Category: Documentary

By Joe Bendel. Being the subject of documentaries runs in the Vreeland family. Celebrated Vogue editor Diana Vreeland’s career was chronicled in her own doc, Diana Vreeland: the Eye has to Travel and she logically played a part in films by Bruce Weber and about Bert Stern. Through her influence, her photographer grandson Nicholas apprenticed with Richard Avedon and Irving Penn, but instead of following in her footsteps, he charted his own course as a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Vreeland’s life and complicated relationship to the worldly discipline of photography are explored in Guido Santi & Tina Mascara’s Monk with a Camera, which opens this Friday in New York.

Typically, young men of Vreeland’s background either become playboys or elite public servants, like his ambassador father. He was well along his way to the former, considerably aided by his precocious talent for photography. Meeting models was never a problem for him, but a chance introduction to Khyongla Rato Rinpoche changed his life.  Through the spiritual instruction of his lifelong teacher, Vreeland found the meaning he had been seeking.

Although the Tibetan exile initially discouraged him from taking robes, Vreeland’s calling would not be denied. It helped when his cameras were stolen, thereby eliminating such distracting influences. However, his brother gave him a replacement as a going away gift, should inspiration later strike him. Years later, necessity would serve that function while spearheading a relatively ambitious fundraising drive to expand the growing Rato Monastery, his teacher’s former home. As a Vreeland, he still had plenty of well-healed contacts, but the financial crisis threw a spanner in the works. However, sales of his striking photographs successfully covered the sudden shortfalls. Such resourcefulness even impressed His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

There are plenty of lessons to learn from Vreeland’s story, starting with the obvious inclusiveness of Tibetan Buddhism. While he might have engendered understandable skepticism when formally beginning his journey, clearly no racial resentment or class warfare prejudices hampered his acceptance in the cloistered community. It also suggests art can serve sacred causes as well as worldly desires. Indeed, his work shows a keenly humane eye for the bustling hardscrabble life around the monastery and throughout India.

For a film so focused on the spiritual life, Camera is surprisingly lively. Santi and Mascara captured some highly significant milestones, but also incorporate plenty of quietly telling moments. Despite their vows, Vreeland and his colleagues are still very definitely engaged in the business of life. It is just a terrible shame that they cannot practice their religion in its traditional spiritual seat. Indeed, Camera is rather timely in a way, following the recent APEC summit, where our current lame duck apparently had nothing to say about the state of the Tibetan occupation, once again. Recommended for spiritual seekers and photography bugs alike, Monk with a Camera opens this Friday (11/21) at the Lincoln Center.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on November 17th, 2014 at 7:59pm.

KASAMAYAKI Trailer from YUKI KOKUBO on Vimeo.

By Joe Bendel. Katsuji and Shigeko Kokubo are a lot like the Shinoharas in Cutie and the Boxer, except they gave up their ambitions of conquering the American art world and returned to Japan. When they did, somehow they left their twelve year old daughter Yuki behind. If you are wondering how that worked, their grown filmmaker daughter will ask them directly when she documents her post 3/11 return to Japan in Kasamayaki, which screened during this year’s DOC NYC.

A stone’s throw from Fukushima, Kasama is a traditional rural artist colony, particularly known for its kasama-yaki style of pottery. At its finest, it approaches the sort of elegant and deceptively simple work the Ippodo Gallery often showcases. In recent years, the Kokubos largely support themselves through their pottery, but Katsuji had dreamed of making it as a painter.

Just what arrangements they made for their daughter when they slunk out of New York are never really explained. There is some vague talk about not wanting to take her out of school, but her mother clearly does not want to discuss it—and her father is just as obviously the junior partner when it comes to family decisions.

Frankly, Kasamayaki is a somewhat odd film, because it is outwardly quite placid and meditative, but there is a lot of emotional turmoil brewing below the surface. At times, the very act of filmmaking appears to be a deliberate strategy to keep Kokubo’s parents at arm’s length. However, those eager for some heartwarming Hallmark moments will at least get a bit of paternal rapprochement. There are also cats and dogs lazing all around the Kokubos’ converted farmhouse, which is always a plus for that audience.

Kasamayaki is much more about intimate family drama than documenting the realities of post-earthquake Fukushima, but there are a few telling time capsule moments, as when Kokubo’s father checks out one of the Geiger counters provided by the local government. Yet, despite it all, Kasama still looks like a lovely place to visit when seen through her lens.

Although small in scope, it is strangely absorbing, following in the tradition of intensely personal Japanese documentaries, represented by films like Mami Sunada’s Death of a Japanese Salesman and Yang Yonghi’s Dear Pyongyang. Recommended for those who appreciate Japanese pottery and the vérité aesthetic, Kasamyaki screened as part of DOC NYC 2014.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on November 17th, 2014 at 7:46pm.

The Chaperone 3D Trailer from Thoroughbread Pictures on Vimeo.

By Joe Bendel. It is a lot like School House Rock, but with rampaging bikers and Kung Fu. It incorporates retro hand drawn animation, stop motion, live action martial arts sequences, and exploding papier-mâché heads. It is also a documentary. Fraser Munden and co-director Neil Rathbone pretty much have it all in their thirteen minute true-story smackdown The Chaperone, which screens during this year’s DOC NYC.

Ralph Whims is a dedicated teacher and a natural bad-ass. To this day, he remains cult-famous in his Montreal neighborhood for the night he faced down a gang of bikers that crashed the youth social he was chaperoning. High and disorderly, the bikers were knowingly terrorizing the intimidated church kids, until Whims stepped up. He pretty much handled them Bruce Lee-style, but he got a timely assist from the DJ, Stefan Czernatowicz—and they have remained close friends ever since. It was the 1970s, this sort of thing happened back then.

Munden and Rathbone give an animated blow-by-blow of the encounter and it is pretty awesome. They also throw in all kinds of weird interludes and asides, including close-ups of the bikers’ heads going poof. (It’s a symbolically rendered poof.)  They create a wildly funky vibe through the appropriately funky soundtrack, the early ‘70s period details, and the massively cool attitude. However, with his narration, Whims also offers some darned practical advice to anyone facing down a pack of thugs. He knew how to handle himself, that’s for sure.

Nostalgia is rarely as action-packed as it is here. Pound-for-pound, second-by-second, The Chaperone has to be the most wildly entertaining film screening at DOC NYC. Highly recommended for fans of animation, exploitation teen films, and afterschool specials, The Chaperone screens before Rubble Kings this Sunday evening (11/16).

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on November 14th, 2014 at 6:11pm.

By Joe Bendel. Out of the eighty-eight total Olympic medals awarded for table tennis, China has won forty-seven and North Korea has won three, so do not expect the totalitarian-friendly IOC to drop the sport anytime soon. However, a young generation of players dream of winning the first American table tennis medal. Sara Newens & Mina T. Son follow three promising U.S. Olympic team hopefuls throughout the season leading up to the London Games in Top Spin, which screens during this year’s DOC NYC.

Ariel Hsing and Lily Zhang both live in North California and play an aggressive, attacking style of table tennis. Women’s championships often come down to the two of them. Currently, Hsing is number one, but it is always a pitched battle. Long Island’s Michael Landers is also a leading contender, but the odds might be a bit longer for him to secure a spot on the Olympic team. All three have sacrificed much of the traditional high school experience to pursue glory in the games, but Zhang seems to do a better job balancing a social life with her arduous competition schedule.

Right, so don’t call it ping pong. Clearly, all three young athletes train like mad. Newens and Son give viewers a good sense of the physically demanding work they do, as well as the considerable mental preparation required. Of course, they do it all solely with the Olympics in mind, since there is no professional table tennis circuit to speak of in America.

Happily for Newens and Son, the leading contenders are also highly engaging screen presences. It seems like they were born to be interviewed by Bob Costas. Their parents are also frequently seen throughout the film, coming across as unflaggingly supportive. According to the post-script, Hsing, Zhang, and Landers have all successfully transitioned to college life, so they obviously did something right. However, the film clearly implies the Zhangs gave greater priority to their daughter’s social development, which is a subject worthy of greater exploration.

Viewers definitely get a thorough understanding of the Olympic qualifying process from Top Spin, but it resists getting bogged down in micro-details. Frankly, the various ball-spin strategies remain utterly mysterious. However, Newens & Son were once again fortunate to have a relatively upbeat (if not necessarily Cinderella story) ending. Anyone who sees their documentary will follow table tennis at the 2016 Rio Games much more closely, looking for the return of familiar names to build on their London experience, which should make NBC delighted. Recommended for fans of the Olympics and scrappy underdogs, Top Spin screens this Saturday (11/15) as part of DOC NYC 2014.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on November 13th, 2014 at 1:50pm.

By Joe Bendel. It is not easy to recruit a theoretical mathematician to a small college nestled in the middle of nowhere. You would think the administration and the police would be somewhat alarmed when said math professor turned up missing. However, many of Dr. Steven Haataja’s friends and colleagues were troubled by a perceived lack of urgency during the early days of his disappearance. The mystery only deepened further when Haataja’s body was discovered. The case became the central strand of Poe Ballantine’s eccentric true crime ode to his adopted home town. Inspired by Ballantine’s pseudo-memoir, Dave Jannette’s investigates Chadron, Nebraska’s most notorious missing person case in Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere, which screens as a Midnight selection of this year’s DOC NYC.

Theoretical math is a young, socially awkward man’s game, so the forty-six year old Haataja was already over the hill when he arrived at Chadron State College. They were still lucky to have someone with his qualifications. In his short time in Chadron, Haataja seemed to be making friends, despite a history of depression. Then one day he vanished. Months later, he was discovered, bound to a tree and unrecognizably burnt to death. Naturally, the Chadron police eventually determined it was suicide.

Yes, Haataja’s hands were apparently free, but it still just did not add up correctly for Ballantine. In the film’s centerpiece sequence, the author retraces Haataja’s alleged final steps under similar below-freezing, nocturnal conditions, finding it hard going, even without a recently mended broken hip. Unfortunately, there will be no definitive closure, just more questions. There is also an awful lot of Ballantine and his family, who are all quite pleasant, but often feel like a bit of a distraction from the existential mystery at hand. Still, Ballantine obviously feels a kinship with Haataja as outsiders who found an unlikely home in off-the-beaten-path Chadron.

Jannette constantly plays up Chadron’s idiosyncratic characters, including some who have no apparent connection to the case, but look suitably exotic on camera. There seems to be an effort to play to the Twin Peaks audience, while leaving some issues underdeveloped. Frankly, the material presented in Howling raises a red flag regarding known victims of depression who subsequently die under suspicious circumstances. How diligently are they investigated or are they commonly dismissed as suicides for the sake of convenience?

Although it would be quite a tangent to follow-up on, it is also rather disconcerting when a colleague explains his attempt to interest The Chronicle of Higher Education in the then missing Haataja was rebuffed because they constantly received similar reports of vanishing academics. You have to wonder just how many of them really do “turn up later.” Nonetheless, his use of the local newspaper’s Police Beat is undeniably funny and in its way, quite telling.

There is something about the Haataja case that is hard to shake off. It festers in the subconscious, crying out for a conclusive verdict, but remains maddeningly obscure. There is also a lot of anger in Howling that is not misplaced. Better as a true crime expose than an exploration of local color, Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere is recommended on balance when it screens this Saturday night (11/15) as part of DOC NYC 2014.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on November 12th, 2014 at 3:13pm.

By Joe Bendel. For ten years and counting, second and even third generation exiles have competed in a beauty pageant to represent a country they have never lived in. That nation is Tibet, still held captive by their Chinese Communist occupiers. Obviously, this is no ordinary beauty contest. While their numbers are small, their consciousness is high. Documentarian Norah Shapiro follows Tibetan-American Tenzin Khecheo as she competes for the tenth annual Miss Tibet crown in Miss Tibet: Beauty in Exile, which screens during this year’s DOC NYC.

When most people think of Tibet, their mind’s eye pictures monasteries, temples, and snow-capped mountains—but glamor, no so much. Enterprising “impresario” Lobsang Wangyal sets out to change that with the Miss Tibet pageant, envisioning it as a means of empowering young women and providing a focal point for national pride. Despite his obvious slickness, the pageant seems to be taking hold, even though there is often controversy surrounding the swimsuit competition.

Much of Exile explores that tension between tradition and modernizing influences through Khecheo’s eyes. Initially insecure about her rusty Tibetan, she dramatically reconnects with her cultural heritage. One of the cool aspects of the Miss Tibet contest is the extent to which Tibetan music, customs, and history are integrated into the program. However, there are problems with the pageant that will come to light, adding a note of unexpected ambivalence to the third act (but be assured, all of the contestants are clearly a credit to Tibet).

In contrast, there is no equivocating in Exile when it comes to the realities of China’s occupation. Shapiro’s historical context might come from an illustrated children’s book (quite an elegant one, really), but it is still right on the money. In fact, part of the impetus for the pageant in general and Khecheo’s personal participation is to raise international awareness, since conventional protests have produced no results to speak of. Let’s be honest, how much do you think Obama had to say about Tibet during the APEC summit in China?

Khecheo’s personal development arc and the cultural synthesis the pageant represents are all strong stuff that easily sustain the relatively short (a hair under seventy minutes) Exile. Yet, it raises issues of double standards that could have been explored further. At one point, we learn a previous Miss Tibet might have been allowed to compete in an international pageant, but China insisted “Miss Tibet, China” must have been emblazoned on her sash. She refused. You wonder how often that sort of thing happens. For instance, if a fictitious country like “Palestine” is allowed to submit films for best foreign language Oscar consideration, Tibet should have the same right. Yet, if they put Pema Tseden’s latest film into contention, would the Academy accept it or bow to Chinese pressure? How many other such instances might there be?

Regardless, Exile does what it does quite well. It follows a highly engaging and likable POV figure in Khecheo through a surprisingly dramatic journey. Perhaps most valuably, it offers a fuller, more diverse picture of Tibetan identity, while also providing a timely reminder of Tibet’s captive nation status. Highly recommended, Miss Tibet: Beauty in Exile screens this Sunday (11/16) and Monday (11/17) as part of DOC NYC 2014.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on November 11th, 2014 at 7:52pm.