Category: Documentary

By Joe Bendel. There are those who use the term “right of return” as a holy mantra, but if it were ever granted to the Jewish diaspora in every country that ever dispossessed their Jewish citizenry, nearly all of Europe and the Middle East would face serious legal implications. However, at least one nation would readily welcome them back. That would be Poland, which has embraced its Jewish history in recent years, even though its Jewish population remains small. Nevertheless, there are a significant number of Poles who belatedly learned of their families’ secret Jewish heritage in the post-Communist era. In very different ways, four such women will chose to embrace their Jewish roots in Adam Zucker’s The Return, which screens during the American Museum of Natural History’s 2014 Margaret Mead Film Festival.

During the National Socialist occupation, anyone whose family was the smallest part Jewish had every reason to keep it secret. The circumstances were somewhat less dire under Communism, but it is important to remember the atheistic Party periodically launched its own anti-Semitic campaigns. However, in a modern Poland shaped by Walesa and Wajda, attitudes are dramatically different. In one scene, we see a long abandoned provincial synagogue with the words “Jews, we miss you” scrawled across it, in a weird but affecting graffiti tribute.

Tusia and her boyfriend are scouting that building, hoping they can repurpose it into some sort nonprofit that will serve both the local town and pay tribute to those who once worshipped there. However, their future is uncertain, because they both feel the lure of Bushwick, Brooklyn (there’s no accounting for taste). In fact, all four women profiled share a common dilemma. Do they stay in Poland to rebuild the Jewish community or do they go abroad for the sake of their families and careers? Both Kasia, a leftwing activist, and Maria (who alone among Zucker’s subjects was born and bred Orthodox) find the grass is greener in Israel, either for academic research or raising children. Similarly, Katka, a Slovakian Orthodox convert, will debate where she should pursue her studies.

One of the great ironies of Return is the sort of ambiguous state Kasia and those whose mothers were not Jewish find themselves in. While not technically considered Jewish, they would have been more than Jewish enough to be persecuted under the previous regimes. It is a thorny question that the Kasia and Katka resolve in their own ways.

Together with films like 100 Voices: a Journey Home, Return presents a more complete portrait of the tolerant, modern day Poland that deeply mourns its Jewry lost to National Socialism and further repressed by Soviet Socialism. It even has some celebrity cachet, thanks to Matisyahu, whose performance at the Krakow JCC clearly held a great deal of personal significance for the performer. However, the film’s POV figures are maybe not as consistently riveting as one might hope. Nonetheless, it is a laudably optimistic film that offers a lot of helpful context and food for thought. Respectfully recommended, The Return screens this Saturday (10/25), as part of this year’s Margaret Mead Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on October 23rd, 2014 at 3:50pm.

TheGoldSpinnersTrailer2 from Taskovski Films on Vimeo.

By Joe Bendel. He was Soviet Estonia’s Don Draper, the only Mad Man operating in a barking mad system. Thanks to a unique set of circumstances, his Esti Reklaamfilm (ERF) Studio prospered nicely as the only production house for television commercials in the USSR. Peedu Ojamaa looks back on his strange but groovy career in Hardi Volmer & Kiur Aarma’s The Gold Spinners, which screens as part of the 2014 UN Association Film Festival in the Stanford area.

Ojamaa started at as a cub reporter, transitioning into newsreel production, specializing in uncommonly watchable reports, at least by the admittedly dismal standards of the Soviet media. Of course, Estonians were familiar with the TV commercial as a concept, because they were furtively watching Finnish broadcasts (by all means, see Aarma’s even more rollicking Disco and Atomic War for the full glorious story).

Why oh why, would a Socialist Workers’ Paradise need something as crassly capitalistic as the commercial spot? To help perpetuate certain illusions, such as the non-existent demand for some state-mandated products. Conversely, even though scarcities like butter and sugar would immediately sell-out anyway, ERF’s commercials created a false image of plenty.

Arguably, Ojamaa became the first crony capitalist when Soviet planners, in their infinite wisdom, declared one percent of all state enterprises’ annual budgets had to be spent on advertising. As a result, ERF probably produced spots for products that never really existed—and the likely examples are pretty incredible to behold. Frankly, many of ERF’s commercials are considerably more entertaining than Super Bowl ads, like animator Priit Pärn’s energy conservation PSA. While prudish Party censors maintained a tight rein on programming, ERF was also apparently “free” to pursue the old adage “sex sells,” so parents be warned.

Granted, there is a good deal of nostalgia for the work ERF produced, but no illusions regarding the corruption and inefficiency of the Soviet Socialist system. One might say, Volmer and Aarma treat the Communist era with the irony it deserves. Regardless, the impish humor of both the film and the commercials it documents are quite winning.

Indeed, Spinners has the same punchy editing, subversive humor, upbeat soundtrack, and wickedly insightful cultural-political history that made Disco such a blast. Aarma and his collaborators on both films prove documentaries can be wildly entertaining and enormously informative at the same time. Very highly recommended, The Gold Spinners screens this Sunday (10/26) as part of session 29 of this year’s UNAFF.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on October 22nd, 2014 at 8:31pm.

By Joe Bendel. It is sort of like ethnographic research for the campfire. Indigenous filmmaker Warwick Thornton invited Australians to submit stories about their interactions with the spirit world as part of a larger oral history project with an aboriginal focus. However, the results were not always as spooky as he expected. Family and loss are the primary themes of the thirteen tales re-told by screen-actors in The Darkside, Thornton’s documentary by monologue, which screens during the American Museum of Natural History’s 2014 Margaret Mead Film Festival.

Like nearly every anthology film, Darkside is a bit uneven, but Thornton, serving as his own cinematographer, always gives his static shots a warm eerie glow befitting the subject matter. By far the scariest story (and the one most riveting to watch) chronicles the tragedy wrought on the narrator’s family by a cast-off Ouija board. Occasionally, Thornton breaks format, as when he pans and scans the darkened corridors of the National Film and Sound Archive. Another more traditionally creepy tale of the supernatural, it should particularly interest AMNH patrons, since it involves poet Romaine Moreton’s brush with the malevolent spirit of Sir Colin Mackenzie, the notorious director of the discredited Australian Institute of Anatomy, whose building was repurposed to serve as the film archive.

For fans of 1980s movies, it is quite amusing to see Bryan Brown turn up as one of the storytellers, but his yarn does not have the archetypal weight of the better installments. Easily, the most emotionally resonant tale is logically the final chapter, whereas the penultimate segment features the liveliest delivery. Oddly, the weakest anecdote, a mere sketch about a traditional aboriginal grandfather’s response to a lunar eclipse apparently inspired the one-sheet, but at least most of the constituent ghost stories hold some sort of deeper cultural significance.

Executed with tremendous sensitivity, Darkside is a quiet film that takes its time finding its footing, with some of the earlier stories feeling like warm-ups for the heavier stuff to follow. It is a bit unusual to have a Margaret Mead selection that is so appropriate for Halloween programming, but its concern for indigenous people and oral history nicely fits the festival’s mission. More elegiac than scary overall, The Darkside is recommended for viewers interested in indigenous Australian culture and the ghost story-telling tradition when it screens this coming Sunday (10/26) at the American Museum of Natural History as part of this year’s Margaret Mead Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on October 22nd, 2014 at 8:30pm.

By Joe Bendel. Many of them sound more like telenovelas than soap operas, but whatever you call them, Turkish television serial melodramas are doing boffo business internationally. Bulgaria and Greece are important markets, but the popularity of Turkish television has exploded in the Middle East. Greek filmmaker Nina Maria Paschalidou documents the progressive influence of Turkey’s primetime soaps in Kismet, which screens during the American Museum of Natural History’s 2014 Margaret Mead Film Festival.

Only in the Middle East could a series about a sultan and his harem be considered liberal and progressive. That would definitely be the awkward case study in Kismet. A far better example is Fatmagul, an extraordinary bold drama following a woman’s quest to bring her three rapists to justice. In the Islamist world, that is explosive stuff. Other shows frankly address issues such as arranged marriages to child brides, spousal abuse, and genital mutilation, inspiring women to speak out and even seek divorces. Not surprisingly, one misogynistic bureaucrat in the Emirates’ Department of Religious Affairs launches into quite a tirade against Turkish television (it goes without saying, but if your government has some sort of Department of Religion, you probably live in a theocratic fever-swamp).

Paschalidou profiles the fans who watch the programming, the cast-members they adore, and the creative staff (often led by women) who put them together and keep them going. While the strongest sequences focus on the Middle Eastern market, she also interviews fans in Bulgaria and Greece (where there is also growing resentment of Turkish programming, not for ideological reasons, but simply due to its Turkishness).

Frankly, Kismet’s execution will not blow anyone away, but the premise is fascinating. Paschalidou vividly illustrates her points with film clips shrewdly selected for their taboo-breaking content and their inherent theatricality. You are unlikely to see any of these shows picked up by American broadcasters anytime soon, for a variety of reasons. Still, a program like Fatmagul really ought to be available to some extent, just for the way it uncompromisingly reflects the violence and exploitation of women endured by women in the Middle East (and the greater Islamic world).

Having received production support from Al Jazeera and clocking in at about an hour, Kismet definitely has the feel of a television special report, albeit one of reasonable depth and substance. However, you are unlikely to see the hidebound news media tackle this subject, so intrigued viewers should see it now. Recommended for patrons concerned about global women’s rights, Kismet screens this Friday (10/24) at the AMNH, as part of this year’s Margaret Mead Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on October 22nd, 2014 at 7:47pm.

By Joe Bendel. It is pretty heavy when an atheist Marxist confesses nostalgia for the Shah of Iran. Nahid Persson Sarvestani does not express such a sentiment in those exact terms, but she comes close, readily arguing that the Islamist regime that followed the Shah’s secular authoritarian rule turned out to be far, far worse. Essentially establishing the Islamist-theocratic corollary to the Kirkpatrick Doctrine, Persson Sarvestani collects the harrowing oral history of several former comrades in My Stolen Revolution, which screens as part of the 2014 UN Association Film Festival in the Stanford area.

As a teenager, Persson Sarvestani was an ardent leftist, who had no qualms about joining forces with the Islamic fundamentalists against the Shah. In retrospect, this was a mistake. She ruefully admits the Islamists had superior organization, which launched them into power when Carter pulled the rug out from under our ally the Shah. Soon, the new regime was imprisoning and torturing proven troublemakers like Persson Sarvestani. Although she was able to get out of the country while the getting was good, her younger brother was executed in her place.

Long nurturing an acute case of survivor’s guilt, Persson Sarvestani sought out several revolutionary comrades who were not so fortunate, in the hope they could offer some insight regarding her brother’s final days. However, the reunion with her former cadre leader does not go so well. Persson Sarvestani is appalled to find the good leftist has found solace in the Muslim faith she once rejected. For Persson Sarvestani, that is a deal-breaker.

Fortunately, the subsequent colleagues she tracks down have remained reasonably true to their ideals. Instead of a misogynistic religion, they take comfort in art. Unlike Persson Sarvestani they saw the insides of Iran’s political prisons and lived to tell about it—barely. Indeed, most of the women are dealing with the lingering pain and physical ailments caused by the extreme torture they endured.

Their stories are so harrowing it is no exaggeration to say Persson Sarvestani’s experiences pale in comparison. She is clearly just as aware of this as viewers will be, yet there is still an awful lot of her throughout the film. When she invites her new friends on a retreat to share their testimony, the film would have been better served if she had just stepped out of the way, rather than making such a point of grappling with her own feelings.

Nevertheless, the women’s individual indictments of the Revolutionary regime are powerful stuff. Of course, the ruling ideology and theocratic state apparatus responsible for the physical and psychological torture of sixteen year old girls remains unchanged. Despite a few video diary indulgences, My Stolen Revolution is a timely and valuable film. Recommended for viewers concerned about international women’s rights, it screens this Saturday (10/25) in Palo Alto, as part of session 25 of this year’s UNAFF.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on October 22nd, 2014 at 7:46pm.

By Joe Bendel. As a one-time member of the first-call studio ensemble, the Wrecking Crew, Glen Campbell could definitely play. His livelihood depended on it. That musical prowess will not abandon Campbell, even when he faces the early and intermediate stages of Alzheimer’s. His “Goodbye Tour” will be a tense high-wire act for his family and sidemen, but there will be moments that justify the stress. James Keach documents the good times and mounting frustrations on-stage and behind-the-scenes in Glen Campbell I’ll Be Me, which opens this Friday in New York.

For those who only know “Rhinestone Cowboy” in a rather condescending way, Keach does a nice job encapsulating Campbell career in the film’s opening minutes. He and his fourth wife Kim (a former Rockette) will soon get the unambiguous confirmation of his Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Even at this early stage, it is clear she understands the implications far better than he. In fact, Kim Campbell is really the protagonist of I’ll Be Me more than her husband, because she is the one who will take the responsibility and do the work, with the help of their grown children Ashley, Cal, and Shannon, who are also regular members of Campbell’s band.

Despite the risks, the Campbells decide to embark on one last tour, as a way to give longtime fans a sense of closure. In the early going, performing also seems to have a therapeutic benefit for Campbell. The shows are generally quite good, but there are always awkward moments that will become more frequent over time.

In many ways, I’ll Be Me is the equal inverse film of Alan Hicks’ Keep on Keepin’ On, documenting Clark Terry’s continuing dedication to his student while his physical health precipitously declines. Terry’s body might be failing him, but he remains a supportive and insightful music teacher and mentor. On the other hand, Campbell is still strong as a bull, but his brain chemistry is betraying him.

By its very nature, I’ll Be Me asks just what performers owe to their fans and vice versa. Like most real musicians, Campbell during happier days would probably have said he owed them everything and they owed him nothing. Yet, the way the fans pick him up and cover for his rough patches during the later dates is rather touching. So too are bonds shared by Campbell, his wife, and their children. In fact, I’ll Be Me could very well launch Ashley Campbell as a chart-topper in her own right. Yes, she is photogenic, but she can also play like a chip off the block.

In any documentary closely chronicling sickness and tribulation, there is always the risk of confusing exploitation with intimacy. Keach always stays on the right side of the line, showing enough for reality to hit home, but never intruding into the truly ugly moments. Sensitive to all concerned but still honest to the circumstances, he largely redeems himself for helming the misguidedly cloying Waiting for Forever. Recommended for fans of Campbell and fans of his fans (such as Jimmy Webb, Sheryl Crow, and Taylor Swift), Glen Campbell I’ll Be Me opens this Friday (10/24) in New York at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on October 21st, 2014 at 11:50pm.