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The Bridge (Eric Steel - 2006)
Ever thought of suicide? If you've given it more than a passing thought you may well have wondered exactly how you'd go about it. The logistics of it can be somewhat overwhelming to contemplate. It sounds like it should be an easy thing to achieve but when you get right down to it it's actually quite tricky. The simplest method I could come up with is to jump off a very tall bridge, and that's what this film is about. It consists of actual footage from twenty three of the the twenty four people who killed themselves in 2004 by throwing themselves off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and this footage is intercut with very candid interviews from the deceased's friends and family. It's quite disturbing for a few reasons; firstly when the media is so strictly controlled by the spin gurus it's very rare to see real people really dying onscreen - something we're routinely shielded from these days. Secondly, it turns out the families were not aware that the person interviewing them had actual footage of their loved one's suicide on film, which is ethically questionable when you think about it, as is the fact the filmmakers obtained permission to film the bridge for a year under false pretenses. Indeed one could debate the ethics of filming people killing themselves rather than helping them (apparently the filmmakers averted all they could in the course of the year they spent filming the bridge from the coasts), but whatever your view on these issues and of suicide in general this film is certainly food for thought and will probably spark some sort of debate between you and whoever you watch it with. Personally I think this film is sincere and I found it very sad - not so much because it showed people committing suicide but because society as a whole didn't seem to care whether they killed themselves or why. Far from being exploitative I found this quite moving and a fascinating meditation on suicide and mental illness. |
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Cinemania (Angela Christlieb & Stephen Kijak - 2002)
In which we follow five film freaks as they devour every obscure film within striking distance of their homes as a matter of their daily routine. You know you're dealing with some serious obsessional behaviour when the first line out of the first character's mouth is, 'movies are better than sex', followed by, 'actually - movies are better than love'. Some of the more enjoyable documentaries I've seen involve chronicling the daily lives of borderline personalities and sometimes it feels a bit like a guilty pleasure watching these people as it's akin to watching a freak show. As long as the film is made with a degree of empathy and affection for the characters then you can relax and enjoy it as a glimpse into an odd world though, and I think Cinemania largely achieves this. These five characters - who could easily be considered figures of fun - come off for the most part as free spirits; people simply doing what they want to do and to hell with what everyone else thinks of their lifestyle choices. Some of the behaviour exhibited here will be familiar to many film enthusiasts, but it's all a matter of degree with obsessions. These people have seen many, many more movies than most people would see in ten lifetimes, and watching movies is the one thing they do to the exclusion of everything else in life, and that's why they're so fascinating. It would be easy to feel sorry for these guys, but at the end of the day they're doing what they want to do with their lives and I for one think that's admirable. |
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The English Surgeon (Geoffrey Smith - 2007)
This is a documentary full of humanity and heartbreak. Henry Marsh is the English surgeon of the title - a neurosurgeon to be more precise and he's been travelling back and forth to the Ukraine for the past fifteen years to help a young Ukrainian surgeon learn his trade and consult with patients there, many of whom are in desperate need of treatment and oftentimes dying from the lack of it. We follow Marsh on one of his trips to the Ukraine where he meets up with Igor, his young surgeon friend and we sit in on some consults with people who have brain tumours. An old grandmother finds out her young granddaughter is going to die and nothing can be done for her, a beautiful twenty-three year old woman - looking the picture of health presents with a rare tumour with which nothing can be done; she'll be blind in a couple of years and dead within five. The two doctors are at a loss as to how to proceed - not wanting to tell the girl the truth for fear of crushing her spirit. We also follow the two neurosurgeons as they shop for a drill at the local market - the drill they'll be using on a young man getting a brain tumour removed while he's fully conscious; both events quite surreal. This is fascinating to watch, if dreadfully sad at times, but it's Henry's personality and world view that holds everything together. His simple and straight-forward desire to help people and get things done to improve their situation is truly uplifting and offers some real hope for the future, even if at times it seems a long way off. |
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Exit Through The Gift Shop (Banksy - 2010)
A film by Banksy, the legendary graffiti artist, famous for some of the most original street art to be found here and there all over the globe. However, taken at face value - which you should probably not do - this didn't start off as a film by Banksy and indeed Banksy never intended to make a film about street art, or anything else in the first place. The genesis of this comes alledgedly from a French shop owner and video camera enthusiast Thierry Guetta - a scruffy little middle-aged man famous only among his friends and family for always having a video camera on his person, filming absolutely anything and everything with an indiscriminate eye. By chance he comes into contact with some of the most famous graffiti artists around and so becomes embroiled in the murky world of the graffiti artist by assuring them he's making a documentary about street art. Thierry becomes Banksy's assistant, confidant and accomplice and eventually strikes out on his own after everyone realises he doesn't know the first thing about making a film, at which point Banksy takes over and everything gets really weird. If you, like me aren't sure whether a film about graffiti artists would really appeal to you have no fear - although the film starts off slowly and predictably enough it's not long before you realise this is not the film you thought it was going to be. In fact it progresses quickly from pedestrian to interesting then fascinating, hilarious and ultimately unbelievable (in the literal sense of the word), and becomes a pretty scathing indictment of the world of modern art. This is one of the funniest documentaries around - although it seems almost certain this is fiction or certainly mostly fiction. Depending on your point of view it's either an expose of the craziness which abounds in the art world today or it's an illustration of just how random the world can be sometimes. Again depending on how you look at it Banksy's either rescued a bad situation by turning it into the ultimate street art project, or he's brilliantly deconstructed the whole of pop art and the cult of celebrity. Either way it's pretty clever and executed well enough to cast doubt among most people about the veracity of some, most or all of what you see onscreen. |
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The Five Obstructions (Lars von Trier - 2003)
Lars von Trier is one of these directors who can stun you with a masterpiece one year then boggle your mind with some severely mis-judged mess the next. He's an innovator who likes to step outside the conventional way of doing things and this can yield great results, but can sometimes be so misconceived that no-one could pull it off. On hearing about this project I wouldn't have been surprised if this turned out to be one of his failed experiments but in actual fact it's much closer to a masterpiece than a mess. Here he teams up with fellow Dane Jorgen Leth, who directed 'The Perfect Human' - a famous short from 1967, much revered by von Trier. The two dissect the film and von Trier sets about tormenting Leth by setting him the task of remaking this film five times, each time differently, and with extreme restrictions imposed on him, such as re-shooting the film in Cuba, and with no shot lasting more than twelve frames. With von Trier a particularly hard task-master Leth is under the gun, but rises to the occasion time and again, with some elegant solutions. This film offers an intriguing portrait of the two men, the power dynamics between them, their very different personalities, and their different approaches to filmmaking, and is an absolutely fascinating and frequently hilarious examination of the creative impulse from two different generations of the most creative forces in the Danish film industry. |
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Man On Wire (James Marsh - 2008)
This is as good a documentary as your likely to see this year and it's almost certainly going to win the Best Documentary Award at the 2008/9 Oscars. It details the escapades of one Philippe Petit - you may have heard of him: He's a wirewalker - one of those people who walk along steel cables with a long pole in their hands. Well, surely Monsieur Petit is the man to beat when it comes to wirewalking as his feat back in 1974 of walking a tightrope between the roofs of the twin towers in New York must surely rank as one of the most spectacular and foolhardy endeavours ever undertaken by an individual. This is a fascinating glimpse into someone's ambitions and dreams, all narrated by the man himself and his accomplices (wirewalking between any public buildings being illegal of course). Man On Wire is tense, engaging and actually very funny a lot of the time. The reconstructions are expertly done and some of the characters are quite witty in the telling of their thrilling tale. It's clear to me that the world would be a far more pleasant and interesting place if there were more Philippe Petits in it, and for that reason he's to be commended, and for demonstrating that fact so clearly this documentary deserves all the plaudits it's going to receive. |
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Sicko (Michael Moore - 2007)
It's difficult to comment on Michael Moore's work as conventional documentary filmmaking because the films he makes are really political in nature rather than simply informative. It's no secret that Moore is a staunch liberal and I don't have a problem with that, but a lot of people see him as a hypocrite and I can see their point: His films make him a lot of money so he's not the everyman he presents himself as; he can be self-serving and smug, and some of the 'facts' he presents have been proved spurious, but if he's sincere in what he says then he's to be applauded because I think the people he's pointing the finger at deserve to be exposed a lot more than he does. However, I think all this may be missing the point. What he's doing is bringing to the attention of as many people as he can subjects that he cares about in an eye-catching way. What you've got to ask yourself is do you agree with his point of view? In this case do you think healthcare should be free for all citizens in a country as wealthy and technologically advanced as America? If you do then this is an easy film to watch; if you don't then you'll spend the whole time shouting at the screen and gnashing your teeth. Obviously every healthcare system has its problems, and some presented here as better aren't the utopian vision Moore shows but do they compare favourably to the American system? I see Michael Moore as a clever lawyer who knows his audience and is savvy about how to present his case. This is not objective filmmaking - this is biased propaganda once again, but it's done with a sly humour and a lot of nous. The bottom line is this: Sicko is entertaining and thought-provoking enough to get like-minded people spoiling for a fight. Job done. |
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Standard Operating Procedure (Errol Morris - 2008)
New film from Errol Morris about the shameful goings on in the Abu Ghraib detention complex in Iraq. America's recent record on human rights has been pretty poor, to say the least and it seems to be coming back to bite them what with this and Michael Moore's blasting of the healthcare industry in last year's Sicko. Being that both these films have been made by US citizens though and bearing in mind the landslide victory achieved by Barack Obama in this year's presidential elections, maybe the US is turning a corner, and realising the way they've been going about getting what they want from the world is wrong. Somehow I doubt it, but certainly any clear thinking person viewing this documentary would be dismayed at the reprehensible behaviour on display here by US soldiers, under instruction from their government, and hopefully Standard Operating Procedure will be widely seen throughout the world as a clear demonstration of the wrong-headedness implicit in the 'might is right' ethos the US government has adhered to itself and instilled in its populace over the years. S.O.P is less flashy than other Erroll Morris films, and missing is the usual Philip Glass score (although Danny Elfman has come up with a very good Glass-esque score in its place) but it's certainly topical, sometimes controversial and always interesting. In short Morris is still at the forefront of informed documentary filmmaking and this is a worthy addition to his body of work. |
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Tie Xi Qu: West of The Tracks - Rust (Wang Bing - 2003)
This is the first of a three-part documentary with a total running time of over nine hours - all of which is well worth watching. If you only get to see one part though this is the one to watch. In this first part, titled Rust we follow a number of men who work in a large industrial plant that's on the brink of bankruptcy. All the workers are in fear for their future, none has alternative employment prospects and as the film progresses you become acutely aware of the reality - the inevitibility - of the closure of the whole industrial complex these people have been a part of for years. Some of the workers are more aware of what's happening than others but they all turn up for work each day, even when there's nothing left to do and they're not getting paid. It's tragic to see these men floundering, but in such a quiet, resigned way. Everyone seems completely bereft of any idea of an alternative to what they've been doing. You just want to shake the screen sometimes and tell them what's happening, but then you realise the futility of that because life outside their workplace offers nothing better for them. With Rust director Wang Bing has shot a devastating expose on the price of progress and the effect it has on the little guys of the world, and he's done it in a supremely cinematic way. The cinematography perfectly captures the grimness of the smelting plants, the decay of all the facilities the men live and work in and the unhealthiness of both the physical environment these men are part of every day and the politics and questionable business practices going on behind the scenes. Once you're about twenty minutes or so into watching this film you'll feel like you're in the place, so unobtrusive and natural does the camera glide around, seemingly unnoticed. An educational, emotional, and cinematic triumph. |
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Touching The Void (Kevin Macdonald - 2003)
Utterly absorbing documentary about Joe Simpson and Simon Yates' journey up the Siula Grande - one of the few unconquered ascents remaining in the mountain ranges of Peru at the time. The two complete the climb to the summit only to find that that's where their troubles are really about to begin. The story of the pair - but in particular Joe's survival is related by masterful recreation, interspersed with Joe and Simon themselves in interview. Surprisingly, there's a lot of humour to be had from watching this film - the two are quite laconic in their re-telling of their ordeal and when Joe mentions his fear of dying in the middle of nowhere to the strains of Boney M's 'Brown Girl In The Ring' echoing round his brain you can't help but laugh. The two men's down to earth attitude really anchors the film in a very straightforward humanistic way and creates a tremendous amount of empathy in the viewer. Aswell as being a great human drama it's also a recounting of one of the most heroic tales of endurance in the face of adversity I've heard of, this side of Shackleton's epic South Pole debacle. Gripping stuff. |
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