanian basketball team, which toiled under the Soviet regime before their bronze medal victory as a sovereign nation in the 1992 Olympics.
Sports has always made for great documentaries, the drama inherent in the competition, the visual spectacle of world class athletes, and the wealth of footage and coverage devoted to sporting events are a gold mine for filmmakers.
The Other Dream Team is no exception. But with the added gravitas of the political upheaval of the Iron Curtain and the deeply emotional human story at its heart, this picture becomes a truly epic and powerful piece of cinema.
Filmmaker Marius Markevicius charts a 50-year odyssey of the small Baltic country of 3 million people from pre-war prosperity to annexation and poverty under the Soviets to their violent revolution in 1991. All the while we learn about the country's mad obsession with basketball, which birthed superstars Sarunas Marciulionis and Arvydas Sabonis. The film charts their success in the Soviet league in the 80's to their courtship by the NBA and all the political and cultural conflicts they encountered.
Interviews with Marciulionis, Sabonis and other players confirm all the preconceived notions of poverty behind the Iron Curtain. But the biggest tragedy is not the absence of bread or blue jeans, but their lack of freedom to express their culture, language and identity as Lithuanians. Even the seasoned journalist Jim Lampley tears up when recounting the pain of these players during this period.
The players’ stories are so rich that Markevicius doesn't even get to the 1992 Olympics until the final act, which feels like a bonus track on a masterpiece album.
The coda to this story comes after the liberation of the country and the fall of Communism. But once we get embroiled in the drama of the Olympics it becomes a film within a film. The involvement of The Grateful Dead in funding the basketball team's trip to the Olympics is zany enough to make up its own documentary. Same with the awesome sight of other marginalized peoples competing under new flags (e.g., South Africa and Estonia). We're also treated to some astonishing footage of the US Dream Team demolishing opponents. But the dramatic climax to the picture comes in the form of a storybook matchup between the former Soviet Union and Lithuania, which is so emotional and moving it didn't leave a dry eye in the house.
The Other Dream Team is so powerful it transcends its sport, instead serving as the representation for our instinctual desire for freedom.
Thursday, 27 October 2011
Page One: Inside the New York Times
Documentary
***
By Alan Bacchus
As the pinnacle of print journalism, the New York Times sits at a precipice of change in the media industry. With the gatekeepers of news now spread out a thousand-fold given the proliferation of the Internet, how will the Times adapt and reclaim its status as the ‘newspaper of record’?
This is the fundamental purpose of Andrew Rossi’s documentary, which attempts to bring audiences inside the revered establishment and show the inner turmoil that has been rocking the paper for the past few years. Rossi’s activist and ideological style gives the film some urgency and the feeling that American culture, and society in general, would suffer from the loss of this great paper.
While the mere fact of watching the absolute best-of-the-best in journalism working on a daily basis is indeed compelling and watchable, a lack of focus and discernable ‘ending’ prevents the film from successfully moving us emotionally or engaging in the journalistic crisis.
It’s a gigantic institution, but Rossi’s entry point is the Media Desk, a newly created department reporting specifically on the changing landscape of media, including the Times’ place in the new world order. David Carr quickly emerges as the ‘star’. He’s a forthright and opinionated reporter, as well as a former crack cocaine addict who emerged from addiction in his 20s and 30s to become one of the world leaders in media journalism.
Carr’s gravelly throat, which crackles from years of abuse through smoking and drugs, gives him the right kind of working class authoritative edge we associate with journalists of old. His confrontations with young, hip bloggers attempting to denigrate the institution result in some fine verbal ass-kicking from Carr himself. With that said, Rossi also features a number of younger hot shots who have cracked the Times through their media savvy and youthful energy.
The spectre of WikiLeaks looms over most of the film as well. The breakthrough of that site into public consciousness provides a thought-provoking contemporary contrast to where the NY Times used to be. Rossi connects the influence of the NY Times on breaking the Watergate scandal in the ‘70s with Julian Assange’s modus operandi with his controversial whistleblower.
But what about the integrity of journalism, a moral foundation that WikiLeaks seemingly has broken down over the past year? Rossi’s question about the Times’ potential obsolescence in comparison to WikiLeaks is never successfully answered. But then again, this story has not ended and continues to be written.
So while Page One lacks closure, it’s indicative of how journalism works today – a self-sustaining, rapidly evolving organism challenging everyone, including the most entrenched newspapers such as the New York Times, to keep up with the Joneses.
Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times is available on DVD from Alliance Films in Canada.
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