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 #3/3

Also: 2011 MSPIFF Journals #'s 1 & 2

Project Nim
Grade: B+
Opens in Minneapolis later this summer

Something was frustrating me throughout Project Nim, and it wasn't the animal cruelty, disturbing as that obviously was. It was the reenactments that were most annoying - dark, bloody scenes inserted throughout the film in an attempt to dramatize the narration and make sure we knew, for example, what it looked like when Nim killed a poodle by throwing it against a wall. Every few minutes, I kept wondering, "This seems familiar - why I am so bothered by these unnecessary but harmless reenactments?". My answer came when the film ended: Directed by James Marsh. Ah, yes, Oscar-winning James Marsh, whose enthralling Man on Wire also suffered mightily from frequently pointless reenacted scenes. As far as I can tell from these two films, Marsh must have zero faith in the storytelling power of his interviews, or the wealth of archival footage at his disposal, or for that matter the patience of the average viewer. It's not enough to have incredibly juicy material with which to work - Marsh has stylize his story like a bad TV police procedural just to keep our attention during an interview with a subject, which, you know, there are a fair amount of in most documentaries. Ugh. Anyway, if you can get past the reenactments - and obviously everyone else in the world easily could for Man on Wire - you'll find Project Nim a haunting examination of science, and also "science", otherwise known as mankind's often nasty way of dealing with other species in this world.

The Bengali Detective

Grade: B+

The first thing I remember hearing about The Bengali Detective, from the news headlines out of Sundance in January, was that the documentary had been picked up for a feature film adaptation. The most recent similar example is the delayed but still simmering adaptation of The King of Kong, so I deduced that the films must have something in common, such as instantly classic characters - real life people who seem too scripted to not be scripted. In this respect The Bengali Detective definitely delivers, but otherwise it's a completely different style of film, for better and for worse. The central focus on Rajesh Ji, an optimistic private investigator, serves as a fascinating foundation from which to consider contemporary Indian society in Kolkata. Between his daily grind on several cases, which range from fake shampoo sales to infidelity to dismemberment and murder, we get a closer look at what motivates him, namely his adorable son and ailing wife (diabetes). And in between all of this, we see Rajesh and his team of investigators don glitter and spandex while earnestly preparing for an audition for a TV dance competition. Needless to say, the film is an emotional rollercoaster, uproariously funny one minute, grotesquely disturbing the next minute, and then heart-stoppingly tragic, before starting all over again. It was a lot to handle and made me wonder if the ending was really as uplifting as it seemed, but it's still hands-down one of the most entertaining documentaries in this early year - and a film adaptation is completely unnecessary.

Stuck Between Stations

Grade: B

I don't know whether to fault Stuck Between Stations for being so stubbornly local or love it for being so stubbornly loyal. It's without question one of the most gushing cinematic tributes to Minneapolis ever put on film; it's not an exaggeration to say it's a movie about a city more than a movie about a story. The story is a gentle retread of Before Sunrise, but with fewer interesting conversations and more needless skyline shots. The performances are actually a highlight, even by Josh Hartnett in a bizarre cameo, and they carry the story through some otherwise tedious scenes. This isn't to say the film is boring or the dialogue empty (quite the opposite), but eventually there's so much navel-gazing and local flavor that it becomes a little stifling. You just want a change of scenery or something foreign or new (kind of like living here at times, but that's a different story). At the end of the day, Stuck Between Stations is a tenderly made film with a lot of heart, even if its Minneapolitan sensibilities may prove to be a bit of a barrier to outsiders truly connecting with it.

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.

2011 MSPIFF Journal #1/3

170 200+ Films in 3 Weeks - How many could you possible see?

Naturally, each of the first three films I saw at MSPIFF were documentaries, not only because I have an affinity for them but also because there are literally dozens of documentaries in this year's fest, which is breaking its own record for number of films and number of days. Why the annual obsession with making MSPIFF bigger and longer than ever before, I don't know - by my elementary arithmetic, if you attended for 22 days straight and saw 4 films each day, you would still see fewer than half the number of films in the catalog.

Nevertheless, there's something to be said for offering something for every movie fan, even if that means every movie fan. And considering the number of films on tap, the revived Film Society of Minneapolis-St. Paul has done a stellar job with the organization of the festival. Lines have been smooth and start times punctual, and in this third year at the St. Anthony venue, my opinion has been cemented that it's the perfect location for the festival: easy freeway access, free parking, and sufficient nearby cafes/restaurants (plus free Punch pizza with every ticket stub again?!). Not much more you can ask for - even some of the surly theater staff from last year appear to have left.

Here's a rundown on the three I saw last week:

Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times 
Grade: B+
Opens at the Uptown in July

A meaty if not meandering documentary, Page One takes us behind the scenes of the Media Desk at the New York Times, which is tasked with covering the very state of print journalism itself. It's an interesting angle for director Andrew Rossi to take on this story, and it goes some way in refuting the "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic" analogy about the state of legacy media in the 21st century. You leave the film convinced the that The Times, and presumably other news institutions, are finally begin to adapt not just in the way subscribers access content (i.e., the new pay wall they recently installed on their website), but in the way we think about the journalists providing that content. Rossi profiles people like Minneapolis native David Carr (whose improbable journey to The Times newsroom didn't get enough attention in either the film or the Q & A with Carr and Rossi after the opening night screening) and Brian Stelter, a blogger-turned-journalist who is the face of an impressive new generation of reporters at The Times. All that said, Page One never really develops a cohesive narrative, and the viewing experience is like reading the NYT Twitter feed, with scattered pieces of stories out of order and often out of context. Nonetheless, for subscribers like me (Sunday edition only), it's a fascinating look inside the news machine.

Nostalgia for the Light
Grade: A

Thought-provoking, awe-inspiring, and tragic, Patricio Guzmán's Nostalgia for the Light is a superb feat of filmmaking, weaving together history, astronomy, and philosophy in a meditation on selective memory and the skeletons in Chile's closet. Centered in the Atacama Desert (site of the miraculous mine rescue of 2010), the film contrasts the desert's world-class astronomy facilities with the horrifying secrets that are buried in the ground around them, mostly in the form of skeletal remains of victims of the Pinochet dictatorship. While professors and scientists turn their eyes heavenward, a small group of women pick through the dust and dirt in a search for their relatives that has lasted 30 years. Both parties are in search of the past, and both have seemingly infinite horizons through which to carefully comb. The only difference is, the astronomers are working with the full support of the Chilean government, with every resource at their disposal. The women? They're mostly left alone in the hope that they will eventually die off, and take their talk of torture and injustice along with them. The film is not an indictment of Chile in this sense (Guzman waxes poetically about his country and shows it in an astonishingly beautiful light), but simply a troubling comparison between mankind's search for meaning in the stars, and mankind's search for redemption and forgiveness here on earth.

Kinshasa Symphony 
Grade: B+

The main challenge with Claus Wischmann and Martin Baer's Kinshasa Symphony is avoiding the temptation to simply write it off as a clichéd tearjerker. The title alone basically tells you what you're in for - an inspiring story about people making beautiful music against the odds in one of the world's most impoverished countries. What else would you expect? Indeed, it's exactly that and not much more, but in turning the lens on several compelling members of the orchestra and underscoring the challenges they face on a daily basis (to the tune of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony), the film ultimitaely does transcend expectations. What's missing, at least for prodding viewers like me, is some context about what exactly is going on in the background in Kinshasa, a city of 10 million people in arguably Africa's most tumultuous country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Granted, I came in about five minutes late, but I didn't get the full picture of the city, country, and culture that I was hoping for. But maybe that's a minor complaint, as the film is not meant to be a political or social commentary but simply a tribute to these unbelievably determined musicians. And in that respect, Kinshasa Symphony is music to the ears, eyes, and soul.

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.

The Best Documentaries of 2010

1. Inside Job

"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."

2. Restrepo

"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...Restrepo almost seems to exist in a vacuum, like a fictionalized action movie (Predators, Avatar?) in which a dozen American soldiers accidentally land on another planet and have to fight for their lives. Of course, that's not the case. These are real twenty-somethings from Wisconsin, Florida, California, and elsewhere, fighting for their lives in a desolate valley on the other side of the world, wearing our flag on their shoulders, shooting at the trees in the hopes of killing unknown enemies who may or may not be connected to one of several networks that could be planning attacks against us somewhere on the planet and sometime in the near, or long-term, future. If this represents our very best attempt at securing American freedom and prosperity and liberating the world from themselves (that's the mandate we've proclaimed, right?), I'm afraid we should be deeply concerned."

3. I'm Still Here

"Maybe I'm just a more observant viewer than most, but I would think that most focused movie-goers and critics would pick up on at least a few of these clues.But whether or not you feel like you've been unfairly taken for a ride, there are a few aspects of I'm Still Here that I think should be appreciated. First, the film shows us just how little the average person actually knew about Joaquin Phoenix to begin with; that we still don't know anything about the "real" him is fascinating to consider. Second, I'm Still Here probably chronicles the death of a Hollywood career as it would happen - as it does happen, to many former stars. Lastly, it demonstrates just how talented an actor Joaquin Phoenix is, playing an alternate version of himself in a much more committed way than, say, John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich. Few actors would ever take the risk to spend two years on a project like this, and I hope Phoenix's career is justly rewarded - even if Hollywood is bitter that the joke was always on them."

Getafilm Gallimaufry: Catfish, Winnebago Man, and A Film Unfinished

[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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Recently I wrote about last year's trend of playing with the truth, or at least playing it up. I focused on feature films, but there were a surprising number of documentaries from 2010 that belong in the same conversation, such as Exit Through the Gift Shop, I'm Still Here, and three more I recently caught up with:

Catfish

Take heed if you have not yet seen this film and stop reading. Now. Seriously, if you're planning to watch it (and I think you should), don't read further. 

Throughout last year I stepped around every discussion of it and for the most part I was able to avoid any plot details, which I'm very glad for. Ironically, though, what I wasn't able to avoid were hints that a fair amount of this film was fabricated. With that in mind, I watched Catfish and...still believed every frame of it. At least on first glance, and without giving any critical thought to the filming process. Yes, I found myself eating up every bit of the story, laughing along as the characters acted and reacted as only people of a certain generation would (e.g., hearing a song and having the automatic reaction to look it up on YouTube, or understanding the humor of The Oatmeal). In fact I loved what I was watching, loved how the story was wildly entertaining while also extremely thought-provoking: how do we live when we live - and love - online?

Then it ended, and I then I went online (natch), and then I realized that maybe I'd been taken for a ride. I didn't have any easy answers to a lot of questions people raised, such as why the filmmakers shot so much footage in the early months, or why they suddenly became tech-savvy and suspicious at a very convenient point in the story, or why an 8 year-old had such an active internet presence (tell me we're not already there).

Bittersweet: The Dark Side of Chocolate

If you're alone (or with other single friends) this Valentine's Day and are seeking the perfect downer for the occasion, look no further than The Dark Side of Chocolate. While millions of couples will express their love for each other with extravagantly wrapped boxes of candied cocoa of unknown origin, you can rest easy that you're not supporting what amounts to slave labor in regions of West Africa.

To be sure, for most people The Dark Side of Chocolate will be more personal and thus more disturbing than a documentary about the ugly underbelly of, say, the dried fruit industry. After all, chocolate is a globally traded commodity (or rather, cocoa is), a $50 billion/year worldwide business, and a veritable drug for women everywhere - and a few men, too, including me.

Concerned and curious about rumors of child labor on cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast, intrepid Danish journalist Miki Mistrati set off with a hidden camera and a bag full of questions about the source of the precious cocoa used by the world's leading chocolate manufacturers (The Hershey Company, Mars, Cadbury, Nestlé, and others). What he would find, tragically, is that children as young as seven years old are clearly being trafficked from neighboring countries to work in cocoa plantations for little to no pay. If the lack of an actual war prevents your favorite confection from being considered "conflict" chocolate, you should still feel conflicted about eating it.

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.

Un-fracking-believable: Gasland

Just think, you can cook without a stove!

If you became angry or frustrated while watching Inside Job, wait until you get a load of Gasland, the award-winning documentary exposing even more egregious shenanigans committed by Corporate America. All things considered (including his personal relationship to the story), filmmaker Josh Fox lays out an honest, objective examination of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking", the controversial new trend in domestic natural gas production. Gasland is this decade's Erin Brockovich or A Civil Action, the significant difference being that in this documentary, and thus in real life, companies aren't committing crimes by breaking or going around government regulations meant to protect citizens. That's because relatively speaking, there are no such regulations in place.

Much as you might expect this be a right vs. left political issue, what with Halliburton behind both the fracking technology and the Dick Cheney-initiated "Halliburton Loophole" (which exempts oil and gas companies - all of them - from our country's long-standing clean air and water regulations), the uncomfortable truth is that this is bipartisan bad behavior. While conservative interests may comprise corporate boards and shareholder majorities, President Obama and environmentalists are championing domestic natural gas production as an alternative to our addiction to foreign oil.

Problem is, nobody has developed a safe way to retrieve shale gas from the earth's crust, so for the time being more natural gas production means more fracking (by all accounts an extremely messy process). And more fracking - well as you can imagine that means more really nasty pollution, and more people being able to light their methane-infused tap water on fire.

Gasland won a Special Jury Prize at Sundance 2010, and was recently short-listed for this year's Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. I can't say it's a polished film (it's occasionally tangential and burdened with mumbling narration by Fox), but, alongside Inside Job and Restrepo, it's among the most important American documentaries of the year.

One of the memorable insights Fox shares at the end of film is that as he drove thousands of miles across the country to study the impact of fracking on local communities, every place started to look the same. Of course this is a common observation East Coasters make once they get west of Pennsylvania, but the stereotypical reasons (e.g., boring landscapes) were not cited here. Rather, the states blended together for Fox because fracking is happening everywhere: refineries and wells littered the country in places he never expected, and the stories and horrific symptoms from people he met were similar across thousands of miles. In other words, the problem isn't spreading - it's already spread, everywhere.

And, despite the fact that nobody yet knows the true effect fracking has on our air and water supply (only recently did the EPA initiate an official study on it), the practice continues unabated in one of the least regulated industries in the country. Completely helpless citizens are being poisoned and communities ruined, and not only is there no law against it, but the current laws were made to enable it. Worse, state agencies and departments that would normally be charged with looking into citizen's complaints are among the first to be cut as government budgets bleed out during the recession.

It's ironic then, or maybe it's not, that corporate interests helped lead to the recession, which has led to government budget deficits, which have led to agency and department personnel cuts, which has led to decreased regulation of corporate practices like fracking, which has led to greater corporate profits.

God Bless America.

Gasland comes out today on DVD (New Media/Docurama Films)
Add to your Netflix queue

Further reading:

"A Colossal Fracking Mess", Vanity Fair, June 2010

"Fracking yields fuel, fear in Northeast", CNN.com, September 2010

Further viewing:

"Shaleionaires" - 60 Minutes, November 14, 2010

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.

Melody Gilbert Movie Marathon, Dec. 3-5

This weekend, six films by revered local documentarian Melody Gilbert will be featured as part of a three-day festival at the Parkway Theater at 48th St. & Chicago Ave. in South Minneapolis. Melody is a terrific filmmaker and a great supporter of local films, so if you're in the area don't miss this special opportunity to see the work of "one of the most fearless filmmakers in contemporary documentary cinema", according to The Documentary Channel.

Ask yourself, when else will you see a movie about wannabe amputees, or getting married at the Mall of America, or people who explore abandoned underground tunnels and buildings, or children who have no sensation of pain? Three of Melody's six films are available on Netflix, but I won't tell you which ones because you should really see them at the theater this weekend. Speaking of which, the Parkway has nicely revived itself over the last few years, and you can bring food and drink from neighboring Pepito's into the theater.

Melody and special guests will be present at each screening. Tickets are available online or at the door (special MG Marathon pass is $25 to see all six films).

Friday, Dec. 3rd

6:00 pm: Disconnected (made with Carleton College students) - TRAILER

7:30 pm: Married at the Mall (w/ new short doc Tami Tushie's Toys) - TRAILER

9:15 pm: Urban Explorers: Into the Darkness - TRAILER

10:30 pm: After-party @ Pepitos w/ half-price apps and 2-for-1 drinks

Saturday, Dec. 4 

3:00 pm: Whole - CLIP

4:30 pm: A Life Without Pain (w/ MN family featured in the film) - TRAILER

Sunday, Dec. 5 

6:00 pm: Fritz: The Walter Mondale Story - TRAILER

Also, next week (not part of the festival): 

Wednesday, Dec. 8th

7:00 pm: Numb (sneak preview/fundraiser) 

Numb is a new documentary about antidepressant addiction and withdrawal that Melody is executive producing (directed by Phil Lawrence). This is a sneak preview/ fundraiser that includes: food from Pepitos, mingling with filmmakers, silent auction and a free ticket to the screening of Urban Explorers at 8:00 pm. Your donation will help finish the final stretch of editing. See the trailer. 

Independent Lens presents: Lost Sparrow

Lost Sparrow is the type of documentary that should come with a warning label: "May cause severe emotional distress". It does not contain much disturbing or graphic content, but the tragedy of the Billing family history is so nakedly laid bare that you can't help but be affected. I was mentally worn and emotionally vulnerable on the night that I watched it, and I'll fully admit the film's denouement had me sobbing. While I was reminded of Capturing the Friedmans, Surfwise, and Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father, I was keenly aware while watching Lost Sparrow that there were many more social layers under the surface of this particular story.

Never manipulative and consistently engrossing, Lost Sparrow is a downward spiraling journey into the marginalization and mistreatment of the Native American community, the strength of the family bond, and the challenge of forgiving an unforgivable sin. If making a film about the skeletons in your family's closet is considered a sign of bravery (and I think it is), director Chris Billing deserves a medal of valor.

In the early 1970's, Billing's family adopted four Crow Indian siblings (two boys, two girls) who were removed from their home on an impoverished Montana reservation after numerous allegations of domestic abuse. The Billing family, already with six children, quickly became a family of 10 kids and two parents, seemingly as happy as they are in the family photo above. 

In 1978, however, the two Crow Indian brothers were mysteriously killed by a freight train near the family's home in upstate New York (no one knows why they were lying on the tracks). The accident devastated the family and the community, the children were buried nearby (against Crow tradition) and the wounds slowly began to heal - or so it appeared. Chris Billing went on to become a highly-respected journalist and the Beijing Bureau Chief for NBC, but he was always uncomfortable with the uncertainty around his brothers' death. Lost Sparrow is his effort to find out what happened, and in doing so he discovers much more than he bargained for, and much more than anyone should ever hope to discover and publicly share about their family.

What impressed me so much about Lost Sparrow was the impossibly objective light Chris Billing shone on the tragic history of this family, no doubt due to years of journalistic practice. He somehow does not condemn and he does not apologize, and tells an incredibly personal story without making an overtly personal film. No family is perfect, and the themes in Lost Sparrow - love, forgiveness, fear, and pain - resonate on a universally human level. While Lost Sparrow could be seen as a traditional documentary about family history that you'd expect to find on PBS, I saw it as much more: an unforgettable portrait about adoption, redemption, and owning up to a past that has haunted your family for 30 years.

Lost Sparrow premieres on PBS on Tuesday, November 16 (check local listings)

300 Words About: Waste Land

Topically similar to Garbage Dreams but thematically similar to Born into Brothels, Lucy Walker's endearing Waste Land is a humble, tender tribute to the millions of people we walk by daily but avoid looking in the eye. In the U.S., as in Brazil and maybe every other developed nation, an undercurrent of classism wreaks havoc on the social fabric. We marginalize and generalize about the groups below us on the social ladder, never considering to recognize the ambitions and talents of the individuals who comprise those groups. If a picture is worth a thousand words, Vik Muniz' portraits of workers in the world's largest landfill (Jardim Gramacho, outside Rio de Janeiro) tell a timeless story of human ambition, cooperation, innovation, beauty, and creativity.

That's pretty flowery language applied to a film set amongst mountains of rotting garbage, but it's there if you look for it - and you don't have to look too hard. These portraits, which are photos of garbage arranged to represent photos (you might have to see it to understand it), are astounding artistic achievements even without considering the subjects of the photos, the team of people involved in constructing the portraits, or the materials from which they are composed. When all of that is evaluated as well, it's not surprising to learn that the "Pictures of Garbage" (double entendre intended) collection broke attendance records at modern art museums around the world.

On the surface, the motive behind Muniz' project (to "change lives") appeared naive, even foolish. This is partly because he had the complete wrong impression of the people who worked at Jardim Gramacho, and partly because no good deed goes unpunished, and whatever sacrifices Muniz was willing to make (in this case, his marriage) were not necessarily going to guarantee a better life for the civil servants who provide what amounts to indentured labor in picking recycled materials out of the landfill.

But Muniz was successful, and director Lucy Walker was successful (for the second time in two years), because both of them realized that often the most effective way to lift someone up is to embrace who they are, where they are, before finding a way to tap into the positive aspects of their individual character. It's probably not a coincidence that the subjects chosen by Muniz for this particular project are quite attractive by most standards, but if he has shown anything, it's that even beautiful people might not recognize their beauty until someone shows it to them.

Independent Lens presents: The Longoria Affair

You could be fooled into thinking Latinos have only had voting rights in the U.S. for the last decade or so, what with the ongoing hand wringing and analysis by political pundits over which party controls "the Latino vote" (as if their respective cultures haven't already been overgeneralized enough). As it turns out, Latinos and in particular Mexican-Americans have played a vital role in American politics for more than half a century, and, as I was surprised to find out from The Longoria Affair, John F. Kennedy won the popular vote in the 1960 U.S. Presidential Election thanks in large part to Latino voters - years before the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were even signed into law by Kennedy's VP and successor, Lyndon B. Johnson.

While this documentary takes its name from U.S. Army Pvt. Felix Longoria, his life (and early combat death) serves as less of a focal point and more of a jumping-off point to explore a hidden era in Latino-American history. After Longoria was killed in action during World War II, the local funeral director in his hometown of Three Rivers, TX, refused to honor the fallen veteran because of his Mexican heritage. Longoria's wife reached out to Dr. Hector Garcia, a prominent physician and Mexican-American activist (and early influence of Al Sharpton?) who "used" this act of discrimination against Longoria as the catalyst for launching a nationwide Latino movement. One of his allies in Texas happened to be then-U.S. Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, and together the two men marched toward history, first making Longoria the first Mexican-American buried in Arlington National Cemetery, then swinging "the Latino vote" almost exclusively to Kennedy in 1960, and, after Johnson assumed the presidency, ultimately laying the groundwork for the American civil rights movement.

The Longoria Affair is a remarkable story about American politics (particularly timely during this election season) that also deftly illustrates the respective character of Johnson and Garcia, two very ambitious, very idealistic, and very stubborn men. Felix Longoria, for his part, may never know that his heroism on behalf of the United States didn't end in his death on a battlefield. On the contrary, that's only where it started.

The Longoria Affair premieres on PBS on Tuesday, November 9, and streams online for free through November 16 (check local listings)

Viking Madness: A Fan for All Seasons

A Minnesota tradition since 1961

"The Vikings are the number one team at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory," laments Jesse Logan as he watches his home squad struggle against the rival Green Bay Packers. It's near the midpoint of the 2005 Minnesota Vikings season, and this pivotal game can make or break the Vikes' playoff chances. The objective truth is that one regular season game is equally important as any other to a team's success, but objectivity is nonexistent when it comes to to the NFL, where every game is "do or die" and "make or break" (such as, not coincidentally, tonight's Vikings game against the New York Jets).

I've been a Minnesota Vikings fan for as long as I've lived in Minnesota (a little more than half my life), but I'm not a season-ticket holder or face-painter. I don't own a jersey or know all the lyrics to "Skol, Vikings", but I watch the games at home and I hate the Packers. All of this to say that I while cheer for the Vikings every Sunday, I'm not at the level of Logan and his peers featured in Aaron Lubarsky's A Fan for All Seasons. These people are crazy not because of their individual game-day traditions (be it face painting or horn blowing), but because they sacrifice their time, money, and in some cases dignity to one of the most storied franchises in the National Football League that, we must always remember, has never won a championship.

Sound Unseen 11: Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone

Screening as part of Sound Unseen 11 - Sat., Oct. 9, @ 5:00 PM @ the Trylon

Trivia question: What music was John Cusack blasting from his boombox in that iconic scene in Say Anything? If you think it's "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel, you're right - kind of. That song was reportedly added in post-production, while the music that was actually playing during filming was by a band named Fishbone, "one of the most distinctive and eclectic alternative rock bands of the late '80s", according to their allmusic profile.

This anecdote perfectly exemplifies the life of the band: loved by all the cool kids, but inevitably overshadowed by the radio-friendly pop music of the day. I myself knew little about the band, and even less about the world that shaped them, before seeing Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone. It's a great documentary not only because it chronicles Fishbone's career in an interesting way, but because it also appropriately addresses social issues like race and power, and reveals historical nuggets such as the African-American migration to Los Angeles and the birth of the punk scene in the San Fernando Valley.

Sound Unseen 11: Do It Again

Screening as part of Sound Unseen 11 - Sat., Oct. 9, @ 3:00 PM @ the Trylon

Often you hear about middle-aged guys and their garage bands trying to make it big after years of trying, or middle-aged former rock stars trying to keep it big after years of succeeding. Or, as seen in last year's excellent Anvil! The Story of Anvil, middle-aged rock stars trying to make it big after years of hopeless failure.

Here's a new one, then: a middle-aged fan trying to bring back some old rock stars fifteen years after they broke up. The band is none other than The Kinks, while the fan is Geoff Edgers, an arts and entetainment writer for the Boston Globe who considers the band to be the greatest of all time (incidentally, he does a fantastic job outlining their history and their impact on the music world). Although the storyline and characters of Do It Again (cleverly named after one of the band's many hits) are a little different than the other examples, the journey is comprised of the same hope, determination, dejection, relief, joy, confusion, and musical passion. In short, Do It Again shows that while the life of a rock star may be taxing, it ain't much easier to be a fan of a band that no longer exists.