Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017). Film review of the documentary about the titular Hollywood star

Documentary

The Salt Of the Earth (2014)

Film review of the documentary about the acclaimed Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, directed by Wim Wenders and Salgado’s son Juliano Ribeiro Salgado.

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Directors: Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado. (110 mins). Decia Films. (12)

Documentary

 

He Named Me Malala (2015)

Film review, by Maysa Moncao, of the documentary about the women’s educational rights campaigner Malala Yousafzai.

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Director: Davis Guggenheim. Twentieth Century Fox. (PG)

Documentary

 

Where To Invade Next (2015)

Film review, by Maysa Moncao, of the latest Michael Moore documentary, which has just had its world premier at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF 15).

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Director: Michael Moore.

 

Hitchcock/Truffaut (2015)

Maysa Moncao’s film review of the documentary about the creation of the seminal biography of film director Alfred Hitchcock, authored by fellow director Francois Truffaut, via the Toronto  International Film Festival.

 

 

If you desire to be more than an ordinary film-goer, you should spend some of your time reading ’Hitchcock/Truffaut’.

Milton Keynes Through the Lens (2014)

Using archive footage, this documentary looks at Milton Keynes, through it’s development as a new city in the late 1960’s. A Living Archive film event.

Director: Roger Kitchen.

Documentary

 

Still the Enemy Within (2014)

Film review of the documentary about the 1984-1985 British Miner’s strike, written and directed by Owen Gower.

Director: Owen Gower. Bad Bonobo (15)

Cast and credits

Producers: Sinead Kirwan, Mark Lacey.
Writer: Owen Gower.
Camera: Malcolm Hadley.
Music: Rael Jones.

Norman Strike, Paul Symonds, Steve Hammill, Mike Jackson, Jo Henry et al.

Synopsis

This documentary follows the highs and lows of a life-changing year – the British Miners’ Strike, 1984-1985. Using interviews and rare, never before seen archive, the film draws together personal experiences and not those of experts or politicians to take the audience on a journey through the dramatic events of that year.

Review

There have been a number of films about the Miners’ Strike of the mid 1980’s, from a recreation of the vicious Battle of Orgreave (2001) by conceptual artist Jeremy Deller and director Mike Figgis, to the more recent Pride (2013) which dramatises how a group of lesbian and gay activists fought their own battle to support a community of Welsh miners during the strike, and which I happily enjoyed seeing at my local film club in Stony Stratford (film review of Pride).

I was only five years old at the time of actual strike (although, given the length of the protest, the government’s intractable position and the violence involved, it was more akin to a war) so I have only a dim recollection of what happened, with little or no appreciation of the politics behind the events. This documentary reminds people such as myself of how monumental for British history the strike was by hearing directly from the grass roots level people who were involved, not the politicians in charge or experts they hired to effectively obliterate trade unionism in this country but the miners, their wives and community leaders who were there on the picket lines or supporting behind it.

And what an engaging group they are. Intelligent, verbose, humorous, authoritative, they provide vivid descriptions to the still eye-opening news footage that accompanies their recollections (right at the beginning we see an elderly woman being man handled by a policeman). From Symonds’ viscerally accurate opening description of what one would first experience when entering a coal mine, we feel how harsh and unrelenting a life this was. This was a career that literally turned boys into men.

But his words are, like those of his peers, tinged with the utmost respect and affection for their profession. These ‘boots on the ground’ accounts also allow the filmmakers to peer beneath the surface of the flashpoints of history and reveal the smaller, almost inconsequential details that would otherwise be lost amidst grand political recall.

Such as the ingenious tricks the miners used to overcome police blockades of their movements. As groups of more than two men in cars travelling on the A1 into Nottinghamshire were met with suspicion, some would hide in the boot, or even get out down the road and dress up as joggers, getting back into the cars after they had passed the authorities.

This seam of humour cuts throughout the film, none more so than when the aptly named Strike reveals a drunken encounter on The Old Grey Whistle Test with Jools Holland and struggling to get the police to accept his name as being real. Why Strike never carved out a new career as a stand-up may only ever be known to him, but there is still ample time if he wished to try.

With documentary, there is a danger the filmmakers can employ a seductive editorial sleight of hand with a convenient flow of narrative and images to lull the audience toward a specific viewpoint, but thankfully the producers here have opted for a more straightforward and honest construction of past events. Still the Enemy Within has a less forced, natural feel to it. It is more factual current affairs report than documentary.

The only minus point is that only one point of view is expressed throughout. Despite the importance of the subject matter and the clarity of the storytellers, it does feel like one is being thumped repeatedly with the hammer of truth and justice. Although the point here is that other films and TV programmes have allowed dissenting opinions to be expressed, there is still a lack of balance to the overall film.

Mention is made of the miners who crossed the picket line and faced (in some cases, still face) derision and ostracisation from their communities, but yet we hear nothing of their experiences or even if the filmmakers had tried to include them. This could however form the basis of another film itself as producer Lacey commented, there are hundreds more tales to tell from this one point in our history.

Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton (2013)

Directors: Stephen Silha, Eric Slade, Dawn Logsdon. Frisky Divinity.

DOCUMENTARY 

 

 

Cast & credits

Producer: Stephen Silha et al
Camera: Ian Hinkle.
Music: Evan Schiller, Jami Sieber.

James Broughton, Armistead Maupin, Anna Halprin, Keith Hennessy, Davey Havok (voice only).

Synopsis

What or who is Big Joy? Big Joy is James Broughton, pioneer of experimental cinema in the 1940s, and trickster poet who was a precursor to the beat movement in San Francisco. BIG JOY is a documentary that explores the twists and turns in the life of a very colorful character, plus how art has the power to save lives and make the world a better place. Broughton is a role model of living one’s life to the fullest, or “follow your own weird” as he called it. BIG JOY features interviews with experts, colleagues, friends and lovers, plus images from his films, and the words of many of his poems.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)

Director: Werner Herzog

DOCUMENTARY

 

Producers: Erik Nelson. Writer: Werner Herzog. Camera: Peter Zeitlinger. Music: Ernst Reijseger.

Werner Herzog.

SYNOPSIS

Notorious German film-maker Herzog gained exclusive, but limited, access to the Chauvet caves in Southern France, where the earliest known cave paintings in the world made by early man are located. Herzog weaves into the description of how these paintings were made his own musings on the nature of artistic expression and human nature itself and he interviews some of the unconventional scientists, historians and enthusiasts who work to throw some light on this important marker of the ascent of man.

REVIEW

These days Herzog is almost the total auteur film-maker, usually directing, writing, starring (narrating) and even producing his own motion pictures. If he had more hands, he would probably handle the camera on his own and even compose his own music.

This could be for matters of technical feasibility, for Herzog is a powerhouse of film production. With 11 feature length films or documentaries in the past 10 years, plus short subjects of his own or for other projects, it certainly makes it easier to get your films made if you do most of the work yourself.  Or it could be that there are fewer people left willing to work with a director famed for his physically demanding shoots (his frequent and equally intense collaborator Klaus Kinski is long since dead).

This project is less gruelling than having native Amazonian Indians hauling a 320 tonne steamship up a mountain (for Fitzcarraldo, 1982), but one still remarks at the achievement of the film-maker under extremely tight filming conditions – Herzog was limited to a total team of three people (including himself), had no longer than one hour to film when inside the cave and had to use special lights that emitted no heat. Herzog’s meticulously clear narration explains why but one senses he might also be enjoying punishing himself, by making a production within the confines of the scientist’s conditions, as well as the location.

It is that otherworldly, alien voice of his that is completely in keeping with the dreamy and slightly odd tone of the film – the barmy but amusing group of professionals who tend to and study the remarkable paintings that adorn the cave help make this come alive more than the actual pre-history art. They sniff out potential new caves that could contain other Palaeolithic treasures and model clothes (apparently the height of fashion 30,000 years ago) whilst playing the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ on a recreation flute of the era. Herzog gently needles them during his interviews into revealing their rather strange obsessions.

It is no wonder then that during the more scientific bits the film sags greatly and reveals its great weakness – this is a technical, overlong history lesson, unaccountably filmed in 3-D (but all kudos to Herzog for, amazingly, managing to ride this cinematic wave). Chauvet’s stunning interior may smack Cheddar Gorge into a National Trust corner, but after 30 minutes of amazement, it was clearly time to head back to the café by way of the gift shop.