Hot Docs: Best of Enemies; The Nightmare; The Dictator's Hotel

*This column was originally posted at The Film Experience as part of the coverage of Hot Docs 2015.

It is hard to imagine today that there was once an America where political debates in the media were sensational, not just sensationalized. Harder yet is to envision a time when conservative political commentators weren’t complete buffoons, but rather eloquent, smart thinkers. That is exactly the time that Best of Enemies transports us to, Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville’s film about the televised debates leading up to the 1968 Republican and Democratic national conventions. ABC, then trailing as America’s third network and in search of a ratings boost, decided to pit two of the country’s most famous commentators against one another: the liberal Gore Vidal and the conservative William F. Buckley Jr. The two were known to dislike each other and their pairing on live TV was sure to cause a stir.
Their prediction proved to be correct when on the 8th night of a series of incendiary discussions, Buckley reacted to Vidal’s name-calling and being labeled a “crypto-Nazi” with a momentary burst of anger...

Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in the face and you’ll stay plastered.”

Buckley regretted this lapse of judgment for the rest of his life and was haunted by memories of that night. Vidal, the more outrageous of the two characters, carried the memory with a triumphant smirk. Best of Enemies creates an energetically paced, consistently entertaining narrative out of these debates. It is formally trapped in the familiar structure of similar documentaries, with several talking head interviews that contextualize the significance of the debates and the ramifications of it for American TV and the two. Not all of these inserts seem necessary, though most of them – such as conversations with Buckley’s brother and TV executives who knew both commentators – are exciting. Still, the best parts of the films are excerpts from the original debates. The vicious and hilarious cat-fighting leaves one pining for that golden age of TV.

A more unconventional structure is at play in The Nightmare, Rodney Ascher’s follow-up to the acclaimed Room 237. Based on the lives of eight people who suffer from sleep paralysis, the condition that was the inspiration behind Nightmare on Elm Street, the film explores the world of this strange and, literally, unbelievable disease. Those who suffer see all kinds of monsters and ghosts in their sleep, and they fall into paralysis at once, unable to move or talk at all as these demons infiltrate their bodies. Employing animated sequences and visual effects to show the nightmares of these eight people, Ascher’s film is the rare documentary that doubles as a horror film. As the subjects delve deeper into their nightly terrors, the film also raises the stakes, faithfully recreating the claustrophobic sense of indefensibility against these creatures.

The most intriguing aspect of these horrific experiences is how much their share in common, not just in their nature, but in the specifics of the violent imagery. The Nightmare traces the origins of these visions and arrives not just at recent pop culture icons, but even classical art in which shared elements of sleep paralysis – demons with red eyes, black cats sitting on a dormant person’s chest – appear across works that were produced in different countries in different era. Whether it is the familiar imagery that feeds the nightmares of the subjects or whether it is artists who have brought to life visions that terrified them is the most interesting question the film raises. But beyond the curiosity of this rare condition, Ascher doesn’t know how to deal with the material. The film touches on a superficial level the medical, religious and personal reasons behind each subject’s condition, but never fully engages with them on a deeper level. While the oddity of the topic and the horror scenes are intermittently interesting, they are not enough to keep the film from falling into a repetitive cycle of tedium from which it can never escape.

The Dictator’s Hotel proves a much more rewarding experience, despite its concise, 15-minute running time. Directed by Florian Hoffman, this one visits a newly built but completely abandoned hotel in the Central African Republic, owned by Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi before his death. Still supervised by its diligent staff, the hotel’s equipment and furniture have never been touched, but it remains ready to serve at a moment’s notice. The building’s ostentatious structure and vast landscape is splendid and at utter odds with the poverty that surrounds it, though rather cleverly, we are only exposed to the surroundings through the iron gates of the hotel and the few words spoken by one of the employees. This brief visit of the building, during which a North African hotel manager acts as tour guide, is haunting, serving as a reminder of the atrocities committed by political leaders in the region and the sense of entitlement that at once secludes and protectes them from the abject destitution of people in their countries. That the film does this with so few references, and no visual depictions, of political or economic turmoil, and remains entirely within the confines of a single building, is truly extraordinary. The Dictator’s Hotel might not travel outside of specialized festival circuits, but it’s a sharp, humorous and unique film that deserves a much bigger audience.

Listen to Me Marlon

Grade: A-

*This review was originally published at The Film Experience.

The best film of last year’s Hot Docs festival was Robert Greene’s Actress, a rich and moving film about the life of The Wire’s Brandy Burre. It went on to become one of the most praised films of the year; and it’s easy to imagine the same level of acclaim for this year’s buzziest title at the festival, the similarly actor- centric Listen to Me Marlon. As the title suggests, British director Stevan Riley’s film is about Marlon Brando, and it defies any expectation one might have going into a documentary about a deceased actor. That this film has been made is something of a miracle to begin with. Brando apparently recorded more than 200 hours of audiotapes about himself, of which none has been available to the public heretofore. Riley has been granted access to these by Brando’s estate and has assembled and edited them for the voice-over narration of his film. There is no new footage and no interviews shot for this film, only archival material from Brando’s performances, his television interviews and some behind the scenes footage and rare videos of his personal life. The result, a raw and immensely personal look at the actor’s life, is absolutely mesmerizing.

Brando was notorious for being difficult to work with, a fact not lost on a film that never smoothes the rough edges of his personality to offer a hagiographic picture. Rather, like the revolutionary actor himself, Listen to Me Marlon revitalizes the agonizingly tired subgenre of biographical documentaries about artists. Whereas another film might have fallen for the clichés of such films – such as augmenting the existing material with interviews or contextualizing Brando’s significance through external perspectives – Riley gives us Marlon the way he saw himself.

Brando was an outspoken activist, about the entertainment industry and about his political beliefs. He was at the forefront of different social movements, lending his voice and charisma to causes that were personally important to him, but this film offers a much more intimate image of the man. Given the privacy of the tapes, Marlon is unusually candid and open, with a unique perspective and a sense of emotional warmth that is truly remarkable.

Brando’s observations on his own acting, his frustration with the repetitions and predictability of acting styles in cinema at the time and his insecurities about the directions in which his career took him over the years are fascinating to watch. He is refreshingly self-aware and honest about his own artistry and the politics of selecting roles, expressing disappointment and even embarrassment about certain film choices. Equally absorbing are Brando’s poetic ruminations on his troubled childhood and his elegiac reminiscences about his parents, with whom he never fully come to terms. As the film progresses, it becomes increasingly evident that the man who was known as a method actor who immersed himself completely into his performances, brought so much of himself and his wounds into the characters he portrayed.

The distance between the Brando we’ve seen on screen and the man as he introduces himself here becomes progressively smaller, a process that leads to the audience’s total, heartbreaking identification with the actor in the latter stages of the film. It is virtually impossible to watch Brando endure the troubles of his children – his son Christian’s imprisonment for murder and his daughter Cheyenne’s suicide – and stop the tears from rolling down. Such insight and poignancy have only been made possible because Riley affords Brando complete freedom to tell his own story. That the actor has been deceased for many years further lends the film a sense of novelty; yet, the truly astonishing feat is that the director – who also edited the film– accomplishes the gargantuan task of shaping a coherent narrative from the massive treasure trove of information at his disposal so seamlessly that it appears as though we spend two hours with Brando’s stream of consciousness without the presence of a mediator. Listen to Me Marlon sets a new gold standard for documentary biopics and is a film that we will surely hear about a lot at the year's end.   

Emptying the Skies

Back in 2010, Jonathan Franzen wrote an investigative report for The New Yorker magazine called Emptying the Skies. The subject was a group of environmental activists who put their lives at risk to protect increasingly endangered species of migrant birds that are hunted in Europe for sale at high prices. The piece was a hit and granted renewed attention to an issue that Europe, particularly Cyprus, Italy and Malta, has been dealing with for decades. Douglas and Roger Kass's eponymous new documentary takes it cue from that article and follows the activists on their dangerous trips to the birds' hunting grounds.

The wondrous migrant birds travel thousands of miles every year, often going all the way from Scandinavia to South Africa, resting and refueling around the Mediterranean area. Their energy and migration process is nothing short of a miracle. Some of the birds weigh as little as twenty grams and measure barely two inches in length. They are hunted using cruel methods like limesticks and crushing stone traps. The birds often suffer for hours in pain before they are dead.

These methods of hunting are ostensibly employed for personal use – since sale of these birds for food consumption has been outlawed in most of Europe – or otherwise for "recreation". In one outlandish sequence, a man comically sheds alligator tears, arguing that he needs to hunt the birds because it reminds of the time he spent with his deceased son doing the same. In reality, the birds are sold and served as incredibly expensive delicacy, often eaten whole with the bones.

The Overnighters

Grade: B-

*This review was originally published at The Film Experience. 

Jesse Moss spent more than a year in the North Dakotan town of Williston following a news story he had found about mass immigration to the oil rich area. When the practice of fracking began to turn the fortunes of the Midwestern state around after recession, thousands of men flocked there from all the around the U.S. in search of a new life. The sudden, unsustainable upsurge in population caused tensions to grow between the local residents and the itinerant workers, fuelled by reports of theft and sexual abuse that were alleged to be committed by the “overnighters”.

In the midst of this, pastor Jay Reinke of the Concorida Lutheran Church is opening the doors of the church (and its parking lot) to these men and allowing them to sleep there at nights. His congregation feels uneasy about the presence of the nomads. The more reserved church members complain ostensibly about the mess and chaos left over by allowing more people in the small space than it was designed for, or bring up fire hazard issues. The more outspoken members mention the past records of the temporary workers, some with felony charges, others with their names listed on the sex offenders list.

Christianity itself seems to be at stake. Reinke is a smart man, alert to the challenges of the conflicts his decision has created in the community. He questions others’ faith while his own begins to shake, he asks them to redefine their Christianity, but he ignores his own family the more he loves his neighbours. Helping others takes a toll and the community moves no closer to accepting their guests with open arms. One man, afforded the cloak of anonymity by the camera’s placement, calls the nomadic workers “trash.” Reinke understands the steep hill he has to climb to warm the locals' hearts to the misfits. When he asks one worker to cut his long hair short to look better in the eyes of the community, then man asks whether Jesus had to cut his hair in response. Reinke cleverly retorts: “Jesus didn’t have our neighbours.” But it takes more than awareness on Reinke’s part to combat the challenges.

The Dog

Grade: C

*This review was originally published at Movie Mezzanine. 

Sidney Lumet’s Oscar-winning film Dog Day Afternoon tells the story of Sonny Wortzik, a man who robs a bank in Manhattan to pay for his lover’s sex reassignment surgery. The film is based on the true story of John Wojtowicz, a soldier-turned-criminal who became a local celebrity with his outrageous character, association with the Gay Liberation movement in its nascent stages, and, most importantly, the events of that fateful day depicted superbly by LumetAl Pacino. In The Dog, the new documentary about Wojtowicz by directors Francois Keraudren and Allison Berg, he is gratuitously granted an opportunity to extend his fifteen minutes of fame for another hour and a half.

Following the clichéd trajectory of most biographical documentaries, The Dog combines archival footage of John’s early life with talking-head interviews with himself and those close to him. There’s an unusually large amount of footage available from his pre-fame life that give a fascinating glimpse into his early years. Wojtowicz is a strange character, with oscillating political views that range from war-mongering to anti-war activity, from pacifism to bank robbery. His most defining characteristic, however, is his sexual appetite. He claims to have no other vices and therefore channels all his energy through sexual expression, which really means he will fuck anything that moves. Wojtowicz married several times but had affairs with countless men and women on the side. His first gay encounter occurred in the military, an experience that only served to broaden his sexual horizons. His affiliation with the gay activists of the New York scene in the early 1970s was mostly a result of his desire to sleep with as many men as possible. The clandestine gatherings were a gateway for him to meet new prospective partners. That, in essence, is where the film’s problematic nature stems from.

There is an unshakable sense that The Dog magnifies the significance of Wojtowicz’s story beyond the boundaries of his reality, and comfortably glosses over certain unpleasant facts. There’s never an indication that this film can transcend its protagonist’s oddball personality to arrive at any meaningful conclusions. The majority of the film gives the impression of a slideshow of colorful antics assembled together to give one last hurrah to an obscure cult superstar who does not deserve this reevaluation. His presence in the most monumental events of his time seems almost accidental, not of any fault of The Dog’s, but of Wojtowicz’s own accord. He doesn’t want anything more from the gay scene than abundant options for sex, but he attaches himself to the liberation movement nonetheless. He doesn’t want his partner, Liz Eden, to have the surgery, but he robs a bank purely out of love for her, a proclamation no one seems to fully believe. He was a loud goofball who happened to be at the right place at the right time, denounced by everyone associated with him – including gay activists and Liz – but himself and his mother.

The Possibilities Are Endless

Grade: B/B+

*This review was originally published at The Film Experience. 

 When Scottish singer-songwriter Edwyn Collins suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in 2005, his movement became restricted, his memory was lost and his speech became limited to four phrases that he repeated over and over again: “yes,” “no,” “Grace Maxwell” (the name of his wife) and “the possibilities are endless.” There was little chance of him getting his health back on track, let alone restarting his career, but that last phrase in his small vocabulary proved to be prophetic. With the help of his ever-caring wife and son, Edwyn gradually began to piece his memories back together, took on painting and slowly began to form new sentences again, recalling and even singing his old lyrics.

Edwyn’s story is a tear-jerker and, packaged in a documentary film titled, aptly but unimaginatively, The Possibilities Are Endless, it raises red flags for audiences averse to emotionally charged collections of heartfelt talking head interviews so prevalent in documentary cinema. Fortunately, there is no sign of that in Edward Lovelace and James Hall’s film, an astonishing work that subverts all expectations of formal construction, while painting an empathetic and incisive portrayal of the singer’s life.

In tracing Edwyn’s process of regaining his memories, the film adopts his point of view, manufacturing a sensory experience akin to his perspective of interacting with the Scottish landscapes of his home. Sleekly photographed and expertly cut, Possibilities combines archival footage on grainy film recordings from Edwyn’s life with digitally shot, haunting images of the misty highlands and recreations of his youth starring his son. The framing breaks Edwyn’s current state into fragments, focusing on the empty spaces as he stares off into space and picks up details that others dismiss. Then it reverts to expansive long shots of his hometown and the eerie presence of the calm seaside. The film is strictly defined spatially, but paradoxically, the empty spaces and the frightening sameness of nature embody Edwyn’s struggle to place his past.

It’s a hypnotic experience, and an utterly heartbreaking one. It’s difficult to hold back tears as we watch Edwyn fail to recount simple anecdotes, mistake numbers and memories for one another and remain helplessly passive in a studio he had once built. Possibilities does a brilliant job of immersing the audience in his struggle, making his gradual liberation all the more meaningful, but it does so by avoiding sentimentality. The audience is invited to live Edwyn’s experience and ruminate on his surroundings. The resulting experience is almost spiritual, one that leaves the audience thinking differently about life itself. The struggle we witness is all Edwyn’s, the catharsis is ours.

Beyond Clueless

*This review was originally posted at The Film Experience as part of my coverage of the Hot Docs Film Festival.

Grade: B/B+

In the history of cinema, there are few genres that receive as little acclaim or critical analysis as the high school film does. British critic Charlie Lyne's (of Ultra Culture blog fame) visual essay is therefore a treasure for enthusiasts of recent film history. In Beyond Clueless, he examines teenage characters in a wide variety of films produced between 1996 and 2004. Little of the titular film is shown, though its influence over the films that came after it looms large. From The Craft to Mean Girls, from The Faculty to Rules of Attraction, via Spider-man, Final Destination and everything in between, the high school student is analyzed through the tumultuous process of entering that period of adolescence and exiting it unscathed and transformed.

Beyond Clueless itself takes on the narrative arc of a teen movie. Divided in five chapters that are designed to embody the high school experience, it begins with ‘Fitting In’ and ends with ‘Moving On.’ No new material is added to the clips taken from the films discussed, but crucially, the lengthy essay is narrated by Fairuza Balk, star of The Craft, whose somber but familiar voice instills the film a teen personality of its own. Although the study is academic in approach, what is beautiful about this documentary is it doesn’t rob its subjects – the epitome of plastic pop culture – of their romantic and nostalgic charm. It is as loving toward them as it is critical.

The framework for the experiment is the thematic similarities that connect the films: stories about being outcast, misfit, repressed or misunderstood. Sexuality plays as big a part in Beyond Clueless as it does in many depictions of teenagers in the films of the era, from the high-minded likes of American Beauty to allegorical camp like Idle Hands. Formal similarities are also explored as the film charts visual tropes and even shot by shot resemblances between the subjects – in one particular sequence, more than a dozen passionate kisses in swimming pools across different films highlight in equal measure the creative bankruptcy and the glorified fantastical ideas of romance in the high school film. Ultimately, Beyond Clueless is an incredibly personal experience to its young director. Having spent his adolescent years watching these films, his genuine enthusiasm for the material shines through the screen. Here are films that defined an era for cinephiles of a certain age, yet never receive a retrospective examination. That this director does so with such passion is a triumph, made all the better for its deep insight, sharp humour and careful structure.

Finding Vivian Maier

Grade: B-

*This review was originally published at The Movie Mezzanine.

There is a conundrum that film critics often face while writing about documentary cinema: although form and content are perhaps more easily separable in documentary films, they are also significantly easier to conflate in criticism. Meaning fiction films are regularly dismissed for unassuming presentation of content, but documentaries get a free pass if their subject matter is moving or important or fascinating as a separate entity from the film itself. Clichéd formal practices are often forgiven if the material piques our interest.

Finding Vivian Maier is the most recent case of a documentary film that coasts purely on the force of its enigmatic subject, rendering it in effect impossible to judge the film on any merit beyond the power of the mysterious woman it tries to solve. The titular artist, a New York-born woman of European heritage, spent nearly four decades of her life as a nanny in Chicago and New York.

To the families she lives with, she was known for her obsessive interest in street photography and the enormous number of boxes she hid in her room. Yet, no one had ever had the opportunity to glance at any of these photographs. Vivian’s massive collection of boxes – in which she kept everything from pawnshop receipts to small earrings to newspapers, was rediscovered when John Maloof, a Chicago historian happened to buy one of them for an art project at an auction.

Expedition to the End of the World

*This review was originally posted at The Film Experience during the Hot Docs International Film Festival.

I'll have the watch till 11 o'clock. Then I'll go down to the saloon and write the meaning of life.”

As a general rule, I try to avoid all films that deal with the ocean. I'm not averse to action adventures but I suffer from intense thalassophobia and cinema is an experience I'd like to enjoy, not endure. Exceptions have to be made every now and then, of course, and a few experiences have been rewarding enough to justify all the shaking and sneaking through fingers. I made one such exception for Expedition to the End of the World, based on strong word of mouth, and I’m happy to say I came away thoroughly satisfied.

This Danish film follows a group of explorers – crudely referred to only by their respective professions: the archaeologist, the geochemist, the artist, the other artist, etc. - who sail to the North East of Greenland to a previously untapped fjord in the ocean where access had been denied prior to the partial melting of the North Pole. It’s a small benefit of global warming, as one of the scientists puts it, that these men are able to explore this particular region, but here’s the catch: the inlet is only open for a short while as a result of this melting. In a few weeks, it will trap the group in between the mountains.

As one might expect from the premise, Expedition is shot beautifully, with picture-perfect photography that haunted me as much as it forced me to bow to Mother Nature’s grace. There are breathtaking shots composed of the misty mountains, the dormant ocean and the odd polar bear rummaging through the land, but what Expedition does is drawing the most curiously beautiful images of the sight of man against nature, where these intelligent scientists are reduced to specks of dust in relation to the magnitude of their surroundings. It’s a theory that one of the film’s protagonists poses: that humankind’s irrelevance in the grand scheme of things cannot be overstated. There is a fascinating scientific comparison between mankind and the microorganisms that possess similar functioning structures, but it’s the visual compositions that really blew my mind in illustrating this point, quite often framing the central characters against a backdrop of mountains that shows just how insignificant they can be.

Echoing that impression is the fact that the directors scale their project down, at times grounding it in conversations that appear inconsequential on the surface, but drop the audience into the heavy waters of studying human history and identity. By the film’s end the audience yearns to spends more time with this team of sailors. Like a group of hyper-intellectual college kids on their last trip together, their conversations vary from scientific arguments about dormant bacteria to making fun of each other’s fields of work. Expedition to the End of the World is effectively an incisive, anthropological discussion by way of a playful road comedy - characterized by bridges between Mozart and thrash metal music.

In every conversation I've had about the film – which has happened quite often since Expedition has become one of the festival’s favorites – Werner Herzog’s name has come up, for the type of dry humor that’s injected into the film’s chilly atmosphere is reminiscent of the German auteur’s Encounters at the End of the World and Cave of Forgotten Dreams; but I dare say this is an even richer experience than either of those two films. There are deep truths to be sought in the simple questions that these men nonchalantly throw at each other and the beauty of it is that the answers don’t come easily. As the geochemist puts it, “the joy is in not finding the answers,” in striving for a deeper understanding of ourselves and everything around us, and in savoring the splendor of our planet in the process.

The Manor

*This review was originally posted at The Film Experience during the Hot Docs Film Festival.

"My friends had parents who were dentists or ran stores. My parents own a strip club."

So says Shawney Cohen, the director of The Manor, the Canadian film that opens the festival tonight. Advertised with images of the invitingly neon-lit entrance of a strip club and scantily-clad dancers, The Manor seems to have been chosen as the opening night film based on an old adage we know all too well: sex sells. It’s a risky move by the festival’s programmers because anyone going in to buy sex will surely leave the theatre disappointed. Those of us going in not based on the marketing material but on the promise of a great opener had nothing to worry about. The Manor is an intimate family portrait that explores universal themes of familial bonding through a sharp and wryly humorous lens.

Shawney was six years old when his Jewish parents – Roger, a European immigrant, and Brenda, a Torontonian – bought The Manor, a strip club in suburban Ontario with a hotel attached to it. The purchase of the club proved to be a turning point in the life of the Cohen family that, for better or worse, has remained tied to the locale for nearly three decades; and indeed, this tenacious relationship between the Cohens and The Manor forms the core of the film.

Very little of what happens on the stages of the club is captured by Cohen’s camera. The Manor isn’t even passively sexy; it’s actively unsexy. Cohen’s attention is directed at what the audience doesn’t want to see. He’s directed his focus on the all-encompassing impact that the strip club has made on the lives of everyone connected to it. From the concierge of the adjacent hotel – a former stripper at the club – whose overdose throws everyone for a loop to the arrest of one the mainstays at the club – an adopted son figure to Roger Cohen – everyone’s life seems irreversibly affected by their presence at The Manor.

Monday's Words of Wisdom

Fellow Torontonian, Corey Atad, who writes at Movie Mezzanine has discussed the responsibility of documentarians to stick to facts in their films in a piece titled 'Honesty in Documentary'. The discussion is prompted by his experience with Searching For Sugar Man after he found a number of details were omitted from the film. I'm writing about it because no piece this year has changed my opinion of a film as much Corey's has. I simply cannot look at Sugar Man the same way anymore.

In essence, there is nothing wrong with being innovative in documentary cinema. It is appreciated, in fact. John Grierson, one of the earliest pioneers of the form, referred to his own aesthetics as the "creative treatment of actuality." Corey mentions examples of other films that present their story creatively, bringing up Waltz With Bashir as a great example, but he's asking whether that type of creative control over the material is allowed extend to the facts therein.

"Anytime we walk into a film we are making an implicit agreement. If I go see a fictional film I expect that it will be a fiction. I suspend my disbelief and allow the story to do what it wants. When I walk into a documentary, that agreement is different. There is an implicit expectation that no matter how much slant or bias or editorial influence is being had on the subject, at the very least the film is presenting factual information as accurately as possible. Sometimes accuracy is difficult to achieve, but distorting facts is a no-no."

When I watched the film myself, I was quite taken with it. I find it heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measure, but I was quite surprised at how Rodriguez remained completely unfazed by his new found success. Though the omissions aren't huge, the fact that Rodriguez had been aware of his success in places like Australia explains why he wasn't at all shocked by the warm reception he received in South Africa.In Corey's words: "The fact is, Rodriguez was not as obscure as the film claims, nor was he as difficult to find as the documentary implies. It’s not an outright lie, but it is a lie by omission, and the information was clearly left out in order to juice the drama in Rodriguez’ story. It’s still an incredible story, just not as incredible as the filmmakers would have you believe going on their account alone."

I can't help but feel cheated a bit, having realized that my emotional reaction to the film wasn't entirely merited, and I've slowly and quietly slipped Sugar Man out of my top 20 films. You can read Corey's piece here. I couldn't recommend it enough.

Next up is perennial favourite, Nick Prigge of Cinema Romantico, who has summed up the narratives overtaking this year's Oscar race in a 100% accurate, 137% hilarious piece titled 'Emerging Oscar Storylines.' I don't agree with his predictions entirely: I refuse to believe Argo can win best picture until I see Affleck jumping up and down on the Oscar stage with a little golden man in his hands and I don't think Tommy Lee Jones is a lock. Then again, I've predicted both of those categories exactly like him, so what the hell is up with my disingenuous disagreement? I am, however, entirely consumed by the idea that Michael Haneke may have an agenda of snuff films.

"The story of Best Actor is that there is NO story. Daniel Day Lewis will win. He will win because he floats in the regal ether above the pedantic stories of the Academy. Hype rolls off of him. Backlash is frightened to death of him. Twitter is powerless to stop him. Daniel Day Lewis is Daniel Fucking Day Lewis and that is why he will win."

You can read his piece here, and if you don't, you deserve the same twitter hate attack as Anne Hathaway.

Is A Spike Lee Comeback In Store?

*This review was originally posted at The Film Experience.

In the late 80s and early 90s, Lee became one of America’s most influential cinematic voices and directed two masterpieces that remain among his very best work to this day: Do The Right Thing and Malcolm X. But I think it’s fair to say that none of his recent films, at least since the 2006 double punch of When the Levees Broke and The Inside Man, have been able to enter public conversation or the awards race. Fiction projects like Miracle at St. Anna were coolly received and documentaries like If God is Willing... didn’t make a dent either.

He's on my mind after watching his Michael Jackson documentary Bad 25 and for the first time in a while I felt like he was on to something special. The film, which originally screened out of competition in Venice, is quite different from the other nonfiction entries in Lee’s oeuvre and it isn’t particularly innovative in its construction. A song by song breakdown of Jackson’s follow-up to his record-breaking Thriller, Bad 25 is effectively a straightforward examination of the production of the 1987 album through exhaustive research and interviews with several key collaborators with the King of Pop. But the collection of these extremely entertaining memories tell a different tale about Michael Jackson, and one that is sadly overshadowed these days by the events of his later life.

Lee, who knew Jackson personally and directed music videos for him, doesn’t attempt to address any of the controversies that surrounded the singer’s life. His celebrity is of course a prominent feature and it’s impossible to overlook given that Bad was produced at the height of his and the genre’s popularity. Jackson himself was obsessed with the idea of repeating Thriller’s success and that was a central aspect of Bad’s formation. But Lee wants to revisit an artist’s work, not his personal life and he does so with diligence, delving into his creative process and referencing tabloid myths and legends only sporadically and when they are discussed by Jackson himself. The creative process, like that of any other great artist, is absolutely fascinating to watch; and it’s interesting to get this amount of exposure to his methods through his peers.

My favourite part of the film is the interview and accompanying archival footage about that famous Bad music video. Partly because as a film fan I lament the fact that I didn’t live through the golden age of music videos and partly because Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker (director and editor of the video, respectively) make a great interviewee duo, I was entirely immersed their collaboration with the singer. Jackson referred to his videos as films and the Bad's production was treated as such, with a character-driven story and elaborate set pieces. That Bad also marks the acting debut of an exuberant Wesley Snipes is the icing on the story’s cake.

If I hesitate to call Bad 25 Lee’s return to form because his role as the director is incredibly understated here. His personality, so often at the foreground in his nonfiction work, has taken a backseat. This is a film about Michael Jackson and he’s content not to interfere. Then again, that’s exactly the stuff great directors are made of. They know when and how much their voice needs to be heard. Lee understands the magnitude of Jackson’s star and he’s happy to let it shine.

Oscar's Documentary Race Cut to 15 Films

Over at The Film Experience, I've looked at the 15 films that have been shortlisted by the Academy in the documentary category. It's a list that, as usual, leaves off several critically acclaimed titles and proves that the new voting system hasn't really made that big an impact on the race yet. Of my three favourite documentaries this year, The Gatekeepers has made the cut (my review), Queen of Versailles (which I just saw) has not and Stories We Tell (my review) was not eligible. The most endearing surprise is the inclusion of Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb's This is Not a Film, which you may remember was one of the best films of 2011 in my opinion.

You can read my thoughts on the whole list here. And please join in with your comments!

Interview: Steve James

Last week, I had the pleasure of interviewing one of my favourite directors, documentary filmmaker Steve James. He's been a staple of America's documentary scene since his breakout 90s masterpiece Hoop Dreams and I've been a fan of his work as long as I can remember.

I chatted with him about his newest film, Head Games, which is about the prevalence of concussion in contact sports. The premise doesn't suggest as much, but it was incredibly moving and almost frightening in some of its revelations. We also talked a little bit about the new voting structure of the documentary branch of the Academy and his future film, Life Itself, which will be based on Roger Ebert's biography.

The interview is posted here at The Film Exprience and my latest Oscar predictions in the Documentary category are here.

Stories We Tell

Grade: A-

There’s a moment late in Stories We Tell, Sarah Polley’s newest film and her first documentary, where Michael, her father, is confronted with the film’s big reveal. He gazes absent-mindedly at her daughter behind the camera, then at the window by his side, and then goes on to say in voiceover narration that he froze upon hearing the news “as he imagines Sarah had when she first heard it.” He’s unaware that the audience has already seen Sarah’s reaction to the same reveal a few scenes earlier. Sarah is anything but frozen. Surprised, sure, but not frozen at all. She is, or at least looks to be, genuinely relieved and happy about it. And she confirms our intuition about her feelings when she later admits that she was filled with joy that she had finally uncovered that secret. That, in essence, is why I’ve fallen so madly in love with her new film. It’s been a few days since I watched it and my mind keeps racing back to it at every chance, remembering every precious little moment.

Stories We Tell is centred on Diane, Sarah’s late mother, who was a theatre and television personality in Canada back in her day. Though “centering” is probably not the correct term. She is the focal point of the titular stories, but there’s nothing cyclical or circular about the way the narrative unfolds. As the title suggests, the structure is formed through interviews with family members and acquaintances who share their recollections of Diane. Polley’s more or less aware of the full scope of her story when she embarks on the adventure to make this film, but instead of telling us her story, she asks everyone involved – her two sisters, two brothers, father Michael (who also narrates the film through a piece he has written about his life with his wife), her mother’s friends and co-stars in a Montreal theatre production – to tell her everything about Diane as if she never knew her at all. From the resulting interviews, she peels back layers of information in ways so surprising that we’re kept guessing till the very last frame.

The strength of the film, however, lies not in the surprises – though there are plenty and they are deliciously scandalous – but precisely in the manner in which Polley tells the story. There are tales of romance, passion, ennui, infidelity and such in every family. It’s in the way Polley presents them to us that gives them warmth and depth. It is the way she forces us to rethink our perceptions of ourselves and our family members that make the film a special delight. Stories We Tell shows us that even those closest to us can often act radically different from what we expect of them and can have big secrets stored in their heart for an entire lifetime without letting anything slide; even when those secrets matter more to us than themselves. This film isn’t so much about the characters but the way they are formed through others’ words, perceptions and misconceptions about them.

Technically, too, Stories is an impressive accomplishment. Mike Munn’s work in the cutting room is crucial to the film’s tone as everything boils down to the order of interviews and the setup of the reveals, and his crisp editing does a great job of bringing everything neatly together. Polley has carefully recreated her mother’s theatre stint in Montreal and manages to integrate the washed out visuals of those sequences seamlessly in the intimately photographed reconstructions of the present time and the interviews. In transferring her bright, gracefully soft aesthetic and her repetitious but sparse approach to storytelling from fiction to documentary, Polley proves herself as one of the most interesting, unique voices in today’s cinema; a filmmaker whose every effort, even if flawed, is incredibly rewarding.

The Documentary Dilemma

Ever since I saw Jose and Pilar, the Portuguese documentary film submitted for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, I've been wondering whether the voters in that branch have it in them to go there and nominate a documentary. The question's also been on my mind about the editing of Senna - which you might remember is one of my favourite films of the year - and Chris King's chances at getting a nomination in that category. 

I imagine the answer is a no in both cases, but anyway, over at The Film Experience, I've given the academy four suggestions to nominate docuementaries in non-documentary categories, because the more we talk about it, the likelier it is for voters to hear us! Have a read and join the conversation!

Scene from Pina, Germany's submission for best foreign film

Senna

Grade: A

Directed by Asif Kapadia and written by Manish Pandey, Senna tells the story of the eponymous Brazilian Formula One driver who rose to fame in the 1980s and became known as one of the greatest racers of all time, only to have his career abruptly and tragically ended in 1994 because of an accident. Although the material is ripe for a "Greatest Hits" documentary -- one that reviews the milestones in the hero's life chronologically, without engaging with his personality on a deeper level -- Kapadia paints a picture that is energetic, inventive and transcendent.


The filmmaker's approach is a curious one, but it is immensely rewarding. He hasn’t shot any new material for the film. There are no talking heads. Nothing we see here is what we usually get in documentaries of this type. The only new material is the voice-over commentary given by Senna’s contemporaries and his family members. Instead, Kapadia focuses on archival footage of Senna’s life, stretching all the way back to his introduction to Formula One. These images, sometimes even taken from intimate family home videos, serve to familiarize the audience with Senna with more authenticity than any interview could. Building on this close relationship between the audience and the hero, Kapadia breaks a barrier that could have existed for those not interested in racing (myself included).

This is not to say that there’s a shortage of racing footage or that they aren’t riveting enough to give everyone goosebumps. The intense competitive relationship between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost that is revisited several times and the final encounter between Senna and Michael Schumacher are such a thrill to watch on the big screen. But Kapadia reaches for something beyond these sensational auto-racing thrills. His comprehensive study of Senna’s life allows for an in-depth look into the politics of Formula One and better yet, an emotionally resonant narrative about Senna as a human being, not just a champion. Our familiarity with Senna makes the heartbreaking finale all the more perplexing.

The film’s real ace, in my opinion, is Chris King’s editing. I’m not at all surprised at how masterful he is at creating a coherent narrative from pre-existing footage given that I considered him one of the best editors of 2010 for Exit through the Gift Shop. Here, the task at hand is even grander since there is no Banksy or Shepard Fairey to lead the way. But King nails it again. He knows exactly what order to set the sequences in to control our heartbeat just as easily as our tear glands. He’s smart in gradually cueing us toward the ending without explicitly opening it from the beginning as well.

Sports documentaries rarely aim so high as Senna does. What Kapadia and his team do here is more than a documentary about a champion. Even though they leave the darker details of Senna’s life out of the film, they never fall into sentimentality. They bring Senna’s larger-than-life story to the screen without losing the essence of his life, how important he was to the world of racing and more importantly, to Brazilians. Simply put, Senna is one of the great biographies ever made.