Category: Documentary

By Joe Bendel. The opening lyrics of the Ukrainian National Anthem make a fitting commencement for any film on the Euromaidan demonstrations and the subsequent Russian aggression: “Ukraine’s glory has not yet perished, nor has her freedom. Upon us fellow patriots, fate shall smile once more.” Let’s be frank, most of the media now considers Ukraine’s freedom a lost cause and the lame duck administration no longer has anything to say on the issue. Yet, when the Ukrainians unite in common purpose, they are a resilient force. Sergei Loznitsa captures his countrymen’s collective spirit in the direct cinema documentary Maidan, which opens this Friday in New York.

Kiev’s central city square is currently known as Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square. It was previously known as Soviet Square, Kalinin Square (in honor of Stalin loyalist Mikhail Kalinin), and the Square of the October Revolution—and it might be so renamed again if deposed President Viktor Yanukovych and his Russian masters have their way. In late 2013, outraged Ukrainians took to the square, protesting Yanukovych’s decision to reject an association agreement with the EU, in accordance with Moscow’s wishes. Protests did indeed erupt in Maidan, the scene of many Orange Revolution demonstrations following Yanukovych’s suspect election in 2004, but it was far from the “pogrom” Putin suggested. Loznitsa has the footage to prove it.

In a way, it is too bad the Euromaidan movement advocates freedom and closer ties with the west, because Loznitsa’s documentary could have been the greatest socialist film ever made. Arguably, no other film so powerfully conveys the spirit of collective action and a sense of individuals dedicating themselves to a larger cause. There are many long takes and wide angle crowd shots, but Loznitsa and his fellow cameraman Serhiy Stefan Stetsenko capture the tenor of the time quite viscerally.

Loznitsa never focuses on representative POV figures, maintaining a macro perspective throughout. Nevertheless, we can easily observe the trends and magnitude of the situation from his vantage points. At first, there is very much a sense that things will change, much as it did in 2004. We see the volunteers making sandwiches and distributing tea to regular Sunday night demonstrators. A gullible media largely accepted Putin’s smears at face value, but it is hard to imagine a neo-fascist movement would dispatch four volunteers to make sure nobody slipped on a spot of spilled water in the lobby.

Tragically, Yanukovych would unleash the Interior Ministry’s Berkut forces in January. At this point the audience can clearly see how unscripted Loznitsa’s film truly was, as either the director or his co-cinematographer is caught in a tear gas attack. They maintain the same long fixed approach, but the pleas for medical personnel to come to the stage area to treat the collected wounded speaks volumes about the old regime. Not to be spoilery (unless you work at a major network, you should already know this ends rather badly), but Loznitsa concludes the film with a funeral for two fallen activists, which is absolutely emotionally devastating, even without a personal entry-point character to concentrate on.

Still, the individual stories of Maidan supporters desperately need to be heard, which is why Dmitriy Khavin’s Quiet in Odessa is such a timely and valuable film. Since there is almost no supplemental context in Loznitsa’s Maidan it is best seen in conjunction with a film like Khavin’s. However, it has the virtue of presenting events as they happened and allowing the audience to draw their own conclusions. Highly recommended for anyone seeking an immersive understanding of Ukraine’s Euromaidan movement, Loznitsa’s Maidan opens this Friday (12/12) in New York, at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.

(The international film community should also note that Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov is still being held incommunicado in Russia, on trumped-up terrorism charges, awaiting his day in kangaroo court. Along with Loznitsa’s Maidan and Khavin’s Odessa, film programmers ought to consider scheduling Sentsov’s politically neutral Gaamer to raise awareness for his plight.)

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on December 9th, 2014 at 8:23pm.

By Joe Bendel. It is the story of one father, two families, and Two Chinas. Learning of the family her late Nationalist general father abandoned to the abuse and oppression of Maoist China, artist Lily Yeh would return in his stead, hoping to make peace with the spirit of his first wife. Her emotional journey is documented in Glenn Holstein & son Daniel Traub’s The Barefoot Artist, which opens this Friday in New York.

Raised in Taiwan, Yeh came to America as an art student, married a man named Traub, and became an American citizen. Eventually, her entire family naturalized, at least those that she knew of. As her father’s health started to fail, he became wracked with remorse over the fate of the wife he divorced to marry her socially connected mother.

Yeh does indeed learn being the ex-wife, daughter, and sons of an absconded KMT officer was agonizingly difficult during the Cultural Revolution. Yet, somehow his first wife bore her fate with dignity. Yeh will experience some heavy personal drama, but it is not clear whether she picks up on the wider lesson regarding the danger of rampant ideology coupled with unchecked state power.

Clearly, the most potent sequences in Barefoot follow Yeh’s humbling trip to China, but the film also spends considerable time watching her work. Essentially, her program is bringing public art to distressed places. Where we might think the downtrodden of the world are most in need of food or constitutional guarantees of the freedoms of expression and worship, Yeh would suggest what they could really use is a little color.

Based on the film’s footage, her prescription seems to be most effective in place like the Rwandan survivors’ community, where her projects become part of a wider effort to bear witness and memorialize lost ones. Wisely, Holstein & Traub only mention the so-called “Palestinian” so-called “refugee camp” she spruced up in passing, thereby avoiding inconvenient questions like just what would happen if an openly gay or non-Muslim resident tried to participate in the project.

Ultimately, the two sides of Barefoot are so fundamentally unequal, it is impossible to balance them. In China, we see up-close-and-personal how micro choices and macro events in tandem can lead to profound suffering. Yet, in a way, her public art literally white-washes over the resulting legacies of pain. Essentially, Barefoot Artist is half of a good documentary that never really becomes fully self-aware. For Yeh’s admirers and those fascinated by her family’s story, The Barefoot Artist opens this Friday (12/5) in New York, at the IFC Center.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on December 2nd, 2014 at 1:00pm.

By Joe Bendel. Anyone with a little bit of jazz, blues, and Afro-Cuban music under their belts should be ready to accept the notion that most music with a real rhythmic kick has the “Same Mother,” to quote the title of Jason Moran’s deep blues influenced 2004 release. Yet they seem to have trouble with the idea in Argentina and Uruguay. Parisian expatriate tango-jazz pianist Juan Carlos Cáceres returns to his native Argentina to promote awareness of the music’s African origins in Dom Pedro’s Tango Negro: the African Roots of Tango, which screens during the 2014 African Diaspora International Film Festival in New York.

Blessed with incredible technique, Cáceres has become a leading expert on tango, especially its earliest manifestations. As in Brazil and many other Latin American countries, great numbers of African slaves were brought to Argentina against their will. Retaining elements of their pre-bondage culture, they developed musical forms not so very different from Cuban rumba. However, subsequent waves of overwhelmingly white immigration from Europe would radically change the country’s demographics. Just as the composition of Argentina changes, so too did the character of tango.

Frankly, it is hard to fathom how this could be controversial because it seems so self-evident. By the same token, one could argue the film does not give European immigrants proper credit for making tango what it is today. It is an elegant form of music and dance wholly distinct from traditional Afro-Cuban forms. Arguably, the description of tango quoted in the film as the synthesis of three sadnesses, as experienced by the immigrant, the gaucho, and the disenfranchised African gets at the essence in a fully inclusive way.

There are some enjoyable performances in TN, including features spots for Cáceres and various neo-traditional ensembles. It makes a logical cinematic pairing with Arístides Falcón Paradí’s Rumba Clave Blen Blen Blen, but it is more self-consciously pursuing a mission, whereas RCBBB is more interested in celebrating musical camaraderie. (If you only see one of the music docs at the festival, chose the rumba, because camaraderie is more fun.)

TN offers some nice music and solid scholarship, but it sees more opposition to its case than the audience does. Regardless, if you want to hear tango performed with uncharacteristic percussion, it is the film for you. Recommended for tango enthusiasts, Tango Negro screens this Friday (12/5) and the following Tuesday (12/9) as part of this year’s ADIFF New York.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on November 30th, 2014 at 7:32pm.

Rumba Clave Blen Blen Blen | Teaser from colorbox on Vimeo.

By Joe Bendel. Forget Arthur Murray’s bastardization of the bolero-son. This is the real rumba. Think “The Peanut Vendor,” pre-Stan Kenton. It is a dance and a rhythm and maybe even a philosophy of life. Arístides Falcón Paradí surveys all manifestations of rumba, tracing its journey from Africa to Cuba and on to New York in Rumba Clave Blen Blen Blen, which screens during the 2014 African Diaspora International Film Festival in New York.

You had better believe rhythm and percussion are important to Afro-Cuban music. Those who have not had at least a beginner’s introduction to Afro-Latin jazz (Trueba’s Calle 54 being a nice place to start) might not realize how sophisticated the music really is. It can also be wonderfully earthy, even though it has distant roots in sacred music.

Falcón Paradí explores rumba from both perspectives, celebrating the virtuosity of rumba musicians and its enduring popularity, particularly within the Cuban-American community. In fact, if there is one defining event for RCBBB, it would arguably be Mariel. Without it, Falcón Paradí would not have had nearly as many interview participants.

The doc features some big name musicians, most notably including the revered Candido Camero, considered by many the preeminent jazz conguero, still going strong in his nineties. With at least 2,000 recording credits, Camero (or just plain Candido, as many know him) is clearly the dean of RCBBB, but it is still tough to beat the effortless cool radiated by Jerry González, probably still best known for his work with the Fort Apache Brass Band. However, the late, great Orlando “Puntilla” Ríos largely serves as the film’s Obi-wan, carrying a disproportionate share of the on-screen commentary with authority and charm.

From time to time, RCBBB looks backward at rumba history, especially Chano Pozo’s legendary collaborations with Dizzy Gillespie that more or less constitute Latin Jazz’s creation story. Yet, despite his background as a CCNY faculty member, Falcón Paradí is more interested in putting the music in an everyday listener’s context. We get a sense of where the music is played and the lack of a rigid hierarchy demarcating artist from audience. Still, he recognizes interesting material when it arises. Several times he asks about the role played by the Abakua, the secret Cuban fraternal mutual aid society in the development of the music, getting evasive responses like “hmm, maybe for the next documentary.” At least he asked.

In fact, the extent to which Falcón Paradí is welcomed into the Rumba scene really tells you what you need to know about the communal nature of the music. Granted, in a politically focused documentary, a lack of editorial distance is highly problematic, but in this case, it just means he is invited to the party along with everyone else. Striking a good balance between scholarship and a jam session hang, Rumba Clave Blen Blen Blen is recommended for all fans of danceable music when it screens this Monday (12/1) as part of this year’s ADIFF New York.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on November 28th, 2014 at 12:55pm.

FLAMENCO trailer from Dada Films on Vimeo.

By Joe Bendel. Carlos Saura is sort of like the Busby Berkeley of flamenco and other traditional Iberian musical forms, except he stages musical numbers with Spartan elegance. There will be no talking whatsoever, just singing, dancing, and playing in his latest intimate musical performance film. Saura follows up his 1995 art house hit Flamenco with the aptly titled Flamenco, Flamenco, which opens this Friday in New York.

Saura will not even cheapen his visually gorgeous film with a lot of inter-titles identifying the many accomplished musicians making up his all-star flamenco ensembles. In a way, that is unfortunate for them, because their performances would make converts out of any non-fan who just happened to wander into Flamenco-squared. Indeed, the Flamenco choreography framed by Saura and revered cinematographer Vittorio Storaro is particularly cinematic, emphasizing the dancers’ long vertical lines and their whirling garments.

There is no question Saura is one of the best filmmakers in the world when it comes to capturing dance on film. He also has an intuitive sense of how to best use the inherent tension of flamenco percussion. Although flamenco costuming is traditionally rather modest, several of the younger singers and dancer convey quite a bit of passion through their performances. However, when María Bala steps forward for her solo, the audience is transported to the Andalusian caves.

In terms of quality, Flamenco, Flamenco is remarkably consistent, but there are still notable standouts. Surprisingly, one of the best is a two piano duet for Dorantes and Diego Amador. They both have spectacular technique, but what really distinguishes “Cartagenera y Bulerías” is just the sheer contagious fun they are having playing together.

This time around, Saura’s approach will be somewhat controversial for purists, because he includes several younger, fusionistic performers, such as Rocío Molina. However, when she dances “Garrotín” with a cigarillo clenched in her lips, she looks like she could have been Bizet’s inspiration for Carmen. Yet perhaps the most striking choreography comes on the sacred-themed “Holy Week,” which also stretches our conceptions of flamenco in a different way.

Shot entirely within the Seville Pavilion for 1992 Expo, F-F has a real sense of flowing space, accentuated by Storaro’s swooping camera that often matches the dancers’ dramatic moves. At times, Saura uses gallery motifs for his backdrops, but he often just employs warm primary colors to set-off the performers. Aside from his previous films (such as Tango and Fados), the most logical comparative would be Trueba’s Calle 54, which is high praise indeed. A rich feast for eyes and ears alike, Flamenco, Flamenco is highly recommended for general audiences, whether they think they like flamenco or not, when it opens this Friday (11/21) in New York at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on November 17th, 2014 at 7:48pm.