Category Archives: Documentary

SIFF 2014: Fight Church ***

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 17, 2014)

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Man goes in the cage. Cage goes in the arena. Preacher’s in the cage. Preacher says a prayer, the two men proceed to pound the holy crap out of each other, and the crowd goes wild. Sunday! SUNday!! SUNDAY!!! Elmer Gantry meets Beyond Thunderdome in this objective and fascinating doc directed by Daniel Junge and Bryan Storkel, which profiles several manly men of faith (MMA competitors all) who lead “fight ministries” (a growing trend). But…what about that whole “love thy neighbor” and “turn the other cheek” thing in the Bible? Well, if watching The Legend of Billy Jack taught us anything, it’s this: Do it in the name of Heaven, you can justify it in the end.

SIFF 2014: #chicagoGirl: The Social Network Takes on a Dictator ***

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 17, 2014)

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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.

SIFF 2014: Regarding Susan Sontag ***1/2

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 17, 2014)

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There’s much to regard in Nancy Kate’s enlightening documentary about the complex private and public life of the iconic intellectual polymath. Kate is deft at deconstructing, then reassembling all of the “Susan Sontags” (cultural critic, activist, feminist pioneer, provocateur) into a rich portrait. Great archival footage; in my favorite clip Sontag cleans the floor with some wingnut who questions her “patriotism” for her pragmatic essay about the 9/11 attacks (we could sure use her now).

 

Thoughts on a Beatles anniversary & a new (-ish) documentary (***)

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on February 9, 2014)

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Digby has invited me to share my memories and thoughts about the Beatles performing on the Ed Sullivan Show 50 years ago today (CBS is airing a 2 hour tribute special tonight-Paul and Ringo are doing a couple numbers!). Truth be told, that “memory” is a little fuzzy, for a couple of reasons. On February 9, 1964, I was all of 7 years old; a tad on the young side to fully grok the hormonal/cultural impact of this “screaming ‘yeah-yeah’ music” (as my dad would come to define any rock’n’roll he might overhear wafting from my room throughout my formative years).

Also, I was living in Fairbanks, Alaska. At the time, none of the local TV stations were equipped to carry live network feeds. We would get Walter Cronkite a day late (the tapes had to be shipped from Seattle via commercial jet flights). And weekly programs like Sullivan were, well, one week late. So technically I “remember” watching the Beatles 50 years ago… next Sunday.

My true “discovery” of the Beatles occurred soon after I turned 11, during the summer of 1967, when my best pal George (who was 2 years my senior) practically browbeat me into blowing a month’s worth of allowance to pick up a copy of Sgt. Pepper’s, assuring me that it would change my life. He was right. Sgt. Pepper turned out to be my gateway drug to all the music (from psychedelic and garage to metal and prog and punk and new wave and everything in between) that has become a crucial element of my life to this day.

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I’ve done a few posts in the past about the Beatles on film, and figured I had covered most angles. But the funny thing about Beatles-related movies and documentaries is that, like the band’s legacy itself, it’s a gift that seems to keep on giving. Just when you think you’ve learned everything there is to know, there’s Something New (hey…that would make a cool album title). A few weeks ago, I was perusing the bins of a music and video store here in Seattle, and stumbled upon a straight-to-DVD documentary from the UK with an intriguing (if unwieldy) title called Going Underground: Paul McCartney, The Beatles and the UK counter-culture.

Focusing on a specific period of London’s underground scene, it connects the dots between the American Beats (Ginsberg, Kerouac & co.), the social, sexual and aesthetic sea change in the UK during the early to mid-60s, and analyzes its subsequent influence on the Beatles (one word: acid). As one interviewee observes, “They were probably the most avant-garde group in Britain, but also the most commercial.” Actually the Beatles don’t enter the narrative until about halfway through, but it’s still an absorbing watch.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Beatle songs/clips (and a perfect example of that avant-garde/commercial dichotomy). BTW this is also the song I always play for those wizards who claim that Ringo was only a so-so drummer…listen to that mother go!

Seattle Jewish Film Festival: Wagner’s Jews **

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on February 22, 2014)

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Operas weren’t the only things that Richard Wagner (1813-1883) composed. He also published some virulently anti-Semitic manifestos (later parsed and re-branded by the Goebbels propaganda machine). Yet, an historical conundrum remains: Some of his most stalwart patrons and artistic collaborators were Jews (even Wagner scratched his head over their unwavering devotion). Director Hilan Warshaw sets about trying to make sense of it all in his documentary, using a mix of historical re-enactments and interviews with biographers, Israeli classical musicians and academics. While predicated on an intriguing premise, I found the film a bit on the dry side; although at just over an hour, it isn’t pretending to go too deep. It does raise an interesting question regarding whether it’s possible to separate an artist’s creative achievements from their peccadilloes and/or politics (for a more absorbing exploration on that theme, see Ray Muller’s great 1993 documentary, The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl).

Seattle Jewish Film Festival 2014: Brave Miss World ***

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on February 22, 2014)

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Cecilia Peck’s documentary is a portrait of Linor Abargil, an Israeli beauty queen turned women’s rights activist. That conversion was borne of a horrific personal trauma. At the age of 18, and just 6 weeks prior to being crowned Miss World in 1998, she was kidnapped, stabbed and raped while visiting Italy. Peck and her camera crew followed the seemingly tireless Abargil around the world for five years, documenting her drive to ensure that her attacker (eligible for parole this year) never sees the light of day, and continue her ongoing campaign to promote awareness of this often unreported crime. Everywhere she travels, she encourages victims to begin their healing by giving testimony. This is the most moving and inspiring aspect of the film; listening to these women (of all nationalities, social strata and ages) recounting their experiences and realizing how much courage it takes to come forward. You can’t help but feel outrage at the most maddeningly puzzling aspect of this vile and violent crime: Why does the burden of proof fall largely upon the victim?

Quick take: Finding Fela ***

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 6, 2014)

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The first 15 minutes or so of director Alex Gibney’s portrait of Nigerian music legend/political icon Fela Kuti teeters on becoming a parody of All That Jazz. Choreographer Bill T. Jones struts and frets upon the stage, rehearsing his company for a Broadway production of Fela! (it premiered back in 2009). Jones wrestles with how to convey the complexities of Kuti’s artistic, political and personal personas…while still retaining the catchy tunes and the jazz hands. However, just as you’re scratching your head and wondering if the real Fela will ever show up, he does; albeit in bits and pieces. With patience, you will grok the method to Gibney’s madness; he’s taking the tact that Al Pacino used in Looking for Richard; juxtaposing the theatrical with the historical to “find” his protagonist. While jarring at first, the theatrical framing makes more sense as the film progresses, functioning as a Greek chorus to bridge the archival snippets. While fans may not discover much that hasn’t already been revealed in previous documentaries, Gibney’s approach is fresh; bolstered by outstanding editing and slick production values.

Blu-ray reissue: Herzog: The Collection ****

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 9, 2014)

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Herzog: the Collection – Shout! Factory Blu-ray (box set)

(*sigh*) It turns out everything that I thought I knew about iconoclastic German director Werner Herzog’s oeuvre couldn’t fill a flea’s codpiece (hangs head in shame, while sheepishly offering to rip up critic’s license for the reader’s amusement). I came to this realization after perusing the list of films included in Shout! Factory’s handsomely designed new Blu-ray box set. Out of the 16 films (spanning the years 1970 to 1999), I had only seen 5. However, in my defense, this is the first time any of these films have been available on Blu-ray, and a good number of them (particularly from the 1970s) have been difficult to track down in any format since the advent of home video.

As I have been plowing through this eclectic collection, I can confirm one constant that I had already gleaned about Herzog…from his earliest days as a filmmaker and continuing to this day, he goes to places where most of us fear to tread (literally and figuratively) and hones his lens in on the one thing in the room that makes us want to look away (how does he always know?!) With beautifully restored prints, new audio commentaries, and many more extras, this box set is a film lover’s dream.

The happy executioner: The Act of Killing ***1/2

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 3, 2013)

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“At first, we beat them to death… [but] there was too much blood…to avoid the blood, I [devised] this system,” explains former Indonesian government death squad leader Anwar Congo, the “star” of Joshua Oppenheimer’s audacious documentary The Act of Killing, and then helpfully offers an instructive (and macabre) demonstration of his patented garroting method (with the assistance of a stick, some metal wire, and a giggly “victim”).

Then, the eupeptic Congo breaks into an impromptu cha-cha dance.

This is but one of many surreal moments in Oppenheimer’s film (exec produced by Errol Morris and Werner Herzog). Congo is a self-described “gangster” who claims to have personally snuffed out 1,000 lives during the state-sanctioned liquidation of an estimated 1,000,000 “communists” that followed in the wake of the 1965 overthrow of the Indonesian government. As a series of like-minded regimes have maintained power ever since, men like Congo and “co-star” Herman Koto (Congo’s compatriot and a paramilitary leader), who would be considered war criminals anywhere else, are feted as heroes by their government and worshiped like rock stars by paramilitary youth groups.

As it turns out, Congo and Koto were not only quite amenable to skipping down memory lane happily revisiting the scenes of their crimes, but offered to take things even one step further. In a pitch straight out of (the ever-prescient) Network, they generously offered to reenact their exploits by portraying themselves in a Hollywood-style gangster epic. Needless to say, this counter-intuitive mash-up of hard-hitting investigative journalism and ebullient “Hey, I have a barn, let’s put on a show!” participation from the very parties that the filmmaker aims to expose could be enough to make some viewer’s heads explode.

However, sandwiched between reality TV moments like watching the narcissistic Congo and Koto studiously dissecting their “dailies”, rehearsing torture scenes (for which they can no doubt double as their own special consultants) or recruiting palpably alarmed civilians to play doomed “communists”, Oppenheimer slowly exorcises the ugly truths behind their braggadocio. It goes without saying that there had to be some form of major systemic collusion going on to enable a state-sanctioned genocide of this magnitude.

For example, it turns out that Congo and Koto’s own killing spree was facilitated with help from an old pal named Ibrahim Sinik, a “successful newspaper publisher” who used to interrogate suspected communists in his newsroom. As Congo recalls, “When he had the information, he’d say ‘Guilty!’ and we’d take them away and kill them.” After all, as Sinik himself adds, “Why would I do such grunt work?! One wink from me and they’re dead!”

I know what you’re thinking: These men are morally reprehensible, untouchable and beyond redemption, so why indulge them this sick, self-aggrandizing movie star fantasy? (Picture the warm and fuzzy feeling you’d get if the next  Powerball winner turned out to be one of those 97 year-old former Nazi camp guards). What’s Oppenheimer’s point? Is he crazy? He’s crazy all right. Like a fox. Because something extraordinary happens to one of our “heroes” when  he insists on playing one of his own victims in an execution reenactment. Something clicks, triggering a hint of what we call “empathy”. As we know, that is the gateway drug to “conscience”.

The moment of epiphany is telegraphed by a semantic slip. Through most of the film, the victims are referred to as “communists”. But at this crucial moment, one of the killers calls them human beings. Those two words open the floodgates; and the crushing enormity of his own horrible deeds makes him physically ill. Oppenheimer’s unblinking camera lingers on this hunched-over, violently retching old man, now stripped of swaggering bravado and revealed to be no more than a wretched creature as pathetic and pitiable as Tolkien’s Gollum. Still beyond redemption, perhaps, but recognizably human.

Blame it on the boogie: The Secret Disco Revolution **1/2

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 29, 2013)

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Remember the disco era? I try not to. Yeah, I was one of those long-haired rocker dudes walking around brandishing a “Disco Sucks” T-shirt and turning his nose up at anything that smelled of Bee Gee or polyester back in the day. What can I say? I was going through my tribal phase (I think it’s commonly referred to as “being in your early 20s”). Now, that being said, I sure loved me some hard funk back in the mid 70s. A bit of the Isley Brothers, War, Mandrill, Funkadelic, etc. oeuvre managed to infiltrate my record collection at the time (in betwixt the King Crimson, Bowie, Who and Budgie).

But I had to draw the battle lines somewhere around the release (and non-stop radio airplay) of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack (ironically, I love the film itself). In retrospect, I think what offended my (oh so rarified) sense of music aesthetic was that while “disco” plundered R&B, funk, soul (and even elements of rock’n’roll) it somehow managed to expunge everything that was righteous and organic about those genres; codifying them into a robotic, repetitive, and formulaic wash. But hey, the kids could dance to it, right?

Now, I am extrapolating here about disco music itself, as one would reference “blues” or “jazz”; not “disco” as a cultural phenomenon or political movement. What did he say? “Political movement”?! Actually, I didn’t say. Director Jamie Kastner is the person who puts forth this proposition in his sketchy yet mildly engaging documentary (mockumentary?) The Secret Disco Revolution. I think he’s being serious when he posits that the disco phenomenon was not (as the conventional wisdom holds) simply an excuse for the Me Generation to boogie, snort and fuck themselves silly thru the latter half of the 70s, but a significant political milestone for women’s lib, gay lib and African American culture.

He carries the revisionism a step further, suggesting that the infamous “Disco Demolition Night” riot (ignited by Chicago shock jock Steve Dahl’s 1979 publicity stunt, in which a crate of disco LPs was blown up at Comiskey Park in front of 50,000 cheering fans) was nothing less than a raging mob of racists, homophobes and misogynists. Hmm.

Kastner uses the aforementioned 1979 incident as the bookend to disco’s golden era (kind of like how writers and filmmakers have used Altamont as a metaphor for the death of 1960s hippie idealism). For the other end of his historic timeline, he (correctly) traces disco’s roots back to early 1970s gay club culture.

How disco morphed from a relatively ghettoized urban hipster scene to arrhythmic middle-American suburbanites striking their best Travolta pose is actually the most fascinating aspect of the documentary; although I wish he’d gone a little more in depth on the history rather than digging so furiously for a sociopolitical subtext in a place where one barely ever existed.

Kastner mixes archival footage with present day ruminations from some of the key artists, producers and club owners who flourished during the era. The “mockumentary” aspect I mentioned earlier is in the form of three actors (suspiciously resembling the Mod Squad) who represent shadowy puppet masters who may have orchestrated this “revolution” (it’s clearly designed to be humorous but it’s a distracting device that quickly wears out its welcome).

So was disco a political statement? When Kastner poses the question to genre superstars like Thelma Houston, Gloria Gaynor and Evelyn King, they look at him like he just took a shit in the punch bowl. Hell, he can’t even get any of the guys from the Village People to acknowledge that their wild success represented a subversive incursion of gay culture into the mainstream (they’re likely toying with him because he’s belaboring the obvious…”The Village People were camp?! I’m shocked! Stop the presses!”).

Well, here’s how I look at it. Dion singing “Abraham, Martin and John”? That’s a political statement. James Brown singing “Say it Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud”? That’s a political statement. Helen Reddy singing “I Am Woman”? Tom Robinson singing “Glad to be Gay”? Those are political statements. KC and the Sunshine Band singing “Get Down Tonight”? Not so much. And as for Kastner’s assertion that anyone who wore a “Disco Sucks” T-shirt back in the day (ahem) was obviously racist, homophobic and misogynistic, I would say this: I have never particularly cared for country music, either…so what does that make me in your book, Mr. Smarty Pants?