Tag Archives: documentary

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Mission Control

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Desert One

by Rachel Willis

It has been nearly 41 years since 52 American diplomats and citizens were taken hostage in Tehran, Iran. Coming on the heals of the Iranian revolution, in which the Ayatollah Khomeini took power from the U.S.-backed Shah, the hostage crisis was perhaps the single biggest catastrophe of the Carter presidency.

Five months after the hostages were taken prisoner, in April of 1980, President Carter authorized a rescue mission, the subject of director Barbara Kopple’s (Harlan County, USA) latest documentary, Desert One.

Drawing on previously unreleased audio recordings, extensive interviews with those involved in the operation, and archival footage, Kopple’s film is one of the most compelling you’ll see this year.

Viewers may not be aware of the details of the Iranian Hostage Crisis, so a brief but informative overview of the situation in Iran paints a vivid picture. What led to the crisis is laid-out in clear detail. Interviews with many of the diplomats who were later held hostage help the audience understand the mood in D.C. as Khomeini came to power. Interviews with Iranian citizens further develop the picture of their attitude toward U.S. policy.

The most remarkable aspect of Desert One is the sheer number of interviews conducted for the film. Kopple interviews hostages and hostage takers, Delta Force members, as well as former president, Jimmy Carter, and his vice president, Walter Mondale.

Though the film is heavily skewed toward the American perspective, there is an attempt at balance by allowing some of the Iranians involved to share their perspective on the situation. However, as with most of history, memories of the incident vary wildly – prisoners describe being tortured; translator Hossein Sheikholeslam describes friendly relationships with the hostages. Hostage taker Faizeh Moslehi says the hostages were treated with respect, yet revels in the memory of seeing Americans defeated in brutal ways.

Animations serve to emphasize the words of the interviews and as reenactments for events not recorded. However, the most effective aspects are the pictures and archival footage – at times, almost too gruesome to bear. It emphasizes the sheer tragedy of the situation, as well as the mounting pressure on the U.S. to resolve it.

Removed from the situation by nearly half a century, it is still a critical moment in American history and not one to be forgotten. Kopple ensures it will remain fresh in our minds a little longer with her riveting piece of filmmaking.   

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Let It Kill You

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You Never Had It: An Evening with Bukowski

by Hope Madden

Who’s the greatest American poet? Maya Angelou? Sherman Alexie? Walt Whitman? I will argue that it’s Charles Bukowski.

He really only wrote for about 24 years, but he has nearly 70 books in print: novels, collections of short fiction, and poems. My God, the poems.

 If you are also a fan, documentarian Matteo Borgardt has a film for you.

You Never Had It: An Evening with Bukowski shares a rediscovered interview from 1981. Italian reporter Silvia Bizio visits the writer in his San Pedro home and they talk for about an hour. It’s very low key, and honestly, not a great deal is covered or discovered in terms of the interview itself.

But.

If you’ve ever just wanted to sit in Bukowski’s living room as wine bottle after wine bottle empties, as ash trays fill, as Max the cat finds a good position on Linda Lee’s lap—friends, this is indispensable viewing.

’81 was a big year for him. Bukowski’s about halfway through his seminal novel Ham on Rye, he’s recently returned from the European trip documented in his nonfiction text Shakespeare Never Did This, and that trip/book’s photographer Michael Montfort makes himself at home on the floor near the ash tray on the end table.

It’s all very low key as people drink and smoke and Bukowski talks. He doesn’t wax philosophical, doesn’t argue too much, doesn’t make proclamations or yell or curse. He doesn’t really even tell any stories, but he does read a few poems (good ones!).

This is hardly the first documentary on Charles Bukowski. (In fact, Taylor Hackford directed the first, 1973’s Bukowski.) But as a general (and quite lovely) rule, previous docs focused on his raucous readings. If you want to hear Bukowski read, there are at least five full length docs that will let you do that.

It’s far rarer to spend some time with the writer at home.

Perhaps because she is drinking herself or perhaps because the writer is in a cagey mood, Bizio never really finds a good footing for questions and answers, although humanity and Bukowski’s low opinion of it offers the slightest hint of a theme for the proceedings. The tour of the house goes badly, and back-and-forth about sex in his writing uncovers little.

If that sounds negative, it shouldn’t. The whole scene is like a page from one of his books: things not going as well as he’d hoped, the fault likely his own, but at least there’s wine. The more wine, the worse it will go, but there you have it.

You Never Had It will not entertain everyone equally, but it will thrill a handful of people and you know who you are.

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What the Puck?

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Red Penguins

by Brandon Thomas

It’s been 35 years since Ivan Drago tried to break Rocky Balboa. While the fictional Italian Stallion may have prevailed against his Russian foe, the Americans at the heart of Red Penguins weren’t so lucky in their experience with our former Cold War nemesis. 

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the famous Red Army hockey team found itself struggling to find funding. Pittsburgh Penguins co-owner Howard Baldwin thought it would be interesting to invest in the team as a way to funnel great Russian players to his own NHL club. With marketing guru Steve Warsaw acting as the man on the ground in Russia, the new American investors sought to navigate their way through an unfamiliar culture that was tasting the free market for the first time. 

Director Gabe Polsky dives right into the absurdity of these Americans thinking they could immediately saunter into the former USSR. Baldwin and Warsaw’s eccentricities certainly caught their Russian partners off-guard, but also led the two to be unequivocally naive about many things Russian. The film’s early playfulness is fun and entertaining but also feels like a warning to the audience: a warning that the American investors never fully saw. 

At times, Red Penguins feels like a documentary version of a Coen Brothers film. It’s hard not to laugh at the darkly comic situations Warsaw finds himself dealing with. Whether it be a beer- guzzling bear biting off the finger of a drunk employee, or a spy for the Russian mob that took up residence in Warsaw’s office. Anton Chigurh would feel right at home.

More than anything, Red Penguins is a cautionary tale about American overreach. Howard Baldwin wasn’t the first American businessman to foolishly believe that he could march into Russia and woo the former communists with his business savvy. Even the backing of the Disney empire couldn’t solidify a positive outcome. 

While not coming together as a definitive hockey documentary, Red Penguins offers a unique look at a transitional time in the former Soviet Union. The beer-guzzling bears are just icing on the cake. 

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The Beat of Your Heart

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River City Drumbeat

by Cat McAlpine

Directors Marlon Johnson and Anne Flatté explore both struggle and success in their documentary following the River City Drum Corps of Louisville, KY. River City Drumbeat captures how art and culture are both necessary for the survival of a community. The film itself has natural rhythm, moving from raucous drum performances to reflections on the darker side of life as a Black American. 

In an opening shot, an instructor stands in front of a gymnasium full of young children. Asking them to place their hands on their hearts, he says, “If you get really quiet and get really still and listen very quietly you can feel something beating in your chest…we are born into the world with this sound.”

The belief that we are all born with music inside us is a driving principal of RCDC, which creates an artistic outlet and cultural touchstone for children who might not otherwise be exposed to their African roots. Executive Director and Founder of River City Drum Corps Edward “Nardie” White emphasizes how important the program is to his community, especially young black men. When White was young, he was discouraged from participating in the arts and instead pushed to play basketball and football. Now, he can trace the dozens of lives he has changed with art over the last three decades.

Johnson and Flatté juxtapose vibrant shots of family and laughter with gray rolling footage of the west end of Louisville’s boarded windows and abandoned homes. White gives a tour of his old neighborhood, reminiscing about how the Black community in Louisville has grown and changed. “Our culture is going to be our savior.” He says.

Their greatest challenges? Redlining, poverty, poor education, and violence.

A huge inspiration for both White and the RCDC was White’s late wife, Zambia. Many of the Drum Corps students, current and former, reflect on the immense impact she had on them. One young man shows her photo in his bedroom, next to stickers from prospective colleges, reflecting on how good it feels good to have her watching over him. It is in small moments like these that Johnson and Flatté are able to show just how widely and deeply RCDC has impacted the community.

Zambia is finally shown in some older footage as she accepts an award. Addressing the crowd, she says, “We must give to our young people something we all wake up with…time.”

That’s the central theme of River City Drumbeat, that youth deserve the time, attention, and love their community has to offer, and that it can make a difference. As White says to the Drum Corps before a performance, “Black arts matter.”

River City Drumbeat is a hopeful and loving portrait of a community that has found power in coming together and making music. It is joyful, and sometimes sad, but always looking forward. And it may be just what you needed to watch today.

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In Search of a Purpose

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In Search of Darkness

by Hope Madden

The first thing you know about Shudder’s new original doc In Search of Darkness is that it’s an encyclopedic look at horror movies from the Eighties.

The second thing you need to know is that it’s 4 hours and 20 minutes long.

Right?!!

Why filmmaker David A. Weiner decided this had to be a standalone doc rather than a short series is beyond me. Certainly you can (and no doubt will) pause the film and come back to it, which is simple enough to do with Shudder. Still, having devoted about 1/3 of my waking day to a single documentary, I feel as if I should have learned more about Eighties horror than I did.

The bright spots: Tom Atkins is as delightful as you hope he is, as, of course, is Barbara Crampton. John Carpenter and Larry Cohen are as curmudgeonly; Keith David’s saucy baritone makes every anecdote extra fun; Alex Winter makes some interesting connections between films and society at large; and some of the industry insider talking heads seem knowledgeable.

There’s no real rhyme or reason to the specific titles discussed, but more problematic is the superficial treatment of the genre. In four and a half hours, I should have learned something, should have heard of a movie I’d never known about. In Search of Darkness refuses to connect any dots.

Some of the asides about VHS cover art, for instance, are briefly interesting, but other such tangents only emphasize the film’s overall weaknesses. The discussion of the final girl or of gratuitous nudity in 80s horror lacks any kind of insight, but when the piece on horror soundtracks did not mention Goblin, it dawned on me that in early 4 ½ hours, not a single foreign title is discussed.

No Argento, no Fulci, no Deodado – niente.

A ninety minute doc that contents itself with a nostalgic traipse down VHS store aisles would be fun. A doc series that contextualizes the phenomenal explosion in the popularity of horror in the Eighties, digging into sexism, feminism, foreign titles, changing music, the Reagan influence, the impact of VHS and MTV – that would be amazing. In Search of Darkness is neither.

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Legacy

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John Lewis: Good Trouble

by Rachel Willis

With a man as active as John Lewis, finding a focal point from which to craft a story could prove challenging. Should a documentarian focus on his early years as a civil and voting rights activist? His first years as a politician? His contemporary battle to overturn voter suppression laws?

Director Dawn Porter decides to highlight a little bit of everything in John Lewis: Good Trouble. The result is a fascinating, if messy, portrait of one of America’s greatest fighters for equality and justice.

Porter’s efforts have previously featured John Lewis as an interviewee (the magnificent docu-series Bobby Kennedy for President), but this time, she mines the wealth of material surrounding the man himself.

Congressman Lewis is a more than worthy subject. His early years on the front lines of the fight for racial equality alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to his current stumps along the campaign trail offer endless archival footage, colleagues and siblings to interview, and opportunities to follow the Congressman during his day-to-day life on the Hill. 

Some of the most noteworthy parts of the documentary showcase conversations with those who have been inspired by Lewis. Representative James Clyburn says Lewis is “the most courageous person [he] has ever met.” Representative Ilhan Omar quotes John Lewis saying she took to heart his message to “love your country like you love yourself.”

The bulk of the film addresses Mr. Lewis’s continuing struggle to ensure voting is accessible to everyone. In the 50’s and 60’s, it involved (among other things) walking door to door in black neighborhoods to encourage the residents to vote. Today, he wages the war in Congress, trying to strengthen the Voting Rights Act after it was gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013. On the campaign trail, he encourages those who are most affected by restrictive voting laws to turn out in waves.

Some moments drag, as Porter tries to cram as much information about Lewis as she can into her 96-minute documentary. Certain stories seem added as an afterthought that would perhaps have been better left on the cutting room floor.

Mr. Lewis says he is deeply concerned about the future of democracy in America, but that he still believes “we shall overcome.” Anyone who needs inspiration or hope in these chaotic times can always look to John Lewis for guidance.

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Survival Island

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Madagasikara

by Hope Madden

As little Anna tells viewers and her elementary school classmates, Madagascar is the 4th largest island on earth, and likely the single poorest country. Ninety three percent of Madagascar lives on less than $2 a day and half the population is children.

Madagascar is also devastatingly beautiful, not unlike Cam Cowan’s documentary Madagasikara.

Beautifully photographed and expertly edited, Madagasikara introduces you to a world you just didn’t know existed—one that’s never been site to war and yet grows more ravaged by poverty daily. It’s a world where breaking quarry rocks with hand tools offers the most stable occupation, for as long as your body holds out. The world of this film is one so impoverished it may as well be medieval—part of a long forgotten period where a family’s best hope for the survival of their children is the convent.  

For all the destitution, Cowan’s film is surprisingly joyous at times, primarily because of the beautiful little faces surrounding the three mothers—Deborah, Tina and Lin—that are the documentary’s main focus. It’s hard to watch so many sweet, cute children and not feel joy.

Their pain is also more punishing.

A decade of botched elections put the island nation at the center of a tug of war between a millionaire looking to exploit what he can for his own gain (sounds familiar) and a pro-military dictator even less interested in the wellbeing of his citizens. It also put Madagascar in the crosshairs of a global community more focused on sanctioning its leaders than in feeding its population.

Wisely, Cowan humanizes the tale of strife by dropping us into the day-to-day of three different women. Their struggles, joys and heartaches breathe life into statistics that could otherwise overwhelm, their resilience and their frailty speak powerfully to the human condition.

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Only One Star

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Queen of Lapa

by Rachel Willis

In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the neighborhood of Lapa is home to Luana Muniz, the focus of directors Theodore Collatos and Carolina Monnerat’s documentary, Queen of Lapa.  

A photoshoot of Muniz opens the film. She is elegant in black lingerie, holding a cigarette; the audience learns that she has been a sex worker since the age of eleven and is now one of the most recognized transgender (Luana prefers the term transvestite) activists in Brazil.

A hostel run by Muniz for over two decades provides a safe haven for transgender sex workers. It is this world that Collatos and Monnerat are privy to. They are given a level of access that allows the audience to experience these women’s lives as they live them.

Muniz is a bit of a mother hen to the women, many of them even call her Mother Luana. She scolds them for not cleaning up after themselves, expresses concern over injuries, and fights to ensure the house remains a place where transgender men and women can live and work safely.

It’s an important concern. Transgender men and women, and sex workers, experience violence at alarming rates. One of the women speaks of having gasoline poured on her before she escapes her attacker. The same woman is beaten and robbed one night, showing her injuries to her Facebook Live audience. Another woman is nearly raped but manages to flee.

However, the film focuses on more than one aspect of these women’s lives. It allows us a chance to spend time with the housemates and get to know them. There is a familial atmosphere as the roommates watch TV, do each other’s nails, eat meals together, and argue.

Some of the conversations are more interesting than others, but the filmmakers play a critical role with their lack of presence. They allow the group to share their own stories, to let their voices be heard at a time when it is essential that those who have been silenced in the past are allowed to speak. 

Muniz says of herself, “the only star here is me,” and in some ways, she is the sun to a community of people who need an advocate like her. One of the women recalls seeing Muniz on TV as a child, never expecting to know her as an adult, but it’s an example of the impact she has had on the community. She teaches the women how to be safe, how to not be ashamed of who they are, and that they are loved.

The world could use more people like Luana Muniz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfBAz26dZnY

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Unto Others

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For They Know Not What They Do

by Hope Madden

“If a lot of people have just a little bit of courage, then nobody has to be a hero.”

If we can’t see the truth in that statement right now, we are truly lost. It’s a call to action, and an argument that For They Know Not What They Do patiently articulates.

A sequel of sorts to director Daniel G. Karslake’s 2007 doc For the Bible Tells Me So, For They Know Not What They Do revisits the Christian church after more than a decade to gauge its movement on LGBTQ rights.

The film drops you into the lives of four families navigating the complex world of faith and sexual identity.

Elliott is about to leave for his freshman year at Vassar, and he and his parents walk us through what it’s like to trust your adolescent enough to begin the irreversible. Ryan, with the help of his genuinely loving if deeply misdirected parents, commits to praying the gay away. Sarah is as committed to the political career she started as a middle school class president as she is in fully transitioning. Victor survived a tragedy thanks in part to the unflinching support of his Catholic parents.

In and around all of these stories, Karslake examines the political backlash to marriage equality, particularly the way the religious right has targeted the especially vulnerable transgender population and what that has meant in terms of violence.

All of the parents involved display their courageous human frailty, owning their immediate and long-term responses to knowledge of their children’s sexuality or gender identification.

Their continued reliance on faith to help them see where religious dogma had become poisonous is among the loveliest elements of the film. These parents lean on their scripture’s concept of forgiveness (mainly to forgive themselves for having harmed their children), love, and acceptance to help them see beyond their own fear.

It’s a path Karslake takes as well. This is a forgiving documentary. It never turns a blind eye toward the way the religious right uses organized religion as a tool to oppress. But FTKNWTD is more interested in how faith does not have to be tainted by this noxious hate. It’s a bold vision for a documentary on Christianity and LGBTQ suffering.

It is also perhaps the film’s strongest selling point. Karslake doesn’t preach at, condescend to or even vilify the audience most in need of the film’s message.

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Man of Your Dreams

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Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street

by Hope Madden

“It was intended to play as homophobic rather than homoerotic.”

So says David Chaskin, writer of 1985’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge—a film many consider to be the gayest horror movie ever made. Chaskin has long shared the belief that it was the casting of Mark Patton in the lead role, the “final boy,” that pushed the envelope from homophobic to homoerotic.

Chaskin is right.

Thank God for casting.

The mid-Eighties hardly needed another homophobic movie, or another AIDS-terrified horror flick. Did it need the story of an adolescent boy whose homosexual nature emerges as some monstrous id, only to be cured by the love of a good woman? No, but if you just don’t watch the last ten minutes of the film, Nightmare 2 is a bizarre and glorious B-movie coming out party.

Again, thanks to Mark Patton.

Patton is the center of the Shudder documentary Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street. He also produces, which means he gives the footage his OK, leading to a film that comes off as self-congratulatory and self-indulgent more often than it should. But there is no denying Patton’s life has been fascinating.

Patton’s a charming, charismatic vehicle for the doc and the insight he offers into burgeoning stardom, closeted Hollywood and the Eighties is riveting. He’d lived quite a life before his first feature lead likely ended his career—but what he survived outside Elm Street was certainly tougher.

So much so that Patton’s particular anxiety about how this film affected him and his career sometimes feels misplaced. But watching how his perception of the “gay controversy” has evolved and what that evolution has allowed him to do within the gay community is delightful.

Of course, equally fascinating for horror fans is the debate as to who did and did not realize how profoundly gay Nightmare 2 was. Patton’s co-stars—Robert Englund (Freddy himself) comes off especially well—each add to the conversation in entertaining ways, though director Jack Sholder should maybe stop talking.

First time filmmakers Roman Chimienti and Tyler Jensen seem unsure of their real aim: to tell Mark’s story, to help Mark find closure, to deconstruct the film’s subtext, to explore its lasting meaning for the LGBTQ community. Because of their meandering focus, Scream, Queen feels longer than it needs to be.

Lucky for the filmmakers, every one of those topics makes for an intriguing investigation, and watching Patton triumphantly recreate his iconic (and likely career-ending) dance scene is sheer joy.