Category Archives: Documentary

The Eternal Memory

The Eternal Memory   4 stars

From the country of Chile and entered in World Cinema Documentary comes The Eternal Memory,  which documents the life of Augusto, a prominent journalist in Chile who covered events during the Pinochet dictatorship.  Augusto has had Alzheimers disease for several years and is cared for by his wife Pauli. The filmmaker,  Maite Alberdi takes us into their home showing us the struggle for Augusto as he tries to hang on to his identity with his wife’s help.  There is much archival footage from the eighties and later to give us a sense of his work and of the unrest during the Pinochet regime.  We see just how much has been robbed from Augusto by this terrible disease.  He can go for hours unable to recognize his own wife and imagines there are people that will steal his books which he treasures.  But Pauli, who is an actress and still working is there to reassure him and bring him back to reality. The best moments are when she is talking to him about his life and he calmly accepts what she says.  The Eternal Memory won the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema Documentary. 

20 Days in Mariupol

20 Days in Mariupol,  5 stars

20 Days in Mariupol has to be one of the most compelling and important movies to show here at the festival. Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ukranian war correspondent and filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov took a team of journalists into the eastern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. Then the war started with the city receiving incessant shelling and bombing against the military and civilians alike.  Chernov’s team recorded as much as they could spending much of the time in the hospitals where they show us the many casualties of the conflict that included women, children and the elderly. They show how the Russians targeted infrastructure to remove electricity and heat from the population.  The journalists sometimes have to travel around to find an internet signal so they could get their material to the Associated Press and the world. We are not spared seeing many atrocities caused by the shelling including children dying on the operating table.  An estimated 25,000 people were killed in the city and suburbs.  Many of the images are familiar as they were seen worldwide in the early days of the war. The film gives a wider perspective too by showing the propaganda war waged by the Russians that seeks to discredit the truth.  In the footage we even see civilians who are convinced that they are being attacked by the Ukranian military. The entire movie is narrated by Chernov who was also present at the Q&A where he expressed how important it is show the truth about the war. 

Victim/Suspect

Victim/Suspect   4 stars

In the documentary Victim/Suspect we are introduced to Rae de Leon, an investigative reporter working for The Center for Investigative Reporting.  She was looking into some cases involving young women who have reported being sexually assaulted only to find that the police then charge them with filing a false police report,  a crime which carries a long jail term.  She starts with a case of a student at the University of Alabama which leads her to many others in all parts of the country.  The documentary shows how through interviews and hundreds of hours of legwork she and her team learn how the police fail to investigate the allegations of rape and then use interrogation tactics including lying about evidence to convince the victim to recant their story.  The recanting is then used to file charges against the women who are often then convinced to accept a plea. The victims are often women in their twenties who have no idea what is coming for them.  This is all done just to make life easier on the police without regard for the lives damaged.  The film by director Nancy Schwartzman tells a compelling story that will outrage the audience.  The film does have a positive outcome with the subject women of the film being exonerated of their charges. de Leon, the director and two of the victims and a lawyer helping them were present for the Q&A. They are planning to spread their message of these police practices with the result being to educate police departments and the public on this important issue. 

Against the Tide

Against the Tide  4 1/2 stars!

The second movie was a documentary from India called Against the Tide. This was some superior filmmaking by an Indian woman director.  Her subjects were two close friends from Bombay,  India who belong to the Koli community.  They both struggle to make a living by fishing according to their traditions,  but face the challenges of a dwindling stock of fish in the ocean and increased competition.  The director wanted to convey just how hard it is for them to make a profit and feed their families and she definitely succeeds.  The two have very different approaches to running their businesses.  One tries to use modern fishing practices with a large boat and crew, fishing in deep water fast from shore,  while the other uses a small boat with only a few hands and stays in shallow water. The conclusion is that either way the fishermen barely can stay afloat while trying to support a wife and their small children.  I found it amazing that the subjects put so much trust in the filmmaker when it exposes the internal disagreements in their families.  It is informative to see the conditions of poverty that these businessmen are fighting against.  We also get exposure to the illegal practice of fishing with lights at night in order to increase the size of the catch. I had seen stories about this before. So far Against the Tide gets my vote for the best documentary. 

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed             4 ½ stars

The documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed by documentarian Laura Poitras tells two stories that are inextricably intertwined so must be told together. The maker of Snowden brings us inside the life and world of artist Nan Goldin and connects it to the struggle to hold the philanthropist Sackler family accountable for the opioid crisis that has plagued America for decades. Not having ever been addicted to drugs myself I have always found it confusing how something like this massive crisis could have happened. One should not go into viewing the movie expecting a complete analysis of what brought about this problem of drug addiction. The film is a deeply personal account describing the life of Nan Goldin from her upbringing including the death of her older sister, Barbara, her life in the art world in Boston and New York City in the seventies and eighties to her efforts in starting the activist organization Prescription Addiction Interdiction Now (PAIN) to fight the spread of opioids. Most of the movie consists of Goldin telling her own story through her photographs and slide shows from her artistic creations. She tells of her own struggles with drug addiction and dealing with abusive relationships as well as telling of the lives of some of the prominent artists of that time in New York City including Cookie Mueller, David Wojnarowicz and Vivienne Dick. Interspersed in her story are segments dealing with the PAIN protests against the Sackler family, the owners of the pharmaceutical company Purdue, who made billions in profits by selling OxyContin and other drugs and was largely responsible for the opioid epidemic that has led to the deaths of approximately half a million lives. The protests by PAIN are brought against the art galleries and museums that have accepted donations from the Sackler family that include the Met, the Guggenheim, Harvard University, the Louvre and numerous other universities. Goldin’s awareness of the Sackler family’s role in the widespread drug addiction started in 2017. The protests eventually led to the museums ceasing to accept Sackler money and the removal of the Sackler name from the institutions. The movie does not tell us the whole story of the opioid crisis which would include the roles of the medical establishment and the government in allowing this situation to exist for so long. Some background on the Sackler family is included, but the real focus is on Goldin’s life and her drive to do her part in stopping the crisis brought on by these drugs. This fascinating documentary received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary this year. I will say that I saw the film in a theater and it was followed up with audience discussion. Some of those present did not see the merits of the film and voiced puzzlement over why it would be shown.

Navalny

Navalny                5 stars

If you are going to see one documentary from 2022, Navalny by Daniel Roher must be the one to choose. Alexei Navalny is the Russian dissident who challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling out the brutal nature of the government and the lies he tells the people of Russia. The film follows Navalny and investigative journalist Christo Grozev starting from the attempted assassination of Navalny until he is arrested and put in prison upon his return to Russia. The film plays like a thriller as we see him suddenly fall ill on a flight to Moscow forcing the plane to land in Omsk to seek medical attention for him. There he is kept by the authorities, however his colleagues fearing the worst find a way to fly him to Berlin, Germany where it is determined he was poisoned, a sure sign that the Kremlin was involved. While in Berlin and on the path to recovery, Navalny and Grozev undertake an investigation using telephone records and flight records to find possible candidates for assassins with Kremlin ties. The rest is fascinating to watch as the truth is uncovered and the crime is broadcast around the world revealing the monstrous practices of Putin. All of this happened well before the invasion of Ukraine, thus we now know just how corrupt Putin is and what he thinks of the common people. The film also includes moments with Navalny’s family so we see what he is risking with his political moves. The film serves as an effective reminder of how bad things can be when living under an authoritative dictatorship. This is the film that won Best Documentary at the Academy Awards this year. If you are interested in documentaries that tell provocative stories as they happen, you should really see it.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour           4 ½ stars

Concert films are one type of film that I very rarely see, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to see Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour in the theater. Since I can’t remember seeing any specific concert film before I can say that this was the best concert film I have ever seen. But seriously it is an experience you shouldn’t miss if you have the chance. The film is taken from a single performance, Taylor Swift’s final stop of the Eras Tour in Los Angeles. The show is extravagant to the maximum, lasting over two and a half hours with amazing sets, a myriad of costume changes and accompanied by a dance troupe with Taylor at the center of it all. She performs songs from throughout her seventeen year career broken down by periods of inspiration that she calls her eras. How she has the energy and stamina to go so long including well staged choreography is beyond my comprehension. The film is heavily edited with closeups of her and many shots of the adoring fans in the audience. So call me a Swifty now. I loved it.

God Save Texas

God Save Texas: The Price of Oil. 4 stars

God Save Texas is a series of episodics produced by Richard Linklater with three of them showing at Sundance. All are directed by native Texans and reflect some subject about conditions in Texas that affect the entire country. The Price of Oil was directed by Alex Stapleton who is from the Houston area and is Black. The focus of the episode is on the black population of Texas, their contribution to development of the oil industry, and the marginalization they have suffered for its profits. The doc goes back to the 1830’s when Texas won its independence but followed the practice of slavery. It shows how blacks were left out of the history of the state. With the discovery of oil in the early twentieth century, blacks did not receive their share of employment in the oil industry, but have suffered from the environmental dangers of having the refineries placed next to their neighborhoods. The director made it personal by showing how some of her own relatives were impacted by these practices. The episode was largely made during the pandemic. I recommend seeing the series. It was inspired by the book God Save Texas: A Journey Into the Soul of the Lone Star State by Lawrence Wright.

Love Machina

Love Machina 4 stars

How would you like to transfer the consciousness of a loved one into a robot so that they could continue to exist and be with you after they passed away? It sounds unimaginable but that is the aim of futurists Martina and Bina Rothblatt. Marina has been conducting this project since 2006 so that his beloved wife can continue to love as a machine. The robot consists of only a head and can listen and speak with the help of AI and it is named Bina48. Martina has been gathering data that defines Bina’s thoughts and digitizing them. The result at this point is regarded as a simulation but it is quite remarkable what has been accomplished so far. It seems like the stuff of science fiction, and would seem to be something we couldn’t have dreamed of only a few years ago. The movie presents other great advancements that have been made in technology recently and shows the hope that we have for the future. It gives a very positive picture of what the future holds.

Agent of Happiness

Agent of Happiness 4 stars

One of the more unusual government functions I have heard of is the measurement of happiness. In Agent of Happiness the filmmakers follow a pair of government agents through the mountains and villages of Bhutan as they survey the population with a series of questions to find out the state of happiness of their citizens. Its purpose is to help guide the government in the future development of the country. The film focuses mainly on one agent named Amber who is about 40 years old and actually has his own story to tell. The survey asks questions about people’s possessions like refrigerators, TV’s and farm animals, but also how they rate their own happiness. Like any of us, the people have misfortunes they talk of like deaths in the family, abusive mates, alcoholism and even living as a transgender person. But they also reveal the hopes they have for the future. Amber’s own story is about caring for his aging mother and of a girl friend that he wishes he could marry. Unfortunately, Amber is not a Bhutanese citizen being of Nepalese descent, thus he cannot leave the country. And that is enough to deny him of his dream of a wife and settling down. Thus behind all the beauty of this land and the optimism lies the stories of pain and loss and how like people everywhere, they find a way to carry on.