300 Words About: Stevie

As Steve James' excellent The Interrupters made its way around theaters this summer, I caught up recently with Stevie, his deeply personal documentary from 2002 (and only his second documentary at the time, the first being of course Hoop Dreams). Stevie is the worst possible testimonial for the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America youth mentoring program that you might ever see. It's also a perfect example of why programs like it are so important.

Steve James was a Big Brother to Stevie Fielding in the mid-1980's. At the time, little Stevie was an awkward preteen living with his grandparents in rural Southern Illinois - he was a little odd and had a troubled family history, but was generally harmless. James had a relatively normal mentor-mentee relationship with Stevie for a few years, and then returned in the mid-90's (perhaps encouraged by the recent success of Hoop Dreams) to see what Stevie was up to as an adult. What he found was troubling: Stevie was well on his way down a self-destructive path, with an extensive criminal record and no clear direction in his life. Devastated by Stevie's situation and perhaps feeling guilty for not keeping closer tabs on his "little brother", James recommitted himself to helping Stevie at least stay out of legal trouble, if not actually become a contributing member of society.

And this is where Stevie lays bare the profound challenge facing mentors in a program like Big Brother Big Sisters, or for that matter parents, teachers, or any adult nobly attempting to better a young person's life. I felt pangs of guilt for past students that I had "let go" during my teaching years, or for that matter anyone in my life with whom I've had a mentoring-type relationship. Were there too many other opposing factors and influences to outweigh my efforts? Did I do as much as I could to make a difference? Did it even matter?

Stevie is not meant to be an examination of guilt or regret, and, refreshingly, James does not frame it as a naive "agenda" documentary or bookend it with tidy steps that can be followed to make the world a better place. He instead asks raw, honest, heartbreaking questions - and doesn't provide any easy answers - about what happens when the best intentions are left unrealized. And the horror doesn't end on the screen, either, as Stevie's current situation is as disturbing as anything from the film's footage, which is now more than a decade old.

They say "the road to hell is paved with good intentions", and critics of mentoring programs for troubled youth could use Stevie as Exhibit A in their case against program efficacy. But to watch Stevie is to understand a different reason why these programs exist: not to "save lives", but to connect lives that wouldn't otherwise be connected. To strip away the social barriers that keep us apart and put us (the privileged) face-to-face with the experience of the marginalized majority around us. The reason I appreciate James so much as a filmmaker is because he doesn't wield his camera as a weapon of scrutiny and all-knowing judgment. Instead he uses it as a mirror, reflecting back on us images of ourselves that we can't or don't want to see. What happens after that is for us to figure out.

2011 MSPIFF Journal #2/3

Also: 2011 MSPIFF Journal #1

The Interrupters 
Grade: A
Opens in Minneapolis later this summer

My expectations were sky high for the latest documentary from Steve James (Hoop Dreams), and he went ahead and soared past them. The Interrupters is a harrowing journey into the everyday lives of Chicagoans desperately trying to keep the city's troubled teens from killing each other. The film's main subjects are "violence interrupters" who work for CeaseFire, a nonprofit dedicated to stopping street violence, most often in the form of shootings, by simply trying to verbally mediate between conflicting parties. In other words, telling gang members to put down their guns and just play nice with each other. Sound ridiculous? Well, turns out it's a fairly effective strategy, primarily because most of the interrupters are themselves ex-cons and former gang members. They know the game, and they know where and when they can be most effective in stopping another senseless murder before it happens. Obviously it's still an incredibly difficult task, and the film does an outstanding job balancing the successes with the ongoing challenges. It's not a feel-good documentary by any means, yet the the hope and optimism demonstrated by the interrupters cannot be denied.

A Screaming Man
Grade: B+

Despite a few blips on the radar, I remain convinced that Latin America and Africa are greatly underrepresented on the local film scene (and the national and global film scenes, for that matter), so I jumped at the chance to see A Screaming Man, winner of a special jury prize at Cannes last year. More importantly, it caught my eye as the latest film from Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, who helmed Dry Season, possibly my favorite film of MSPIFF in 2008 (queue it up). The films are similar in many ways (and both star the gifted Youssouf Djaoro), with really the main difference being that A Screaming Man examines a father's conflicted emotions about a son, instead of a son's conflicted emotions about a father. The civil war serves as the background setting once again, but the brilliance of Haroun's story is that it's not really about war, but about decisions between family and career, and the transition between generations. A Screaming Man didn't bowl me over as much as Dry Season, but it's nonetheless troubling to think that we miss out on so many films like this every year.

The Hedgehog 
Grade: B+
Opens in Minneapolis later this summer

Not having read Muriel Barbery's celebrated novel, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, I was pretty shocked at the opening narration from the film's young protagonist, Paloma, in which she announces, quite seriously, that she's planning to kill herself on her next birthday. In fact, that first minute cast a pretty disturbing pall over the rest of the movie, turning what might have been a really touching romantic dramedy into an occasionally uncomfortable meditation on death and loneliness. One could argue that the dramatic thread grounded the story in reality and provided for deeper emotional access, but I just felt on edge for a good part of the film. If its comedy was meant to be dark, I guess it was a little too dark for my taste. That said, The Hedgehog is still consistently watchable and even absorbing; nearly every scene takes place in just a few rooms and I felt immersed in a Parisian microcosm. It's also superbly acted and skips along at a nice pace until, again, a dose of mild depression to send you out. See it if you're in the mood for a good French film, just don't go in with the light-hearted expectations that I did.

Careful What You Win For: Lucky

Now what?

I've often thought that if I won the lottery (if I ever played it), I'd give away all of the winnings - every dime. A righteously charitable fantasy to be sure, but my thinking has been that despite my debts and bills, I'm generally not struggling to get by from paycheck to paycheck. There are many, many more people who "need" extra money due to various circumstances and long-term financial hardships. People like multimillionaire lottery winners, as it turns out.

Jeffrey Blitz's compelling new documentary, Lucky (out today on DVD), explores the lives of a half dozen or so individuals and families who have been awarded those giant cardboard checks. Winning millions of dollars not surprisingly had a huge effect on their lives, but not quite in the way I would have expected, and definitely not in the way many of them hoped.

Playing With the Truth: Film in 2010

Based on a true story.

Inspired by actual events. 

I'm not sure if it was an actual trend in 2010 or just a common trait of the few movies that I saw, but phrases like those above seemed to appear on screen in quite a lot of films, including 127 Hours, Conviction, Howl, Carlos, North Face, and even more that I didn't see, such as Made in Dagenham, Casino Jack, Eat Pray Love, I Love You Philip Morris, Mesrine: Killer Instinct & Public Enemy #1, and Nowhere Boy, to name only a few (and to say nothing of the tricky-truthy documentaries like I'm Still Here, Catfish, and Exit Through the Gift Shop).

Are there this many films based on true events every year and I only noticed it in 2010, or is this a newly developing trend? Either possibility would surprise me. If this is common every year, why have I not picked up on it so acutely, particularly considering I usually see twice as many movies as I did in 2010, and that I have a running series about movies based on real life? On the other hand, if this is a newly developing trend - why?

I'm almost positive it's the former, that this is not a new thing at all, but in any case it doesn't matter. I'm always more interested in how these films depict the truth they are meant to represent and, in doing so, how they shape our understanding and perspective on past events. For example, when I ask you to imagine the sinking of the Titanic, what images come to your mind? What about Roman gladiator fighting in the Colosseum? What do you picture when you think of John Smith and Pocahontas, or the Zodiac killer who terrorized San Francisco, or the fate of United Flight 93, or the storming of Omaha Beach on D-Day?

You see where I'm going with this: for many people, films based on true events serve as the primary influence on the subconscious in remembering or imagining those events. If you've seen those movies - Titanic, Gladiator, The New World, Zodiac, United 93, Saving Private Ryan - you bring their images to mind without even realizing it, particularly when a.) the images are astonishingly rendered (Titanic), and b.) there are few other film adaptations, documentaries, or other visual aids to provide alternative images in your mind (United 93). In essence, perception becomes reality; what we see becomes what actually happened, even if it didn't actually happen.

But does it matter when those images and those memories produce a reality that didn't actually exist? Where does the truth end and the dramatization begin, and is the truth ever interesting enough to stand on its own, free of embellishment? I'm sure it's a question as old as film itself - as art itself, really - but I'd like to consider it in the context of five films I saw in the last few months of 2010: The Social Network, The Fighter, Fair Game, The King's Speech, and All Good Things.

Getafilm Gallimaufry: Marwencol, Black Swan, True Grit, & Exit Through the Gift Shop

[Note: This series includes scattered thoughts on various movie-related topics. I was looking for a word that started with the letter "g" that means collection or assortment, but lest you think I'm some elitist wordsmith, know that I'd never heard of "gallimaufry" and I don't even know how to say it, but it was the only other option the thesaurus provided aside from "goulash" (too foody) and "garbage" (no).]

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Marwencol (A) 

There's a fine line between a hobby and an obsession. Take my love of movies, for example - is this blog a healthy,  creative side project, or an unhealthy manifestation of a subconscious desire to escape reality through film? Or what about Mark Hogancamp, who, after being beaten within an inch of his life several years ago and his long-term memory, regained his personality and his imagination through a fantastical world he created with plastic figurines? I can live without movies (maybe?), but Hogancamp can't live without these dolls. They are not a hobby, and they are not even an obsession. They are like air and water, necessary for his daily life. 

Hogancamp's alternate reality, named Marwencol, is so detailed and lifelike that it appears to exists as a living, breathing place, filled with characters and backstories enough to fill a series of books. If I had the patience and artistic talent to create places like it, I might end up lost with the dolls as well. This is not to say that Hogancamp doesn't have a handle on reality, just that considering where he's coming from it makes perfect sense that Marwencol is his security blanket from the judgments of the world (he was beaten at a bar after admitting to a habit of cross-dressing). It's the place he can go to get away, and be his own person in his own mind, and in that sense Marwencol is an almost uncomfortably personal entry into his thoughts and emotions.

I'm sure it wasn't easy for Mark Hogancamp to agree to "expose" himself through this film, but his world, Marwencol, should be appreciated not only for what it means to him, but to everyone who seeks a place that offers that kind of solace.

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Black Swan (B)  

As Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan reached its climactic finale, I'd made peace with my opinion of the movie: it was a lesser Fight Club, without the humor and witty cultural references. Maybe that says something about my gender or my disinterest in ballet, but in my head it was just a reaction to the familiarity of the story. I realize the plots aren't in any way similar, but, despite not having seen a trailer or learned anything about the story, I felt I'd been led to believe Black Swan was going to be some kind of transcendent thriller that would twist my mind and leave me breathless. Instead, I had a headache from the avian sound effects and predictable fright scenes, and I grew impatient to see something I hadn't seen before.

In the weeks afterward I considered the praise for Black Swan's ambiguity (i.e., was the ending real?) and acting, but as it recedes in my mind I don't have any great desire to see it again. I'm optimistic there are any number of similar films about passion and drive that aren't as cold, dark, and disturbing, like, for instance, Aronofosky's The Wrestler, which is a light and cheery family film in comparison.

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True Grit (A-)  

At least for me, movies in 2010 were severely lacking memorable characters. I mean the kind of characters that you can recognize with one line of dialogue, or dress up for Halloween as, or spoof on "Saturday Night Live". Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn is one of those characters, and although I haven't seen the original True Grit, I think I'd rather watch Bridges in the character if only because he's a lot more fun to imitate than John Wayne.

Sure, the Coen Brothers left their mark on True Grit, but I'd be lying if I didn't expect more from them. Not more in terms of quality, per se, but more in terms of Coen-ness. More scenes like the bartering scene with Mattie Ross or the courtroom scene, more bizarre characters popping in and out of nowhere, and a little more dry humor. But their intention was a straightforward adaptation, and in that they likely succeeded (I haven't read the novel). Just doesn't seem like they had much reason for taking this on if they weren't going to do something unique with it.

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Exit Through the Gift Shop (A-) 

I finally caught up to this raved-about documentary, and despite hearing much about its authenticity, the mysteries didn't appear where and when I expected. I've known of Banksy for several years, but I knew little about the rise of street art or the increasing number of public exhibitions by street artists. Essentially, I didn't realize their work had been accepted as legitimate in the eyes of collectors and auction houses. So, it didn't take much to convince me that Thierry Guetta could be a real person. As improbable as everything was, nothing really seemed outside of the realm of possibility (similar to My Kid Could Paint That), and there were fewer aspects of this film that made me think it wasn't real.

Conversely, everything about I'm Still Here seemed fake from the beginning (I saw it before it was officially announced as a hoax), so I could laugh along with Phoenix and Affleck as they punked everyone. Does its greater believability make Exit Through the Gift Shop a better documentary? Is it even a documentary, or an actual artistic statement by Banksy? Does it even matter? This is what I'm left wondering, but regardless of what I believe or discover about the truth, I now understand why this film has received so much attention. It's like one of Banksy's great works, subverting our expectations and telling us something we don't want to admit to ourselves about art, hype, and money.

Taking It Home: Inside Job

Finally, it all makes sense. Mostly.

Listening to the media echo chamber discuss President Obama's tax deal this week, I realized that it's been more than two months since I saw Charles Ferguson's illuminating Inside Job, and, shockingly, I think I still understand his deft explanation of the reasons behind the financial meltdown and, consequently, our current panic about tax rates and unemployment benefits. After numerous films - including but not limited to Capitalism: A Love Story (0/2 for Michael Moore after he dropped the health care ball with the forgettable Sicko), American Casino, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, and even The Other Guys - tried and failed to explain what led to The Great Recession, Ferguson's film was like a breath of fresh air, illustrating the financial foolishness in terms that anyone can understand. Good thing, too, because as I said in my pan of the meaningless Wall Street, this was probably the last chance The Recession Movie had to establish itself as a viable genre.

Why was it so hard to present this financial information in a clear way prior to this film? To be fair it does require a lot of detailed explanation, and when filmmakers have other things on their minds (melodrama and an Oscar in the case of Stone's Wall Street; comedy and I-don't-know-what in the case of Moore's Capitalism), the meat of the subject at hand is guaranteed to be lost. Inside Job, in contrast, has little else on it's mind other than telling us what happened and, not accidentally, making us feel really angry about it. This isn't necessarily a fair and balanced documentary (and maybe not a documentary at all?), but it nonetheless presents the facts and allows educated people to talk about them, even though in this case the facts really speak for themselves.

127 Hours in 94 Riveting Minutes

The other night I had a dream, or rather a nightmare, that our cat was trapped in an unplugged microwave for three days until I was able to break the door open and rescue her. Her eyes were bloodshot and her tired, sweaty body was bruised and bloodied in a few spots; her right hind leg was stripped of flesh and fur almost to the bone. As I woke up in a hazy state, it didn't take long for me to peg 127 Hours as the inspiration for my subconscious. Thankfully I don't have dreams like this often, and our cat is just fine, but this movie has haunted my mind for a week not only because of the nightmarish, climactic battle between mind and body, but also because of the questions this incredibly simple story raised about relationships, independence, family, regret, determination, and even technology.

Much more than the nerve-wracking "thriller" I expected, 127 Hours is a tender, even beautiful tribute to the resiliency of the human spirit. It's a film that jars you awake from the tedious monotony of the cinematic landscape, engaging instead of entertaining and not compromising for the sake of your viewing comfort. So does the Saw franchise, one could argue, but while I've never seen any of those movies, I've also never been under the impression that they have the artistic, acting, or even comic merit exhibited in 127 Hours.

Getafilm Gallimaufry: Animal Kingdom, Get Low, Let Me In or Leave Me Out, & Perfect Song #8

[This series includes scattered thoughts on various movie-related topics. I was looking for a word that started with the letter "g" that means collection or assortment, but lest you think I'm some elitist wordsmith, know that I'd never heard of "gallimaufry" and I don't even know how to say it, but it was the only other option the thesaurus provided aside from "goulash" (too foody) and "garbage" (no).]

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Animal Kingdom (A)

Aside from being among the best indie movies of the year, David Michôd's Animal Kingdom is also the Feel Bad Movie of the Year. It's not graphic, it's not lewd, and it's not even particularly violent, but you become so intimate with the cold, calculating, evil characters that you just want to shower immediately afterward. I haven't been this disgusted walking out of a film since Boy A, another excellent movie that not coincidentally deals with trust, regret, family, and crime.

Stories about criminal families are nothing new, but Animal Kingdom boasts such a crackerjack script and stellar cast that you don't even realize you've heard this story before (it helps that the actors are unfamiliar to American audiences). I was a big fan of the stylistic flourishes (understated use of slow motion, haunting music, etc.) and undercurrent of unpredictability, and well, I'll just say it: if Animal Kingdom were made by a veteran American director like Scorsese, it would be a shoo-in for a Best Picture nomination.

REVIEW: Prince of Broadway (A)

Writer/director Sean Baker's exceptional first feature, Take Out, is the kind of film that engages your curiosity in a rather distracting way; you feel as if you're watching a lost home video or a guerrilla-style student film. Scenes are unpredictable not necessarily because of complex plot twists (the story could not be simpler), but because at any given moment something in the vicinity of the shooting location, perhaps a stray animal or a loud car, seems certain to interrupt filming.

Was there a proper set? Were these people even actors?  The answer was yes, and no, but if you focused on the production details you'd potentially miss the most important fact of all: Take Out is a brilliant illustration of "a day in the life", of the common experiences of fear, frustration, relief, longing, hope, and countless other emotions that we as humans individually experience but collectively share. (See that film.)

Baker's new film, Prince of Broadway (opening tomorrow in New York and Sep. 24 in L.A.), is a glossier product, longer and more confidently made than Take Out. The sound and cinematography are vastly improved, if not still bound by the limits of a tiny budget, and the blocking is more tightly staged. In short, it's a more professional film, but if Baker has applied more of a sheen to this new product he has lost nothing under the surface, where thoughtful lessons about love, parenting, marriage, and friendship are framed by the unlikeliest of set-ups.

Taking It Home: Restrepo

(Images courtesy Outpost Films)

"Our idea was...let's make the most visceral war film you've ever seen." 

So said photojournalist Tim Hetherington, who partnered with author/journalist Sebastian Junger to create the Sundance-award winning documentary Restrepo, which delivers what's sure to be the most nerve-racking viewing experience of the year so far. Inception plays like a Saturday morning cartoon in comparison. If Restrepo isn't the most visceral war film we've ever seen, it's at least the most visceral movie about the war in Afghanistan that we've yet seen, and the most insightful documentary on the 21st-century soldier's experience since The War Tapes (which, along with the disappointing Gunnar Palace, comprise the few films that actually feature soldiers and not actors). 

Pro-war, anti-war, McChrystal, Wikileaks, whatever. The talking heads and the rest of the U.S. should stop shouting and hand-wringing for a moment to witness what's actually happening on the ground, or at least was in 2007-08. Restrepo follows the deployment of a dozen or so brave American infantrymen from Second Platoon, Battle Company, of the 173rd Airborne, who spent more than a year in Afghanistan's deadly Korengal Valley. The reasons to see this documentary are as numerous as the opinions about what the U.S. is doing in Afghanistan (i.e., the "graveyard of empires"); suffice to say you don't have much business in a conversation about the latter until you've seen the former.

Teza and the Surreal Cinema Experience

Early last year I read a BBC News article about an Ethiopian film, Haile Gerima's Teza, that won the highest award at the Pan-African Film and Television Festival (as well as a few awards in Venice the year prior, but losing the Golden Lion to The Wrestler). Considering my father is from Ethiopia, and considering this film was about the political tumult that took place after he left the country three and a half decades ago, and considering that this story has not been shown on film before, and considering I've never been to Ethiopia (and he hasn't been back), I was, to say the least, a little obsessed with tracking this film down.

Assuming that a full U.S. theatrical release was unlikely, I immediately set a Google Alert for the film so I could find out what was happening with it and when it would be released in any format. In the meantime I also contacted the production company on numerous occasions in the hope of receiving a screener copy to review, but never received a response. It was a shot in the dark, but it was still a shot. About six months ago the alerts started picking up speed, and earlier this year the film finally landed on American shores. Fittingly, it would play in a theater in Washington, D.C., home to Gerima and the largest Ethiopian population in the country.

But would it ever come to Minnesota? Impossible, I thought. It bounced around the East Coast (picking up raves along the way), however, and all of a sudden it began moving westward, arriving in Minneapolis last week (thank you, Minnesota Film Arts!). I gathered my family, including my dad, and we set off to Ethiopia on what truly was a unique cinematic adventure.

As Teza progressed, I had the surreal sensation that I was seeing my family history on film. Not a direct representation of it, but a portrait of the place in which my parents lived at a critical juncture in their lives (and also where my brother was born). It displayed the geography and language and extremely dangerous political climate; ultimately, much of what happened in this film affected my parent's decision to leave the country, first living in Austria (my mother's home) before arriving in California, where I was born.

Putting it together, then, I was literally relating my existence to much of the history portrayed in Teza. When you're cognizant of a connection like that while watching it, cognizant of the fact that changes here or decisions there could have significantly altered your life, well it's a bizarre experience.

Teza is a ravishing epic about Ethiopia's rarely discussed modern history, and while it's not a perfect film (of all things, the acting is a bit wooden at times), I'll never forget the experience of sitting in the theater and watching this film while considering that what was on screen actually led to me sitting in the theater and watching this film.

Have you ever had a similar "meta" experience with a film closely related to your family or your life? Are there movies that capture historical events or social changes that reach you on a deeper level because of your direct (or indirect) connection to them?

Getafilm Gallimaufry: Robin Hood, L'Enfant, Cruise's Curse, Toy Story 3, and The Two Escobars

Robin Hood (B+)

After too many months away from the movies I jumped in with both feet last week, starting with a big spring blockbuster that I didn't want to let get away from me on the big screen. In the last installment of Gallimaufry I declared my love for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, as well as the Robin Hood brand as a whole. Out of the loop as I've been from the movies scene in 2010, I completely forgot that Ridley Scott's version was meant to be an introduction to the title character.

You could understand, then, why I was growing restless as the movie went on and on with only minor teases of the charm, wit, humor, and romance that I associated with Robin and his merry men. Ridley's crew was comprised of weathered patriots fighting a ruthless (and inexplicably baldheaded?) villain for the honor of King Richard's crown. Embarrassingly, I was left scratching my head all the way until the finale, after which a title card reminded us that "now the legend begins". Ahhh, that's right! I'm thickheaded like that sometimes.

Getafilm Gallimaufry: A Prophet, Fish Tank, Robin Hood and More

[Note: This series includes scattered thoughts on various movie-related topics. I was looking for a word that started with the letter "g" that means collection or assortment, but lest you think I'm some elitist wordsmith, know that I'd never heard of "gallimaufry" and I don't even know how to say it, but it was the only other option the thesaurus provided aside from "goulash" (too foody) and "garbage" (no).]

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A Prophet (A) 

A Prophet is the first must-see film of 2010. Maybe that's not saying much considering the caliber of movies that have been released in this first quarter. How about this instead: A Prophet is one of the best crime sagas in recent memory, and, along with last year's Lion's Den and Hunger, it has helped usher in a new era of harrowing prison dramas (the last truly memorable one being what, The Shawshank Redemption?).

Written and directed by Jacques Audiard, whose last film (The Beat My Heart Skipped) was highly acclaimed but unseen by me, A Prophet boasts impressive verisimilitude for a completely fictional story. Maybe it's not surprising considering former convicts were hired as extras and advisers, but Audiard himself has admitted that prison life is rarely depicted in French film and television. French citizens are apparently clueless about what goes on behind prison walls in their country, so it doesn't take much convincing to accept this story as reality.

Indeed, life on the inside is reflective of life on the outside: the old French/European power structure is fading as new immigrant groups - particularly Arab Muslims (that term should not sound nearly as redundant as it does) - are arriving and establishing their identities as the "new French". Symbolically speaking, this film is urgently relevant (it won nine of the record 13 César Awards for which it was nominated); cinematically speaking it is a masterful showcase of acting, cinematography, pacing (even at 150 minutes), suspense, music, action and, most importantly, global insight.

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Considering the Best Documentaries of the Decade (2000-2009): Part 2

Among the best: The War Tapes, Mad Hot Ballroom, In the Shadow of the Moon

Recently I analyzed a couple of "Best Documentaries of the Decades" lists. Soon after that post I found similar lists at Cinematical and The Playlist, as well as a terrific selection from Marilyn Ferdinand. Since some of my favorites from the decade are missing from these lists, I found it only right to come up with some version of my own.

I've been really inspired considering these films and everything they've taught me about the world in the last decade. So long as a story is well-told and relevant to my life, I don't really have a preference between documentaries or traditional feature films. But truth is always stranger than fiction - and a lot funnier, and more emotional, and more horrifying, and generally more compelling. So documentaries represent a powerfully transformative tool in my life, allowing me to be taken to times and places I could never otherwise go and be introduced to real people that I would never otherwise meet.

So I've developed a somewhat raw list of more than 40 documentary films that have added greatly to my worldview this decade while making me laugh, sob, recoil, or quite often, all three. For reasons I explained in the last post, they are all from 2002 or later and are not ranked in any order (I also listed some notable documentaries I missed from this decade). Also, I stand by my previous claims in this space that 2008 was the best documentary year of the decade, which explains why nearly all of my top 10 from last year are represented here (also, reviews for many of these below can be found via my Review Index). This is not a definitive collection by any means, but it is a personally meaningful one for me:

Getafilm Gallimaufry: Amreeka, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Road, and Anticipating Avatar

[Note: This series includes scattered thoughts on various movie-related topics. I was looking for a word that started with the letter "g" that means collection or assortment, but lest you think I'm some elitist wordsmith, know that I'd never heard of "gallimaufry" and I don't even know how to say it, but it was the only other option the thesaurus provided aside from "goulash" (too foody) and "garbage" (no).]

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Amreeka (B)  

Amreeka doesn't show you anything you haven't seen before in the immigrant/cross-cultural dramedy genre (and it is a genre, or at least a developing one). But few immigrants' stories are identical, and dismissing Amreeka as "just another one of those immigrant movies" is about as short-sighted as, for example, assuming all Spanish-speaking immigrants are Mexicans. The fact is that Amreeka, while not entirely unique, still offers memorable insights into post-9/11 immigration in America, particularly for those families coming from the Middle East (in this case, Palestinians to Illinois).

The film was written and directed by Cherien Dabis, a young Palestinian-American filmaker recently named by Variety as one of "Ten Directors to Watch". Dabis certainly presents the film with the authority of someone who has experienced the story, and her screenplay is balanced with equal amounts of tragedy and comedy. While the narrative is somewhat inconsistent in terms of character development, you find yourself genuinely rooting for Munah and Fadi Farah from the first few minutes - a sign of thoughtful writing. I have to admit I'm a little tired of seeing Hiam Abbass worked to death as apparently the only woman of her age Hollywood ever thinks to cast as "Strong-willed Middle Eastern/Persian Woman #1", but she nonetheless delivers in her role every time. 

Living in Emergency: A Nationwide Screening and Discussion on Monday, December 14

Recently shortlisted for an Oscar, you have the rare chance to see the film and watch a live panel discussion moderated by Elizabeth Vargas

Soon after watching Mark Hopkins' award-winning documentary, Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders, I came across yet another talking heads debate on cable television about U.S. health care reform: blah, blah, blah, premiums, plans, policies, programs, and of course, the nefarious "public option". The irony was tragic considering I'd just learned that 2 billion people worldwide have no option, as in no access to essential medical care. This may not be news to many people with an eye on global issues, but Living in Emergency doesn't dwell on mind-boggling statistics like that because it's not really about the patients at all. It's about the doctors who volunteer to risk their sanity, careers, marriages, and even their lives to help alleviate suffering in the most dangerous environments on earth.

The four doctors profiled in Living in Emergency all work for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF/"Doctors Without Borders"), the Paris-founded, Nobel Peace Prize-winning NGO that provides free medical care annually to 10 million people in more than 70 sites worldwide - most of them previously, or too often currently, ravaged by war.

These are the kinds of settings where doctors become chain smokers. Where doctors are encouraged to have sex frequently, because when you're losing patients day in and day out, sex represents life. Where doctors end up questioning their career choice and doubting their own sense of self-efficacy. Where the Hippocratic Oath is a quaint, tidy motto.

The film marks the first time MSF has given a documentary crew uncensored access to its field sites, however Living in Emergency was not produced by MSF, and it could hardly be considered a glossy recruiting video to show to idealistic medical students and public health professionals (they might not be excited at the idea of wearing headlamps to treat patients in the dark). But they are probably the first people who should see it, followed by Americans with any vested interest in international relations and/or our current health care debate. It is a hard film to watch (e.g., very graphic surgical scenes and war footage) but an important one, and its recent inclusion on the Oscar shortlist for Best Documentary Feature is deserved.

Next Monday, December 14, MSF will be teaming up with Fathom Events and ABC's Elizabeth Vargas for a nationwide screening and live post-screening discussion with the film's subjects. The one-night event will be held in New York City and streamed live in more than 440 participating theaters (click here for theaters in Minnesota). For this night, at least, we should be humbly grateful for the access to health care that we have in this country.

REVIEW: Crude (A)

As I see it, the disappointing increase in popularity and production of Michael Moore-style "agit-docs" (agit, short for agitating) over the last few years has seriously threatened to diminish the credibility of actual documentary films. These days I unfortunately flinch whenever I hear about any new documentary that even appears to be about a social issue, because chances are it's going to be much more style than substance. 

Consider Hoop Dreams as an example, and think about how that same film would be produced in 2009. It would not be Steve James patiently and unobtrusively observing William Gates and Arthur Agee as two young boys trying to discover their potential. It would be an activist filmmaker abandoning their story in order to apply a blurry lens to the salacious societal ills on display on Chicago's South Side. There would be interviews with experts and celebrities and certainly Oprah, and a tidy list of "what you can do" chores would precede the credits. Everybody would leave feeling simultaneously horrified and puffed up with pride, but you'd have almost no insight into the actual life experiences of Gates and Agee.

I say all of this to explain why, almost regardless of who made it or what it's about, I am automatically suspicious that a "socially conscious" documentary in 2009 won't actually document a story so much as create one; propaganda is the tool that leads people to action, so people must be force-fed any message a filmmaker thinks we are too dense to understand on our own. As such, when I saw the ominous tagline for Crude ("The real price of oil."), I was ready to lump it in with the rest as an over-stylized, under-educating "call to action". Thankfully, I was completely wrong.

REVIEW: Milking the Rhino

Picture the last nature documentary you saw about the African bush: bilbao trees, tall grasses, lush jungle, parched desert, and wildlife ranging from impalas to elephants, zebras to giraffes. If it's anything like the last one I saw, the animals appeared to be living in an untouched paradise.

"The reality is that if you just turn the camera around, you have people that live just next to this wildlife," explains a national park director in Milking the Rhino, a fascinating documentary filmed over three years about the tumultuous relationship between humans and animals in post-colonial Africa. Produced by Kartemquin Films (Hoop Dreams, The New Americans) and directed by David E. Simpson, it is a content rich film that should forever change the way you watch a nature documentary or, if you can afford it, participate in an African safari. As one of the year's best and most thought-provoking documentaries, it's hard to even know where to begin talking about all of the issues raised in Milking the Rhino. So while I'll attempt to lay out some of its key points, I really recommend that you take the time to sit down and watch it.

Getafilm Gallimaufry: This Is It, Wild Things, Flute-Playing Goat & Tyler Perry

[Note: This series includes scattered thoughts on various movie-related topics. I was looking for a word that started with the letter "g" that means collection or assortment, but lest you think I'm some elitist wordsmith, know that I'd never heard of "gallimaufry" and I don't even know how to say it, but it was the only other option the thesaurus provided aside from "goulash" (too foody) and "garbage" (no).]
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This Is It (A)

There's a reason why more music critics than film critics were called on to review This Is It: a good 90% of the footage in this documentary is singing and dancing, not storytelling. You should know that if you're not already a Michael Jackson fan, because if you aren't then I imagine This Is It would be about as enjoyable as a John Tesh concert film (and if you don't like MJ then one can reasonably assume your musical tastes are that...tragic).

REVIEW: A Serious Man (A)

Consider some of the classic songs featured at pivotal moments of Coen Bros. movies: the operatic "Oh Danny Boy" in Miller's Crossing, the psychedelic "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)" in The Big Lebowski, and the bluegrassy "Man of Constant Sorrow" in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, just to name a few. The tone and lyrics of each of these songs are essential to evoking a particular atmosphere in key scenes. But that's about where the meaning ends - within those scenes.

Then consider the use of Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody to Love" in A Serious Man. The lyrics are not only key to the setting of the movie, but they are for the first time in a Coen film the backbone of the entire story. Recite the first two lines ("When the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy within you dies") and you have explained the philosophical underpinnings of Larry Gopnik's mid-life crisis. Which is to say you haven't explained anything at all. Let me try to explain.