Category Archives: Documentary

You Can See Everything

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You Can See Everything                 5 stars

In 2018 Elizabeth Holmes, the founder and CEO of the blood test startup Theranos, was convicted of defrauding investors over making false claims that their product could test for multiple diseases from a single drop of blood. Everyone can remember the fall of this seemingly brilliant entrepreneur who made the cover of Forbes magazine. Books, documentaries, podcasts and a mini-series have been made on the subject. Before her eleven-year prison sentence was to begin Holmes and her partner, Billy Evans, invited the film company A24 to document her story in an attempt to rehabilitate her image. Thus, the documentary You Can See Everything begins with director Nathan Fielder visiting them in a San Diego cottage on the beach 46 days before the incarceration is to begin. What follows over the next three hours is one of the most fascinating documentaries I can remember. The movie can be thought of in three parts. In the first, Fielder questions Holmes and Evans about their circumstances and why he was even chosen to begin with. (Fielder’s background is a comedian, certainly not someone with knowledge of medical devices.) We can see that he must tread very lightly with his questioning as he must maintain trust while at the same time seeking to get into the mind of his host. Holmes is eager to engage, but when the subject of the device and the defrauding is discussed, it is clear that she does not believe she did anything illegal or immoral. The claim about the device’s capabilities is just a matter of semantics, a misunderstanding. She believes the device actually works despite the evidence. Fielder takes one occasion to show her the famous Abbott and Costello Who’s On First? comedy routine to show her how words and phrases could mean different things to different people, but she doesn’t seem to get the reason why it is funny. Holmes and Evans even talk about starting a new Theranos again. They are committed to the cause. What? Throughout their talks, Fielder and Holmes seem to connect, but you’re not sure if either is faking it. Finally, the film crew follows her to the Texas prison where she will serve her sentence. The second part picks up after Holmes has been in prison for two years with the film crew visiting Billy Evans at their house in Texas. There they find him actively pursuing the couple’s business interests. He has regular visits with Holmes and has taken over her X account, creating messages as if he were her. Evans has become a control freak telling the director what he can and cannot talk about while filming. In the final part, Fielder takes us back to the impetus of the film. He brings Amanda Seyfried, the actress who portrayed Holmes in the mini-series The Dropout, into the movie discussing the unusual situation. Seyfried becomes a stand-in for recreations of scenes that happened when Fielder and the executives began talks about the film. There we see how controlling Billy was from the start, so we wonder: Is he manipulating Holmes through this entire endeavor? Just how much does Holmes know about Billy’s demands? The recreated scenes continue with Seyfried as Holmes when Fielder gets permission to visit Holmes in prison alone. The questions only expand in this final meeting. Who is Elizabeth Holmes? Is she a misunderstood victim, a master manipulator or pathological liar? What is the truth about her? The audience must be the judge. Psychologists will be studying this case for years. Nathan Fielder has created a masterpiece of a documentary. Look for it to get plenty of attention when the awards season starts.

Mariinka

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Mariinka              4 ½ stars

For my first film of the 62nd Chicago International Film Festival, I saw the documentary Mariinka by Belgian director Pieter-Jan De Pue. You may think that we have seen enough on film about the Ukraine-Russia war which is now in its fifth year. This film takes a different approach that I found to be original and refreshing. De Pue went to Mariinka, a small city in Donetsk Oblast which is in the same region as Mariupol around 2013 with the idea of filming several young people living there over a period of several years. Of course, he had no idea that it would become a war zone that would impact millions of lives and that he would spend over ten years making his movie. His subjects include a family of four brothers living in an orphanage, a female paramedic/medical student and a woman smuggler. The filming started when they were still kids and all of them were orphans or from broken families, something quite common in Ukraine. He follows each of them into adulthood showing their involvement in the seemingly never-ending war of Russian aggression. Mariinka has been completely destroyed, and no one lives there anymore. Of the four brothers, one is in the Ukrainian army, one fights on the Russian side, one has been disabled from combat and the youngest was adopted by an American family living in Mississippi as a toddler. The film gets up close with them in actual combat situations with casualties. The paramedic is filmed as a high school student, training to be a boxer and at a program in the high school auditorium. Later during the war, she is visiting the same auditorium in its bombed-out state as well as visiting the grave site of her mother. The smuggler is filmed as she delivers goods to soldiers and others by riding through the war zone by bicycle. The film is both terrifying and peaceful. One senses the hopelessness that each of these young people must have. It is hard to imagine what the filmmakers had to endure to film these scenes. Each of the last three Documentary Academy Awards have gone to movies about the Ukraine war. These include 20 Days in Mariupol, No Other Land and Mr. Nobody Against Putin. Next year there may well be a fourth.

Love, Gilda

Love, Gilda                          5 stars

Love, Gilda is a must see documentary for anyone who was a fan of the late Gilda Radner or anyone who watched Saturday Night Live through the first seasons of the seventies.  This film by Lisa DaPolito takes pictures and home movies from Gilda’s early years as well as her personal writings during her brief career and puts together a fascinating story of challenges and success and the loneliness that was Gilda Radner’s life.  It follows her through theatrical productions in college, her time in Second City in Toronto and those famous years on Saturday Night Live.  It also covers her challenges she faced in the eighties as she struggled to find her way after television, her meeting and marrying Gene Wilder and finally her battle with cancer that took her at 42 or 43.  The film goes into her creating many of the characters we remember so well like Lisa Loepner, Emily Litela and Roseanne Rosannadanna.   I had a great time laughing at her antics and remembering what a great talent she was.

RBG

RBG       5 stars

It has been an unusual summer for the movie box office as documentaries about people like Fred Rogers and Ruth Bader Ginsburg have received a lot of attention.  RBG is a biopic about the 84 year old Ginsburg, one of the most influential Supreme Court justices in recent years.  Some of the movie is about how she has become a symbol of resistance for many of the Millennial generation.  But mostly it is about how she went from a young married law student to an advocate for women’s rights under the law.  It shows how as a young law school graduate she was denied any job for the large law firms in New York simply because she is a woman.  We see how she made effective arguments in front of the Supreme Court that led to a remarkable record.  Many scenes are prefaced by her Senate confirmation hearings as a Clinton nominee to the Supreme Court then shifts to cases that made her a stalwart of the liberal dissent on a variety of decisions.  But it doesn’t focus just on her career as it gives us insights into her intellect and the ways she likes to spend her time.  The film stays interesting throughout as the filmmakers find interesting ways to show us her fame, but still focus on her quiet demeanor.  It even finds time to feature clips of Kate McKinnon’s uproarious impressions of her on Saturday Night Live.  I look for this film along with that of Fred Rogers to receive nominations as Best Documentary at the Academy Awards.  You should definitely take the opportunity to see RBG as soon as you can.

Stieg Larsson: The Man Who Played With Fire

Stieg Larsson: The Man Who Played With Fire.  4 1/2 stars

This documentary by Henrik Georgsson tells us much of the life story of the renowned author Stieg Larsson who wrote The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Before he died in 2004 he worked tirelessly as a journalist dedicated to exposing the right wing racist groups who were and continue to become a stronger political force in Sweden. This he did despite the attacks and death threats against the small group of reporters working at his publication. The movies follows him from the time he was a small boy until his death. It shows the rise of the hate groups in the nineties after nobody in the seventies imagined that Nazi type organizations could resurface again. The director used his access to those close to the subject and his materials to give us a vivid picture of this man who believed in Democracy and that it is necessary to defend it from those who would undermine it because of their fear of those who look different from them. The movie serves a warning to those in many other countries as well that fascism is not yet defeated. In that respect it has much in common with The Edge of Democracy which I viewed earlier. Both are my highest rated documentaries.

Always in Season

Always in Season.        4 stars

Always in Season is a documentary about the lynchings of black people in America both in the past and present day. The African-American filmmaker has been developing the documentary for the past ten years that follows the history of these lynchings over the past hundred years or more. By chance a seventeen year black boy was found hanged in a rural area of North Carolina in 2014. The incident was classified as a suicide by the local investigators but it had all the signs of a murder.  Most of the film focuses on this case where Lennon Lacy, a football player nearing graduation said goodbye to his mother, stepped outside and was found hanged only two hours later. The film includes interviews with his mother, Claudia and his brother who are not satisfied with the ruling of the local authorities and want answers. The filmmaker gradually puts together more facts about the case that just beg for more investigation. The film continues with background on past lynchings from the 30’s and 40’s that have gone unsolved. One town in Georgia now has lynching reenactments of an incident where two young couples were murdered including a pregnant woman. The involvement of the Ku Klux Klan figures prominently in the movie. Racist views are expressed by some white figures, but others are committed to telling the truth so that these practices are not forgotten. The filmmaker, other staff and Lennon`s family were present for the Q & A, so the pain of the case still feels raw.  Always in Season makes clear that racism in alive and well in America.

The Edge of Democracy

The Edge of Democracy.   Five suns!

The most interesting film of the bunch had to be The Edge of Democracy,  by a young Portuguese director,  Petra Costa that covers the political conflicts that have plagued Brazil over the past couple of decades.  She covers the rise of the Labor movement that challenged the military dictatorship in the seventies and succeeded in many reforms that lifted much of the population out of poverty,  followed by a backlash that now finds the contractors and oligarchs back in control of the government.  Costa has close connections to both sides of the conflict as her grandparents were among the contractors that benefited from government connections and both her parents were active revolutionaries that opposed the ruling elite and sought to change things through political pressure. The film gives us a dramatic picture of the polarization of the politics of the country that mirrors that of many countries including especially our own.  And it leaves us wondering where is it all going to lead.  Petra benefited from much access to both presidents Lula Da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, who were of the labor party and have been removed from power by questionable legal means. The movie gives us the stark message that the rich and the powerful will always seek and find ways to advance their own interests at the cost of the working people.

Apollo 11

Apollo 11                             4 stars

The first Sundance movie I’ve seen since being at Sundance is Apollo 11, the thrilling documentary about the 1969 moon landing.  The movie consists entirely of footage from the time of the historic mission including film shot from onboard the space capsules.  The film is edited expertly to keep our interest throughout and has an effective score as well.  It includes footage of conferences with astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins and quite a lot showing an army of support personnel at mission control.  Especially compelling is the part showing the actual landing on the surface of the moon bringing reality to the fact that the small ship was just seconds away from running out of fuel at the critical time.  Anyone who can remember being glued to their television during the mission will appreciate seeing Apollo 11.  Those too young to remember it should see it for the amazement of what these people were able to accomplish with the technology available in the sixties.  The film was showing at Sundance this year but I believe the demand for it was very high.  I’m glad to have had the chance to see it in the theater.

Icarus

Icarus                                                                    5 stars

Icarus is the award winning documentary by sports enthusiast and film maker Bryan Fogel about the folly of anti-doping efforts in international sports.  Like some of the best documentaries the film set out to do one thing then ended up going in a very different direction.  In this case Fogel sets as his objective the discrediting of the anti-doping efforts of WADA by enlisting the help of Grigory Rodchenkov, the director of the anti-doping center for Russia.  But what follows is the revealing of the astounding efforts that the Russians have gone through for years to cheat at international sports.  It is Rodchenkov who plays a pivotal role in the story as he leaves his life and family behind in Russia to become a whistleblower on the scale of Russian cheating and so becomes the central figure in Fogel’s film.  The film goes into detail about how the Russians went about their scheme at the Sochi Olympics by swapping out urine samples for hundreds of athletes before they could be tested.  It is remarkable how they were able to get away with this.  Finally, the truth was revealed before the Rio Olympics in 2016 and many Russian athletes were banned from the games.  It is also clear from the movie that Vladimir Putin played a role in this fraud which he has of course always denied.  Anyone who has a keen interest in competitive sports should be sure to see Icarus.

Ghost in the Machine

Ghost in the Machine     3 1/2 suns

From the Sundance category NEXT, I saw the documentary Ghost in the Machine from director/ screenwriter Valerie Veatch. The subject of the doc was AI but not from a technical standpoint or its development. Rather it was about the power that the titans of the tech industry hold over us. It presents the arguments at a very rapid pace that feels overwhelming and covers a wide range of aspects of AI, most of which I had heard before.  It covered the exploitation of foreign tech workers in very poor countries, the environmental impact of the huge data centers being built around the world, the heavy involvement of the military in AI and the close ties of Sam Altman, Elon Musk and other tech giants to the Trump administration.  I didn’t know much about the origins of AI going back to the start of Silicon Valley.  According to the documentary the beginning of the computer industry was heavily rooted in the development of the field of statistics which really started in the late 1800’s. The pioneers of this field both in the US and in the UK had very racist beliefs, believing that the white race was superior to all other races.  Statistics was developed as a tool to measure intelligence in the races in order to prove their point. What followed then was the belief that eugenics should be used to reduce less desirable traits in the human race. So, then the logic goes that these early racist views still persist in AI and the industry leaders today. (If you read some of the statements said by Elon Musk you could make that correlation.) I can’t say that anything stated in the film is untrue, but have no doubt there are facts being left out.  The director was asked about presenting the other side of the issue, but said there was little point in doing so as you would only hear the same rhetoric that we see in the media. I know that there is great hope and promise for the advancements that can be achieved with AI in the future, but this very biased film is a warning about the costs of embracing this new technology.