Category Archives: Documentary

SIFF 2025: Suburban Fury (***)

By Dennis Hartley

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Within a 17-day period in the early fall of 1975, President Gerald R. Ford survived two attempts on his life-both taking place in California. One could argue that the first would-be assassin, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme is the only one people remember, by virtue of her well-known association with the Manson Family.

The second shooter, Sara Jane Moore, has remained a relative cypher. For one thing, she wasn’t a member of a high-profile death cult, and in stark contrast to Fromme’s  psycho daisy couture, Moore looked for all the world like a buttoned-down housewife who had strolled straight out of a John Cheever story (although in this case, a buttoned-down housewife armed with a .38 Special).

Not that she didn’t have a screw loose…which became apparent (to me) as Robinson Devor’s  documentary unfolded. Mixing archival materials and a present-day interview with an evasive and truculent Moore (now in her 90s), Devor tries to piece together the jigsaw of her bizarre journey from suburban mother of four to FBI informant, self-proclaimed revolutionary and would-be presidential assassin.

Moore (released from prison in 2007, after serving 32 years) is too cagey to drop any real bombshells here, so her motivations remain foggy. What I found even more interesting than Moore’s story was the adjacent retrospective on a politically tumultuous period in San Francisco (e.g. Moore has a tie-in with the Patty Hearst debacle). Despite leaving a number of questions unanswered, Suburban Fury is nonetheless a worthwhile watch for political junkies and the curious.

SIFF 2025: Unclickable (**)

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 17, 2025)

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Just in: From the nanosecond you log in to a social media platform, you are being tracked. Not only are you being tracked, but you are being filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, and numbered (YOU are Number 6). In short: you are being bought and sold. That smart phone, laptop, or tablet in your hands is not the “product”. YOU are.

I know. In this day and age, any internet-savvy 8 year-old could tell you that.

Consequently, it was hard for me to be shocked, shocked by the revelations in Babis Makridis’ “torn from the headlines” investigative documentary. Although to be fair, his film does take a slightly different tack from similar exposés I’ve seen about how we’ve all become slaves to the algorithim; this one focuses on the proliferation of digital ad fraud.

To demonstrate how easily cyber scammers can cash in, Makridis enlisted a former tech executive to form a team of software developers to create a digital ad fraud operation, and basically documents thier step-by-step procedure (don’t try this at home, kids).

Unfortunately the film stalls out once the team starts getting hits and picking pockets (we are assured they did not bank the revenue). I suppose it’s interesting to learn how everyone from advertisers to phone users are getting screwed (except for Google and Meta, who still reap massive revenue-whether ad click data is legit or artificially inflated) but it leaves you wondering what you’re supposed to do with this information (maybe switch off and go touch some grass?).

SIFF 2025: Jean Cocteau (***)

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on  May 17, 2025)

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Director Lisa Immordino Vreeland utilizes a non-linear collage of film clips, archival interviews, and a present-day actor reading from letters and diary entries to create a vivid portrait of the avant-garde poet/visual artist/playwright/film director. It’s an enlightening study; I picked up a number of new tidbits on his life and work (I was familiar with him mostly from his films – e.g. Blood of a Poet, Orpheus, and Beauty and the Beast). The address he made in 1960 “to the youth of the future” is a mind-blower. I found it particularly interesting how his “apolitical” stance made him a pariah to both the Left and the Right at various junctures. Absorbing and rewarding.

SIFF 2025: Transfers (***)

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 17, 2025)

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There were many horrors endured by the citizens of Argentina in the course of that country’s  “Dirty War” period (1974-1983). Nicolás Gil Lavedra’s documentary primarily focuses on just one them: the methodical, State-sponsored extermination of dissidents (or those accused of being such) wherein people were kidnapped, tortured, drugged, and thrown to their deaths from airplanes.

These “death flights” included the kidnapping and murder of the “twelve of Santa Cruz,” a group of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, human rights activists and two French nuns captured in December 1977, which Lavedra covers in detail, mixing archival and present-day testimonials from former detainees, eyewitnesses, and journalists.

There is some redemption when you learn how a few (if not enough) of the perpetrators were eventually brought to justice. Interestingly, this was precipitated by the fact that, not unlike the Nazis, they kept meticulous records of their crimes (in this case, vis a vis dated flight logs that notated passenger counts).

Chilling and moving, this relatively understated film brings the human cost to the fore; making it a good companion piece to Luis Puenzo’s 1985 political drama The Official Story.

This is also a cautionary tale. When you consider that the term “Dirty War” was coined by the military junta, which one would assume was its way of self-justifying its atrocities, recent statements by government officials in our own country suggesting that habeas corpus “may” be suspended under the umbrella of “war powers” (what ‘war’?) should raise a red flag.

SIFF 2025: Free Leonard Peltier ***1/2

By Dennis Hartley

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“Free Leonard Peltier!” has been a rallying cry by Native American rights activists for decades; in fact so many years have passed since his trial, conviction and sentence for the murder of two FBI agents that the circumstances surrounding his case have become obfuscated to the general public. Even those who have lobbied 50 years for his release (predicated on the government’s arguably flimsy evidence and dubious witness testimonies) didn’t see Joe Biden’s January 2025 commutation of Peltier’s life sentence coming. It wasn’t the full pardon his advocates had wished for, but they certainly welcomed it with joy and relief.

It’s been a long road for Peltier (now 80), with many twists and turns, but co-directors Jesse Short Bull (Oglala Sioux) and David France do a yeoman’s job of telling not only his story, but putting it in context with the activities of the American Indian Movement that flourished in the 1970s.

The filmmakers recount the Mt. Rushmore, Alcatraz, and Wounded Knee occupations, takeover of the BIA headquarters in Washington D.C., the Trail of Broken Treaties march, et.al., culminating with the 1975 incident at Pine Ridge Reservation involving the execution-style murders of the two FBI agents.

This is the most comprehensive study I’ve seen on Peltier’s case and the history of the A.I.M. movement. What you learn from this film is by turns enlightening and maddening, but ultimately inspiring and moving.

SIFF 2025: Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story (***1/2)

By Dennis Hartley

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Never heard about Oscar Wilde
Don’t know about Brendan Behan
Know anything about Sean O’Casey
Or care about George Bernard Shaw
Or Samuel Beckett
Won’t talk about Eugene O’Neill
He won’t talk about Edna O’Brien
Or know anything about Lawrence Stern

Being the proud middlebrow that I am, I will freely admit that the only two things I previously knew about Irish writer Edna O’Brien was 1) she was name-checked in my favorite Dexy Midnight Runners song (“Dance Stance”), and 2) that the 1964 UK kitchen sink drama Girl With Green Eyes was adapted from her novel “The Lonely Girl” (which I haven’t read).

However, I’m happy to report that Sinéad O’Shea’s engaging documentary portrait of the outspoken novelist, playwright, poet and short-story writer (who died in 2024 at the ripe age of 93) has set me straight. Now I want to read everything she wrote.

What a life. She was raised by an abusive father; left home and married writer Ernest Gébler when she was 24 (he was 40), and was garnering universal critical acclaim for her debut novel (“The Country Girls”) by age 30.

That book (and several of her subsequent works) were banned in Ireland, due to their sexual frankness (and anti-patriarchal stance, no doubt). Undaunted, she pushed onward with her career,  becoming the toast of the town in London, and eventually selling her work to Hollywood (in the film, the nonagenarian O’Brien bemusedly recounts escapades with Robert Mitchum and Marlon Brando). A film as provocative and uncompromising as its subject.

SIFF 2025: Chain Reactions (***)

By Dennis Hartley

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Patton Oswalt, Takashi Miike, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King, and Karyn Kusama walk into a rundown farmhouse…and their lives change forever. At least according to the idiosyncratic appraisals by those luminaries regarding Tobe Hooper’s no-budget 1974 cult classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Alexandre O. Philippe’s documentary transcends its subject to not only become a treatise on what defines “horror”, but illuminates the sometimes elusive elements that constitute a great work of cinema-regardless of genre (or budget).

Breaking News: 10 Docs for World Press Freedom Day

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 3, 2025)

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This just in: Today is World Press Freedom Day. Say what? (via the United Nations website)

World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in December 1993, following the recommendation of UNESCO’s General Conference. Since then, 3 May, the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek is celebrated worldwide as World Press Freedom Day.

After 30 years, the historic connection made between the freedom to seek, impart and receive information and the public good remains as relevant as it was at the time of its signing. Special commemorations of the 30th anniversary are planned to take place during World Press Freedom Day International Conference.

May 3 acts as a reminder to governments of the need to respect their commitment to press freedom. It is also a day of reflection among media professionals about issues of press freedom and professional ethics. It is an opportunity to:

celebrate the fundamental principles of press freedom;

assess the state of press freedom throughout the world;

defend the media from attacks on their independence;

and pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the line of duty.

If you’re a regular reader around these parts, I’m sure you’d concur that it couldn’t come a day too soon. Via Amnesty International:

Around the world, journalists are being silenced, jailed, and disappeared—simply for doing their jobs. From Guatemala to Hong Kong, Russia to Tunisia, governments are increasingly weaponizing vague laws, judicial systems, and the use of force to suppress the truth.

These attacks on the press are not isolated incidents; they are deliberate strategies to dismantle the very foundations of human rights. The erosion of press freedom is a warning sign—one that signals a broader slide toward authoritarian practices, including in the United States, where attacks against the media grow more hostile by the day. […]

President Trump is attacking the freedom of the press, including hand-picking which outlets can cover the White House and demonizing reporters. Before becoming president, he sued media outlets CBS News and the Des Moines Register for publishing something he didn’t agree with. He’s barred the AP from covering events at the White House because he disagreed with an editorial decision to use “Gulf of Mexico” instead of “Gulf of America.” He’s called on outlets to fire specific reporters for coverage that doesn’t paint him in the light he wants and has quipped that he’d jail reporters opens in a new tab as retribution for unfavorable coverage. In addition to dismantling Voice of America, he’s supported slashing funding for outlets like NPR and PBS.

What’s more, while President Trump is attacking freedom of the press and journalistic integrity, social media companies, including Meta and Elon Musk’s X, have been granted unprecedented access to the White House, have dismantled fact-checking programs on their platforms, contributing to the spread of disinformation, especially with such a high percentage of Americans getting their news from social media platforms.

To scrutinize and ultimately hold political leaders accountable, the press must have the freedom to report independent news without being blocked from access, punished, or intimidated. The government must respect and protect free and independent media and maximize transparency and access to information.

We are only 100 days into the new administration…so please join me in raising a glass to intrepid journalists everywhere who continue to speak truth to power, and do what you can to support their work. And for your perusal, I’ve combed my review archives and selected 10 documentaries that embody the spirit of World Press Freedom Day:

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#Chicago Girl: The Social Network Takes on a Dictator – Not long ago, the MSM relegated social media to kickers about flash mobs, or grandpa’s first tweet. Then, the Arab Spring happened, precipitating the rise of the citizen journalist. Case in point: 19 year-old Ala’a Basatneh, subject of Joe Piscatella’s doc. The Damascus-born Chicagoan is a key player in the Syrian revolution, as in “key stroke”. It’s not just about Ala’a, but her compatriots in Syria, some who’ve made the ultimate sacrifice. Timely and moving. (Available on Google Play)

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Cartoonists: Foot Soldiers of Democracy? – French filmmaker Stephanie Valloatto’s globetrotting documentary profiles a dozen men and women who make their living drawing funny pictures about current events. I know what you’re thinking…beats digging ditches, right? Well, that depends. Some of these political cartoonists ply their trade under regimes that could be digging a “special” ditch, reserved just for them (if you know what I’m saying).

The film can be confusing; in her attempt to give all 12 subjects equal face time, Valloatto’s frequent cross-cutting can make you lose track of which country you’re in (it’s mostly interior shots). That aside, she gets to the heart of what democracy is all about: speaking truth to power. It’s also timely; in one scene, an interviewee says, “Like a schoolchild, I told myself: I shouldn’t draw Muhammad.” Then, holding up a sketch of you-know-who, he concludes: “Drawing is the correct answer to the forbidden.”

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Forbidden Voices – Swiss director Barbara Miller’s excellent doc profiles three influential “cyber-feminists” who bravely soldier on in the blogosphere whilst running a daily gauntlet of intimidation from their respective governments, including (but not limited to) overt surveillance, petty legal harassment and even physical beatings. Despite the odds, Yoani Sanchez (Cuba), Farnez Seifi (Iran, currently exiled in Germany) and Zeng Jinyan (China) are affecting change (if only baby steps). (Available on kanopy)

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Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson – Director Alex Gibney takes an approach as scattershot and unpredictable as his subject; using a frenetic pastiche of talking heads, vintage home movies,  film clips, animation, audio tapes and snippets of prose (voiced by Johnny Depp, who has become to Thompson what Hal Holbrook is to Mark Twain). This is not a hagiography; several ex-wives and associates make no bones about reminding us that the man could be a real asshole. On the other hand, examples of his genuine humanity and idealism are brought to the fore as well, making for an insightful and fairly balanced overview of this “Dr. Gonzo and Mr. Thompson” dichotomy. What the director does not forget is that, at the end of the day, HST was the most unique American political commentator/ social observer who ever sat down to peck at a bullet-riddled typewriter. (Full review) (Available on various streaming platforms)

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Hacking Hate – Move over, Lisbeth Salandar…there’s a new hacker in town, and she’s stirring up a hornet’s nest of wingnuts. Simon Klose’s timely documentary follows award-winning Swedish journalist My Vingren as she meticulously constructs a fake online profile, posing as a male white supremacist. Her goal is to smoke out a possible key influencer and glean how he and others fit into right-wing extremist recruiting.

Vingren is like a one-woman Interpol; her investigation soon points her to U.S.-based extremist networks as well, leading her to consult with whistle-blower Anika Collier Navaroli (the former Twitter employee who was instrumental in getting Trump booted off the platform) and Imrab Ahmed (another one of Elon Musk’s least-favorite people, he was sued by the X CEO for exposing the rampant hate speech on the platform).

This isn’t a video game; considering the inherently belligerent nature of the extremist culture she is exposing, Vingren is taking considerable personal risk in this type of investigative journalism (she’s much braver than I am). Especially chilling is the shadowy figure at the center of her investigation, who is like a character taken straight out of a Frederick Forsyth

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Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist, and Rebel – Did you know Ray Bradbury was only paid $400 for the original serialized version of Fahrenheit 451 published in Playboy in 1954? That’s one of the interesting tidbits I picked up from this lengthy yet absorbing documentary about the iconoclastic founder and publisher of the magazine that I, personally, have always read strictly for the articles (of clothing that were conspicuously absent-no, I’m kidding). Seriously-there’s little of prurient interest here. In a manner of speaking, it’s mostly about “the articles”.

Brigitte Berman (director of the excellent 1985 documentary Artie Shaw: Time is All You’ve Got) interweaves well-selected archival footage and present day interviews with Hefner and friends (as well as some of his detractors) to paint a fascinating portrait. Whether you admire him or revile him, as you watch the film you come to realize that there is probably no other public figure of the past 50 years who has so cannily tapped in to or (perhaps arguably) so directly influenced the sexual, social, political and pop-cultural zeitgeist of liberated free-thinkers everywhere.

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I Am Not Your Negro – The late writer and social observer James Baldwin once said that “Whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves.” Sadly, thanks to the emboldening of certain elements within American society that have been drawn from the shadows by the openly racist rhetoric spouted by the Current Occupant of the White House, truer words have never been spoken.

Indeed, anyone who watches Raoul Peck’s documentary will recognize not only the beauty of Baldwin’s prose, but the prescience of such observations. Both are on display in Peck’s timely treatise on race relations in America, in which he mixes archival news footage, movie clips, and excerpts from Baldwin’s TV appearances with narration by an uncharacteristically subdued Samuel L. Jackson, reading excerpts from Baldwin’s unfinished book, Remember This House. An excellent and enlightening film. (Full review) (Available on various streaming platforms)

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Like a Rolling Stone: The Life and Times of Ben Fong-Torres – Nothing against Ben Fong-Torres, but I approached this film with trepidation. “Please, god,” I thought to myself, “Don’t let ‘Fortunate Son’ be on the soundtrack.” Thankfully, there’s credence, but no Creedence in Suzanne Joe Kai’s documentary, which despite the implications of its title is not another wallow in the era when being on the cover of the Rolling Stone mattered, man.

OK, there is some of that; after all, journalist and author Ben Fong-Torres’ venerable career began when he first wrote for Rolling Stone in 1968. By the following year he was hired as the editor and wrote many of the cover stories. Fong-Torres quickly showed himself to be not only an excellent interviewer, but a gifted writer. His journalistic approach was the antithesis to the gonzo stylists like Lester Bangs and Hunter Thompson in that his pieces were never about him, yet still eminently personal and relatable.

Just like her subject, Kai’s portrait is multi-faceted, revealing aspects of Fong-Torres’ life outside of his profession I was not aware of (like his activism in the Asian-American community, and how it was borne of a heartbreaking family tragedy). (Available on Netflix and Prime Video)

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Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins – Janice Engel profiles the late, great political columnist and liberal icon Molly Ivins, who suffered no fools gladly on either side of the aisle. Engel digs beneath Ivins’ bigger-than-life public personae, revealing an individual who grew up in red state Texas as a shy outsider.

Self-conscious about her physicality (towering over her classmates at 6 feet by age 12), she learned how to neutralize the inevitable teasing with her fierce intelligence and wit (I find interesting parallels with Janis Joplin’s formative Texas years). Her political awakening also came early (to the chagrin of her conservative oilman father).

The archival clips of Ivins imparting her incomparable wit and wisdom are gold; although I was left wishing Engel had included more (and I am dying to know what Ivins would say about you-know-who). (Available on various streaming platforms)

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Rather – Few journalists have had such a long and storied career as Dan Rather; long enough for several generations to claim their own reference point. At the risk of eliciting an eye-rolling “OK Boomer” from some quarters, mine is “I think we’re dealing with a bunch of thugs here, Dan!” (others of “a certain age” will recall that as Walter Cronkite’s reaction to watching his colleague getting roughed up by security on live TV while reporting from the floor of the 1968 Democratic National Convention). For Gen Xers, he’s the inspiration for R.E.M.’s “What’s the Frequency Kenneth?”, which is what a pair of assailants repeatedly asked Rather during a 1986 attack in New York. To Millennials, he’s a wry and wise nonagenarian with over 2 million Twitter followers.

As evidenced in Frank Marshall’s documentary, the secret to Rather’s longevity may be his ability to take a punch (literally or figuratively) and get right up with integrity intact. All the career highlights are checked, from Rather’s early days as a reporter in Dallas (where he came to national prominence covering the JFK assassination) to overseas reporting for CBS from the mid-to-late 60s (most notably in Vietnam), to taking over the coveted CBS Evening News anchor chair vacated by Cronkite in 1981, and onward. An inspiring warts-and-all portrait of a dogged truth-teller who is truly a national treasure. (Available on Netflix and Prime Video)

Living in the 70s: Borrowed Time-Lennon’s Last Decade (**1/2)

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on April 26, 2025)

Fame (fame) what you like is in the limo
Fame (fame) what you get is no tomorrow
Fame (fame) what you need you have to borrow

– from “Fame” by David Bowie (backing vocal by John Lennon)

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard-although I wish I could.

Allow me to explain.

I was all of 24, living in San Francisco. I didn’t own a VCR (they were exorbitantly priced), so I was still watching the tube in (*shudder*) real time. Perusing the TV Guide one December evening, I was excited to spot  Sunset Boulevard on the schedule for 8pm (I believe it was airing on independent Bay Area station KTVU).

For the uninitiated, Gloria Swanson’s turn as a fading, high-maintenance movie queen mesmerizes, William Holden embodies the quintessential noir sap, and veteran scene-stealer Erich von Stroheim redefines the meaning of “droll” in a tragicomic journey down the Boulevard of Broken Dreams (I’ve seen it many times since).

At any rate, I was comfortably ensconced on the couch, really digging the film (despite myriad commercial breaks). Approximately 20 minutes into the broadcast, the station unceremoniously cut away from the film for a news bulletin: former Beatle John Lennon had been shot and killed in New York City.

It was eerie kismet, as the film opens with the shooting death of the protagonist/narrator (played by Holden), and is ultimately a rumination on the dark side of fame.

Being an avid Fabs fan, it kind of harshed my mellow. Still does, actually-whenever the subject comes up.

It’s hard to believe that was 45 years ago (5 years longer than Lennon’s lifespan). Over the ensuing decades, there has certainly been no shortage of documentaries and biopics covering Lennon’s life and work. At this point, I think I’ve seen most of them.

Consequently, one would assume that there are very few secrets, revelations and angles left to explore. Yet, 2025 has seen the release of no less than two new Lennon documentaries (and the year is still young).

First, there’s One to One: John and Yoko:

I haven’t seen it yet (it will be available to rent on streaming platforms beginning on May 9th).

This is the other doc (more on that in a moment)…

Directed by Alan G. Parker, Borrowed Time promises to “…set the record straight on the truth behind many famous Lennon moments, brought to life by rare archive footage, including never-before-seen interviews.”

So does it deliver? Well, in a fashion. As Lennon himself once implored, “All I want is the truth…just gimme some truth.” In context of the director’s approach, you may have to settle for “benefit of the doubt”.

I make that qualification because the lion’s share of screen time is devoted to talking heads. As promised, there are indeed “never-before-seen interviews” with former musical collaborators (Vinny Appice and Earl Slick), as well as music industry insiders, presenters, writers, and journalists (the BBC’s “Whispering” Bob Harris, Anthony DeCurtis, Barry Miles, Pamela Des Barres, Apple Records CEO Tony Bramwell, et.al.).

However, their stories are purely anecdotal; the backstage tales are engaging enough at first, but by the 2-hour mark they began to feel redundant and were not necessarily revelatory. Archival interviews help mix things up a bit, but overall it’s a static affair.

Then there’s the elephant in the room: zero Lennon music. I realize it can be challenging and/or simply too cost-prohibitive to secure permission to utilize copyrighted material in a film; but when you try to paint a portrait of an artist without any paint on your palette, more often than not you are likely to end up with an empty canvas.

Note: the version I previewed is the 134-minute theatrical cut that will be opening in the U.K. only on May 2. However, there is a 3.5 hour director’s cut out on the same date, which will be streaming for a month on the Icon Film Channel and also available to subscribers of the Amazon Prime Video Channels.

 

And I feel fine: Aum-The Cult at the End of the World (***)

By Dennis Hartley

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(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on March 22, 2025)

In my 2013 review of the documentary Let the Fire Burn I wrote:

Depending upon whom you might ask, MOVE was an “organization”, a “religious cult”, a “radical group”, or all of the above. The biggest question in my mind (and one the film doesn’t necessarily delve into) is whether it was another example of psychotic entelechy. So what is “psychotic entelechy”, exactly? Well, according to Stan A. Lindsay, the author of Psychotic Entelechy: The Dangers of Spiritual Gifts Theology, it would be

…the tendency of some individuals to be so desirous of fulfilling or bringing to perfection the implications of their terminologies that they engage in very hazardous or damaging actions.

In the context of Lindsay’s book, he is expanding on some of the ideas laid down by literary theorist Kenneth Burke and applying them to possibly explain the self-destructive traits shared by the charismatic leaders of modern-day cults like The People’s Temple, Order of the Solar Tradition, Heaven’s Gate, and The Branch Davidians. He ponders whether all the tragic deaths that resulted should be labeled as “suicides, murders, or accidents”.

While it arguably wasn’t as self-destructive, Japan’s “Aum” cult shared many similar traits, and was no less lethal. If you’re as ancient as me, you may recall the 1995 nerve gas attack on Tokyo’s subway system that resulted in 13 deaths and thousands of injuries. This shocking incident introduced the world to a bizarre spiritual sect hitherto unknown outside of Japan.

In an engrossing (albeit disturbing) new documentary called Aum: The Cult at the End of the World, co-directors Ben Braun and Chiaki Yanagimoto paint a “couldn’t make this shit up” portrait of  leader Shoko Asahara tantamount to a Bond villain’s origin story (replete with his rejection as a child, seething hatred of society, secret laboratories, evil plans, kidnappings, assassinations, and the inevitable stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction).

The story of Aum follows a trajectory that has become depressingly familiar. The sect was founded in 1983 by Chizuo Matsumoto (who changed his name to Shoko Asahara). Asahara’s original philosophy was centered on yoga, meditation, and self-enlightenment.

That didn’t last.

By the mid-80s, Asahara was getting extensive coverage in high-circulation Japanese occult magazines; this helped spur a sizeable youth following. A canny self-promoter, Ashara seized on this and over the next several years published a series of books and produced anime that portrayed him as having supernatural powers (including the ability to levitate). He even trekked to Tibet with the express purpose of arranging a photo-op with the Dalai Lama.

In the cult hierarchy, members who were scientists and chemists were at the top (which makes a sick kind of sense in hindsight). As the number of followers grew, so did Asahara’s increasingly draconian rules. As journalist Shoko Egawa points out, members were directed to forgo earthly possessions, money, the enjoyment of good food, etc., as such trifles were roadblocks to spiritual enlightenment. The Aum tenets praised not sleeping, not eating, even not changing clothes. The communal diet was “Aum food”, which one former member describes as “boiled vegetables with no flavor at all…rice and natto, day after day.”

Yum.

The turn to the dark side occurred circa 1989. In the film, journalist Andrew Marshall (who co-authored a book about the cult) observes “By 1989 the stock market had peaked and Japan was really entering this period of economic stagnation, and possibly cultural and political stagnation as well, and I think what was about to happen was a symptom of that.”

In 1989, a man began photographing suspicious activities by a “weird group” of people who “suddenly showed up” in his small village of Kammikushiki, which is nestled near the foot of Mt. Fuji. The newcomers were reticent to interact with the villagers, and hostile to any inquiries. They set up a compound containing some unusual equipment (including gas tanks and chemical barrels), and over time were regarded as “bad neighbors” due to non-stop construction noise and loud chanting emanating day and night. When Marshall was poking around, he discovered they also had a “massive Russian helicopter” parked on their premises.

The story gets weirder, and the bodies start piling up even before the Tokyo subway terror attack made international headlines. Equally troubling to learn is how the Japanese media characterized the sect as “silly” and colorful (perfect fodder for a kicker at the end of the newscast, but nothing worth a deeper investigative dive, despite many red flags over time),

As I was watching the film, I was looking at all the footage of this guy and just not seeing the appeal, although thousands of his devoted followers would surely beg to differ. One observer helpfully offers, “No matter what they asked him, he gave them an immediate answer.” (does that remind you of anybody?).

As Woody Allen says in Manhattan, after meeting his girlfriend’s highly-lauded ex-husband, the “little homunculus” portrayed by Wallace Shawn, “It’s amazing how subjective all that stuff is.” Maybe that’s what lies at the the crux of why I’m endlessly fascinated by cults. As I wrote in my 2012 review of Paul Thomas Anderson’s drama The Master:

What he has crafted is a thought-provoking and original examination of why human beings in general are so prone to kowtow to a burning bush, or be conned by an emperor with no clothes; a film that begs repeated viewings. Is it a spiritual need? Is it an emotional need? Or is it a lizard brain response, deep in our DNA?

As Inspector Clouseau once ruminated, “Well you know, there are leaders…and there are followers.”

The best hope for humankind is that, at some nebulous point in (whatever time is left of) our future, we will finally learn the lessons of history and stop repeating the same stupid, stupid mistakes.

(In theaters now; available on all rental platforms March 28th).