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Chronique d’un été
This classic doc, shot in 1960, by French filmmakers Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, serves as one of the first films in the artistic style of Cinéma Vérité, a style Jean is largely credited with creating. The idea is simple and strikingly straight forward in it’s approach: record what it’s “really like” in Paris, in the summer of 1960. Are people happy? What about current events? What’s the zeitgeist? What about the people in the city? How do they really feel inside? This anthropology focused doc aims to take the emotional temperature of the city in it’s current state, and taboos (race, war, politics) are topics that are openly encouraged. The power of this film though, comes from it’s demonstration of the power of the camera. Jean and Edgar penetrate well beyond the surface of their interviewees, and delve deep inside their hearts and minds. The effect is utter candidness. No wonder Werner Herzog mentioned Jean as one of his favorite filmmakers (which is how I happened across this doc in the first place). The 60’s were a radically different time, but despite being over 53 years old, this film is able to convey how similar we still are to that generation. We’re even treated to an element of ‘meta-truth’ when a screening of the to-be-released doc is shown to the interviewees, and critiqued on the spot. Where some see dull, contrived, conversation, others see truthful cinema, in the film and in themselves. And thus a genre is born.
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The Hellstrom Chronicle
Having not yet satiated my appetence for nature docs, I sought out and found something beautiful and altogether different. Having won the 1972 Academy Award for best documentary, as well as taking home awards from BAFTA and Cannes, I knew that ‘The Hellstrom Chronicle’ would offer more than impressive macro shots, and picturesque landscapes. I knew even more just after watching the opening scene, one of the most spectacularly, melodramatic introductions to a film I’ve seen. At least it set the proper tone for what was to follow. Almost more Sci-Fi than naturalistic, this docu follows the peculiar theories of the fictional scientist, Dr. Hellstrom, a character synthesized to be a disposable martyr for the wild, and existential ideas to be brought forth. In several shots he openly shares his insane, empty, expressions with the camera; an unreliable but none the less highly educated narrator. Any real scientist positing these philosophical and religious musings on the natural world would immediately be cast as anti-academic, and rightfully so. You see, Dr. Hellstrom is obsessed with the insect world, a world he believes will overtake the self-destructive humans in a matter of time. His narration and portrayal of the insect world is both dramatic and highly anthropomorphized, which adds to the already strong narrative created by the cinematography and musical scores, both sensational themselves. Full of lurid, violent, battles of the insect world, Hellstrom does not shy away from that which is not easy on the eye. Disgust, recoil, and shock are intentionally drawn out by the repeated scenes of dripping mandibles, slicing pincers, and hairy tendrils, waiting to ensnare. And if that doesn’t make your skin crawl, his religious viewpoints and fatalistic conclusions will. Even though this is clearly over the top, the film still pushes across the serious point that our current human behaviors are leading us off the edge, and that change is mandatory for survival. It’s an unrefined thesis, but being more than forty years old, they were clearly broaching the early environmentalism movement. The combination of the wild narrative, the apocalyptic foreboding, the mad-scientist predilections of the ‘doctor’, the powerful images of the insects, combined with thespian musical accompaniment, and, of course, the actual science, yields a film about nature, that’s actually just as much about human nature. If bugs don’t bug you out, I also recommend the 1996, French, entomological doc Microcosmos.
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Volcanoes of the Deep Sea
This 2003 underwater, nature doc, was originally shot for IMAX, and produced in-part by James Cameron. With a forty minute run time, this is a great low commitment docu to pop in if you get a taste for something sciency, but don’t want anything overly technical. The narration is pretty ‘meh’, and is the weakest point of the film, but not enough so to sour the whole thing. So, do you like oceans? Do you like alien, deep sea life forms? How about volcanoes? And submarines? If all of the above, then press play.
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Better This World
Ignore the title, it’s irrelevant. Ignore the cover art, it’s deceptive. Ignore the tag-line, it’s sensational. Don’t ignore this film though. Part police procedural, part legal, all dumb-founding, this 2011 PBS doc received serious recognition last year at BFI, IDA, SXSW, and was even nominated for an Emmy. This is the story of two, young, eager, boys, from a small town in Texas, who wanted to make a positive difference in this world, and were led astray by a misanthropic, charismatic, radical leader. The leader, in this case, Brandon Darby, was an FBI informant, and he stinks. Just as these boys were manipulated by Darby, Darby himself was being manipulated by the FBI. When you unfold the whole thing, the US government wanted to give itself a big pat on the back for stopping a domestic “terror” plot, that it created itself. But the self-congratulation wasn’t enough, they wanted people behind bars (because somebody has to take a fall), and Bradley Crowder and David McKay were perfectly poised, and vulnerable. What a mess. I know the FBI wasn’t intentionally trying to waste resources, violate basic rights, and destroy good kids’ lives, but that is exactly what they did, and it’s sickening to see the dismal state of our criminal justice system in-action. The sheer waste of time, money, and resources is nothing less than astounding. And for what? If this docu was made to outrage and disgust, than it has succeeded, but I am all together thankful for the story that was told. For more vigilante justice gone awry, see If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front. “Terrorist” is the new “Communist” and it’s not a good look.
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Room 237
Having just watched Kubrick’s 1980 masterpiece, The Shining, I was properly primed for this doc, which delves into highly subjective theories about the themes, and ‘true nature’ of the film. Unfortunately, most of the thesis postulated come across as a far reach at best, and as crackpot conspiracies at the most eye-rolling. I’m sure Kubrick incorporated many deep, and subtle symbols into the film, but this doc seemed to focus on the more esoteric interpretations. If you want to know more about Kubrick or The Shining, I’d shelf this doc and pick up a book.
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The World According to Dick Cheney
The title says it all. A Dick Cheney biopic mostly comprised of interviews with the man himself, some of his closest staff, and those who know his political career best. Unsurprisingly, my narrow, 2D, view of ‘ol Cheney was significantly expanded, and he’s now more than a flat, political, caricature of himself. He’s Cheney with a background. He’s just as sly, but, even as much as I disagree with his policies, the man is no dum dum. He might be wrong about almost everything politically, but his skills within Washington are not as easily dismissed. My favorite description of him was the ultimate ‘anti-politician’, which certainly rings true, and bodes well for a VP. I was especially interested in his relationships with Donald Rumsfeld, and George W. Bush, and surprised that his medical ailments and infamous hunting accident weren’t even mentioned. Love him, or despise him, this doc will likely push you more in your set direction. Dick.
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Encounters at the End of the World
This has been one of my all time favorite films, and I’ve just re-watched it again for the first time, since I’ve started this blog. In 2007, Werner Herzog received a grant from the National Science Foundation to go to Antarctica and document what he found. The result is not your standard nature-docu faire, concerned with cute penguins or baby seals. Werner had different questions to ask. Instead, we are taken on an exploration of the mysteries of the continent, and those who dare to inhabit it. What type of person finds themselves in this place, and what are their dreams? With features of that of another planet, the ‘End of the World’ is surprising in surprising ways. It’s ethereal and enigmatic and enchanting and I feel like I can connect with everyone that was interviewed. The beauty of the cold monolith combined with the intrigue of the denizens, in conjunction with Herzog’s insight and narration, yields an extraordinary piece of humanitarian film work. This was the movie that cemented my love for Werner Herzog’s style, and I still cry every time I watch it. If you understand this movie, than you can better understand me. Sitting high atop The List, this film has infinite replay value, and I consider it to be one of the best documentaries every made.
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Plan B: Mobilizing to Save Civilization
This docu is part of the PBS series Journey to Planet Earth, hosted by Matt Damon, that explores Earth’s eco-systems, bio-diversity, and the challenges they face. This episode provides a platform for renowned environmentalist Lester Brown to share ‘Plan B’, ‘a comprehensive plan for reversing the trends that are fast undermining our future. Its four overriding goals are stabilizing climate, stabilizing population, eradicating poverty, and restoring the earth’s damaged ecosystems.’ Brown shares his predictions and speculations for the disasters that could potentially occur, if climate change isn’t quickly checked, and gotten under control. While I respect Lester as an academic, and activist, I found this doc, redundant, alarmist, and overly dramatized. I normally have rave reviews for PBS centric works, but I felt let down with this one. The production was cheap, slapped together, and the animated green screen back drops came across unprofessional. The title screens and music were especially over the top, and the ending, which was going for upbeat and inspirational, instead came across contrived and histrionic. Had this program been cut from 84 minutes to say, 45 minutes, I doubt it would have come across so sensational, but some of that has to do with Lester himself. As the film went on, he became more and more sure of himself, and warning of bigger and bigger catosphries, namely, the collapse of civilization. His ideas follow sound reasoning, but he just doesn’t seem skeptical enough of himself, which undermines the research. Critiques aside, there’s tons of great science and history packed into this film, and I did learn a lot. I respect Lester Brown, and I certainly respect PBS, but this docu needs some serious editing work before I could recommend it. Instead, if the long term effects of climate change interest you, I suggest spending some time on Lester’s NGO site Earth-Policy.org
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1868675/ -
Goodbye War (Gwynne Dyer - War - Episode 7)
In this last episode of Gwynne Dyer’s War mini-series, we take a look at peace, and what it might take to get there. The League of Nations, formed after WWI, and the United Nations are profiled and explored, as their role in international peace is crucial. It’s certainly no panacea but, we have to work with the tools that we have, if we wish to progress. Just because the solution isn’t perfect isn’t reason enough to discard it. Although the costs of peace are high, the qualitative costs of war are immeasurable. At this point, we do know better. Along with Episode 3, this one is another favorite. Every few minutes, throughout the program, there are impeccable quotes on war, peace, and geo-politcs. Too many to re-post here but, one that really stuck out, and succinctly captures the attitude, is from Albert Einstein “The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking…”. I’m sad that I’ve reached the conclusion of this series, as it’s the best mini-series I’ve seen since Roots or Generation Kill (both of which are phenomenal). These seven episode have really had a significant personal effect on me, and have shifted my views on military, war, peace, politics, government, and patriotism to say the least. I intend on sharing the series, as well as the individual episodes with as many friends an family as possible, as I feel it provides an absolutely sobering, stark, slap in the face, introduction to war. Extending outside the docu world, I’ve already begun to skulk around Gwynne Dyer’s website, which provides the best portal to the rest of his work, which I’ve already began to sink into. I’m proud to add the entire mini-series to the Crème de la crème of the The List.
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Notes On Nuclear War (Gwynne Dyer - War - Episode 6)
“This is a film about nuclear war, and you may find it offensive, but it’s a very offensive weapon”. This quote at the start of the movie shapes the entire conversation to follow. We hear from nuclear bomb survivors, scientist, generals, defense analysts, and historians in this hour, and learn about everything from the geo-politics of nuclear war, to strategy, to “mutual assured destruction”, to the detailed destructive, megadeath, capabilities of these weapons. Like the last episode, the discussion enclosed may come across somewhat dated, considering the parties involved. The players don’t matter all to much though. Whether the bomb is dropped by Russians, Iranians, or North Koreans, millions of people will be dead, and it can never be undone. “No one wants a nuclear war, but we all conspire to make it possible”. To paraphrase Gwynne’s closing remarks, ‘it was only a matter of time before civilization endowed us with the ability of self-destruction. As individuals we may lose decades of life, but the we owe it to the thousands of unborn generations, to civilization, to be the ones to solve the problem’.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0223819/ -
Keeping The Old Game Alive (Gwynne Dyer - War - Episode 5)
The ‘Old Game’ that the title refers too isn’t hop scotch or marbles, instead, what we contradictorily want to preserve is the paradigm of “conventional war”. Tanks, bombers, ground troops, and the like, choreographed into a horrible cacophony of destruction and certain death, and this is the preference; this is what we want to “keep alive”. This, of course, is contrasted with the only thing worse than the wholesale slaughter of whoever’s military troops, mass murder on the grandest scale at the hands of nuclear war. In this fifth installment, Gwynne spends his time in both East, and West Germany. Having aired in 1983, the Berlin Wall had yet to be toppled, and a thick, tense, fog of fear and war with the Soviets still readily hung in the air. The combatants though, are not all too important. If WWIII came today, it would likely only take weeks before the escalation to the use of nuclear weapons. Finding a cause would be the easy part. Thankfully, in the thirty years proceeding this doc, the global community has made a strident effort at reducing nuclear proliferation but, there are still more than enough warheads for Armageddon. Also during the film was much talk of chemical weapons, or “intermediate war”, a fear that has mostly subsided due to intense international pressure in the early 1990’s, although they are still being reportedly used in the middle east. Also highlighted in this hour were the war machines themselves: legions of tanks, costing roughly $3 million dollars each (at 1980’s cost), and hordes of, what were at the time, cutting edge F-15 fighter jets, replete with a litany of missiles, costing an order of magnitude more at a paltry $30 million dollars each (today’s prices). It goes without saying that these death machines are not only made by the common civilian, but paid for by you and I through taxes for “defense”, but I digress. In the end, whether you choose traditional, chemical, or nuclear warfare, one thing is certain: death enmasse, which is, in fact, the intended goal.
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The Deadly Game of Nations (Gwynne Dyer - War - Episode 4)
In part four, Gwynne closer examines the need for military power, as required to establish one’s self as a nation. While all countries are born, and die through war, the question remains if it is the best option for handling conflict. No one knows this better than the ever combative neighbors of Israel and Palestine, the center of this episode. Fast forward thirty years from when this program aired, and we’re still dealing with the same senseless violence. The shelling of neighborhoods, the guerrilla attacks, and worse of all, the constant looming fear of war, and death by war, remain as accepted facets of life, for both sides. Innocent men, women, and children will die, and we’ve accepted this as little more than humdrum. The military system has failed to resolve this conflict, and yet, every year, a new set of eighteen year-olds are churned through the system, many of whom will undoubtedly die for a continuing stalemate. Are we to accept that war is the best means of handling dispute? If we concede to our state of being always ready to fight, we accept that violence is the best we can do, and that wars will never stop.
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High Tech, Low Life
This is the story of two, brazen, citizen journalists blogging from their highly censored homes in mainland China. When your country’s major media outlets are extremely biased, censored, and unfair, it’s up to the ‘normal people’ to report what’s going on, and for the first time in history, we have the technical means to do so. Our two, humble, protagonists use blogs, Twitter, and social media, coupled with some technical tricks, to subvert the mainstream Chinese media. These aren’t erratic dissidents, they aren’t even radical, they just want the under-represented peoples’ voices to have a platform. The problem is, in a country as tightly controlled as China, providing that voice comes at a significant cost, with political repercussions. With a topic like this, the director could have gone several different directions, and I’m really happy they chose the path they did. They seemed to model the film after the style of the two bloggers: presenting the information, without overtly critical editorialization. As serious as the subject matter is, I was refreshed by the frequent use of humor throughout the film. There are several lough out loud moments, which fit into our main characters M.O. nicely. It’s really hard to not like these guys. I was also impressed by the use of several scenes as symbols. A slow pan of a bicycling trudging along the country side, a tip-toe balance walk across the top of an aqueduct, a train pushing through the dark of the night, and my favorite, a leap over the Great (fire)wall of China. I happen to really like the cover/poster for this film as well. A couple films to directly compliment this doc are Ai Weiwei: NEVER SORRY and the must-watch Burma VJ, both of which I’ve positively reviewed. Overall, this was an easily digestible, highly accessible, film on the complex issues of censorship in China, without being overly technical, or directly bashing the government, and instead focusing on the bloggers themselves. Next time someone says that Twitter or Facebook is useless or that individuals can’t make significant changes, you can proudly disagree and point them straight at this doc.
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The Profession of Arms (Gwynne Dyer - War - Episode 3)
“DAMN!” -me, while watching this last night. It’s no wonder that this was nominated for an Academy in 1983, Gwynne takes his gloves off, and tells it like it is. He carefully explains how thoroughly irrational the modern solider must be, with relation to the classic military virtues such as: courage, honor, sacrifice, etc. Of course, we need these people to serve, that is, to kill for us, and more importantly to them, be killed for us. The cognitive dissonance between ‘fighting for freedom’ and murdering another solider, just with a different uniform on, is a great, and wide expanse. Gwynne illustrates this by sharing what it’s like to be a professional soldier, interviewing colonels, captains, and other officers forced to make impossible decisions in battle. The raw, gritty, mechanics of battle are a focus of this episode as well. His analogy of a battle being akin to a high-wire act was fantastic. If you’re still for too long, you’ll fall off, if you move too quickly, or take one wrong step, you’re dead. Then again, you can make all of the right tactical decisions and still have your entire platoon wiped out. It’s all very, deeply, tragic that we still engage in this kind of barbaric, dehumanizing behavior. Although this was the third episode, I just really took notice of the stark, and haunting introduction sequence of archival war footage. Within the first seconds of starting each episode we’re presented with a deluge of horrors, man made horrors of war, the end results of our death machines operating effectively. It serves as a shock to the viewer, reminding them what war is really about. It’s a sober reminder that militaristic tradition and ritual is merely a thin veil that covers the heaping mass of dead bodies.
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Anybody’s Son Will Do (Gwynne Dyer - War - Episode 2)
KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! The second episode in the War mini-series highlights the bread & butter of combat, the solider. The arc of the film follows the psychological journey of a new group of Marine recruits as they trudge through basic training. Boot camp that transforms them from individuals, with moral reservations, into an unhesitant, killing machines. We get to ride along as boys are physically and mentally strained into this new way of thinking. Ready to kill, ready to die. Gwynne beautifully articulates how little the differences between soldiers really matters, hence the title. It doesn’t matter if you’re from California, or New York, or if you’re from Russia or Iran. Wars are fought with soliders and those soliders are more similar than anything, which makes their bloodlust for one another all the more tragic. The Vietnamese solider is proud to serve his country, and pay his life, if his command calls for it, just as his enemy counterparts in the US Marines are ready to do the same. But, when your job is to kill, it’s much easier the view the enemy as sub-human, and the eleven weeks in basic training help to drill that into their collective psyche. There are several great interviews with both the hardened, veteran, drill instructors, as well as with the soft, scared, callow, recruits. One that I found most especially offensive was a short scene of two men in training, lamenting the fact that the Pledge of Allegiance and prayer are no longer compulsory in schools, and how that negatively impacts the pupils. Civil rights? Psh. Probably a communist anyway. As the film concludes, Dyer makes a crucial segue which I’ll paraphrase: Soldiers are crucial in war, but they don’t create them. Governments create wars, the soldiers do the dying.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0222730/
