Category: Documentary

By Joe Bendel. It is hard to imagine how a parent could ever abandon two good kids like Mia and Alexandra, but China’s draconian One Child policy and the extreme rural poverty force people to do desperate things. At least they were each adopted into loving homes—that is, each of them separately. Evidently, the orphanage thought they stood a better chance of adoption individually, rather than as a package deal. However, through the intercession of fate, the sisters would maintain not just an awareness, but also a love for each other, despite living on opposite sides of the Earth. Mona Friis Bertheussen documents their indomitable bond in Twin Sisters, which airs this Monday as part of the current season of Independent Lens.

In 2003, the Hauglums from Norway and the Hansens from Sacramento came to China to adopt a baby girl. The Norwegian group was supposed to be gone by the time the American adoptees arrived, but events conspired to delay the Hauglums. Suddenly, they were amazed to see the Hansens holding a little girl, who was the spitting image of their Alexandra. Despite the orphanage’s denials, they exchanged contact information and eventually performed a DNA test, but it would hardly be necessary as the girls got older. Seriously, look at them.

Although there are cultural and linguistic barriers, both girls grow up feeling a deep connection to each, even though they had never really met. Eventually, the parents arrange to visit each other and are rather staggered by the girls’ similar mannerisms and personalities.

Obviously, the twins’ situation is imperfect, since they would dearly wish to live together, but their respective parents are good people, who do the best they can. Frankly, that is quite nice to see in a documentary, for a change. For sociologists, there is probably plenty of nature versus nurture grist as well, but most viewers will just be charmed by the sweet tempered girls themselves.

Cheers to Bertheussen for making Sisters, because its European festival screenings served as another catalyst to bring together the twins. However, there is a conspicuous lack of follow-up with respects to the orphanage. Many viewers might like to see her try to get some bureaucrat there to admit on-camera they flat-out lied, as the Hansens and Hauglums can prove. Instead, she maintains her focus on the families, preferring a humanist vibe over potential confrontations.

Consequently, Twin Sisters is a sensitive film that borders on outright feel-goodism. Bertheussen’s young subjects are more than engaging enough to sustain the film, convincing viewers China’s loss will be America and Norway’s considerable gains. Recommended for those in search of wholesome family viewing, Twin Sisters airs this Monday (10/20) on most PBS outlets nationwide.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on October 20th, 2014 at 9:22pm.

By Joe Bendel. In the final twenty minutes Wachtang “Botso” Korisheli was allowed to see his father, the prominent Georgian actor imparted the life lessons that would later guide a disproportionate number of his Morro Bay students to careers as professional musicians. He also sculpts. With the help of Korisheli’s students and alumni, Tom Walters celebrates Korisheli, the teacher, artist, and father in Botso: The Teacher from Tblisi, which opened this Friday in New York.

At one time, Platon Korisheli and his family were held in high esteem by Stalin, but that tragically changed. Growing up as the child of an enemy of the state was not easy. Having served as a trench digger in the Red Army, a particularly dangerous and menial duty assignment reserved for conscripts of his status, Korisheli tenaciously made his way west after the war.

While fate and the Soviet State would deny Korisheli a reunion with his mother, he forged a teaching career and started a family in Morro Bay, California. Like Korisheli’s grown son before them, his young adopted daughters are amongst his most promising music students. Probably the most celebrated Korisheli graduates are Kent Nagano, the Grammy winning music director of the Orchestre Symphonie de Montréal, as well as his sister, pianist Joan Nagano, and cousin Nancy Nagano, the San Luis Obispo Symphony’s principal cellist. The tradition continues with Nagano’s ten year old daughter, who is among the notable soloists at Botso Fest, the gala reunion concert featuring Korisheli’s former students.

Over ninety years old himself, Korisheli is clearly doing something right. Walters and writer-co-producer Hillary Roberts Grant caught the big moments, like Botso Fest and his emotional return to Georgia after decades away. However, the best scenes capture Korisheli working with students. We can readily see he is a dynamic but supportive instructor, who helps his young charges connect with the soul of the music. Contrasting sessions recorded five years earlier with recent lessons, Walters also demonstrates the sort of commitment Korisheli inspires in his students and documentarians alike.

Botso is a very nice film that offers some timely lessons on the importance of musical education and the grim legacy of Communism. Strangely though, Walters never really gives us a big musical crescendo, cutting away and truncating the Botso Fest command performance, featuring young Miss Nagano (who clearly did her delighted teacher proud). Nor does he ever ask Korisheli about the state of contemporary Georgia, particularly with respect to Russian military belligerence (arguably a bit of an oversight, given the way recent history has repeated in Ukraine). Nonetheless, it is well worth viewers’ time to meet Mr. Korisheli and listen to his story of hope and music. Warmly recommended for students of music and history, Botso opened this Friday (10/10) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on October 11th, 2014 at 2:42pm.

By Joe Bendel. Viacheslav “Slava” Fetisov remains one of the most celebrated players in the history of Russian hockey, but he was also the closest thing to a Curt Flood among Soviet hockey players. With his best friends, he made up a legendary five man line, but his place in the thorny legacy of Soviet history is particularly complicated. Logically, Fetisov serves as the focal point when Gabe Polsky chronicles the Soviet hockey machine’s history in Red Army, which screens during the 52nd New York Film Festival.

When Stalin identified sports as key propaganda tool in the coming Cold War with the free world, Anatoli Tarasov was tapped to build the Soviet hockey system. In just a few short years, the Red Army team dominated international competitions. Beloved by his players, most definitely including Fetisov, Tarasov would have been a hard act for any coach to follow, but the Politburo-connected Viktor Tikhonov would command little respect and no affection from his teams.

Frankly, it is rather odd watching a hockey doc in which the “Miracle on Ice” at Lake Placid is treated by most participants as an inconvenient speed bump to get over. It was Fetisov and Tikhonov’s first crack at Olympic glory, but Herb Brooks and a squad of college players had a different plan (if you really don’t know what happened in that semi-final, watch the final minute here). Unfortunately, the embarrassment of their Olympic defeat gave Tikhonov an opportunity to purge the coaching staff and institute a ridiculously stringent training regimen.

With Putin prosecuting his military campaign against Ukraine, it definitely feels like an inopportune time for Soviet nostalgia, especially considering Polsky’s own Ukrainian heritage. However, Polsky presents a somewhat balanced portrait of the era, addressing the systemic scarcity and control over the individual that defined life in the USSR. In many ways, Tikhonov the martinet becomes the personification of the Soviet system, as well as the story’s unambiguous villain.

Clearly, there is no love lost between the former national coach (who declined to participate in the film) and Fetisov. With fair justification, Fetisov blames Tikhonov for blocking his attempts to accept the lucrative offers from American professional teams. Essentially, he waged a battle in the Glasnost-thawed press to allow a sort of free agency among Soviet players, but unlike Flood, he would eventually reap the benefits of his efforts.

Still, Polsky seems to have hipster fascination with Soviet iconography and a pronounced timidity with respects to the human rights violations that were being committed by the Soviets and their proxies during the period in question, most notably the imposition of martial law in Poland. Nevertheless, the film raises a number of issues that merit further exploration, starting with the treatment of the players themselves, who really got a raw deal compared to the life of privilege afforded to East Germany’s Katarina Witt.

Although they were athletes, the hockey team really served as propaganda pawns. As a result, there are clearly still a lot of mixed feelings about their glory years, including pride in their accomplishments and resentment of Tikhonov and the high level Party members who enabled him. It is not a perfect film but it peels back the curtain far enough to give viewers an intriguing peak into the Soviet sports program. It is all briskly watchable thanks to the era-evocative graphics and the whiz-bang editing of Eli Despres and Kurt Engfehr. Recommended for experienced amateur Kremlinologists, Red Army screened as part of this year’s NYFF.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on October 7th, 2014 at 9:47pm.

By Joe Bendel. Anyone who still held to the illusion that the People’s Republic of China was a classless society will stand corrected by the extreme economic stratification of the nation’s rail travel. There is a very definite class hierarchy and the respective accommodations vary accordingly. The train is kind of/sort of a metaphor, but it is also a rather cinematic setting for J.P. Sniadecki’s observational documentary The Iron Ministry, which screens during the 52nd New York Film Festival.

In many ways, Ministry functions as a perfect companion film to Lixin Fan’s Last Train Home, but it is not nearly as depressing. Granted, there are literal throngs of people crammed into the lowest class compartments, many of whom are likely facing some pretty grim circumstances. The conductors also uniformly seem to be officious jerks. However, there is a whole lot of life going on throughout the trains Sniadecki filmed.

In fact, some of the most fun seems to be going on where the lower middle class meets the upper rabble. For a fly-on-the-wall ethnographic film, Iron is surprisingly funny, especially the devilish kid cracking morbid jokes about the government’s population control policies. If he is the future, the Party is in trouble.

Frankly, it is hard to say whether the film inspires optimism or not. In one scene, an informal group of passengers start to criticize the corruption and control of the Communist government only to somewhat walk it back shortly later and then creep it forward a little. At least, Sniadecki captures a sense of the country’s cultural and religious diversity, broadening viewers’ perspective in small but telling ways.

Filmed on a fleet of trains over a three year period, Iron is an immersive sensory experience, but in this case that is not code for dull and depressing. It is a rather sly film that earns kudos for its correct Queen’s English usage of the word “inflammable” in the subtitles. The Mandarin speaking Sniadecki also deserves credit for getting bounced out of the upper class carriages. Livelier than you would expect, The Iron Ministry is recommended for anyone who wants to experience a slightly claustrophobic transcontinental Chinese rail journey from the comfort of the Upper Westside when it screens this Sunday (10/5) at the Gilman, as part of this year’s NYFF.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on October 4th, 2014 at 3:36pm.

By Joe Bendel. Architecture is a funny business. Often commissions are determined through open competitions, judged by bureaucrats, politicians, and philistines. Nevertheless, the architectural partnership of Matthias Sauerbruch and Louisa Hutton has had remarkable success building high profile sustainable, post-postmodern structures. For three months, the late Harun Farocki documented their work in Sauerbruch Hutton Architects, which screens as a Projections selection at the 52nd New York Film Festival.

Farocki had certain ground rules, such as no editing out of actual chronological sequence and absolutely positively no talking head interviews. The office simply goes about their business as usual. One thing that will immediately strike viewers is the genuinely collaborative nature of the work. Both name-on-the-door architects are open to a lot of bouncing ideas around and challenging viewpoints. A winning competition entry might not be the work of Sauerbruch or Hutton alone, but the fruits of the entire office’s labor. Promising associates even get their own assignments, like the designer dauntingly tasked with reinventing the folding chair.

Farocki also shows the audience the joys of up-managing clients, particularly local governmental bodies. When a key decision-maker suddenly balks at the settled color scheme for a new university building in Potsdam, Hutton looks ready to strangle her on the spot, but she maintains her composure and negotiates a livable compromise.

Clearly fitting Farocki’s “Direct Cinema” rubric, SHA is definitely fly-on-the-wall observational cinema. Given its aesthetic kinship to Frederick Wiseman’s work, it seems rather arbitrary the Titicut Follies documentarian’s latest three hour study is included in NYFF’s Documentary Spotlight, but Farocki’s manageable seventy-three minute SHA is relegated to the vaguely avant-garde Projections section, but as a Marxist like Farocki must know, life is not fair.

For architectural nerds, the must-see film of the fest is Eugène Green’s La Sapienza. While Green’s film is like a master class with reincarnated Baroque architect, Farocki’s doc is more of an office internship largely centered around the copy machine. Still, there are telling things to observe if one is receptive. Recommended for ardent admirers of Sauerbruch Hutton and Farocki, Sauerbruch Hutton Architects screens today (Saturday, 10/4) at the Beale, as part of this year’s NYFF.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on October 4th, 2014 at 3:34pm.

By Joe Bendel. According to the Oceans Beyond Piracy project, over 1,000 international seamen have been held hostage by Somali pirates—roughly a third of whom were tortured and 62 died from a variety of causes. Yet, it sure is more convenient to cast the pirates as victims of colonialism, globalism, capitalism, and generally mean old westernism. However, films trying to advance that narrative have been less than convincing, despite the quality of their execution. Sort of picking up where Greenglass’s Captain Phillips left off, Tommy Pallotta & Femke Wilting offer a personal and figurative defense of high seas plunder in their animated hybrid documentary Last Hijack, which screens today as a Convergence selection of the 52nd New York Film Festival.

Former pirate Muhamed Nura pulled off a few big hijackings and lived to talk about. Unfortunately, he did not save any of his ransom money. Facing middle age with little prospects, Nura decides to assemble a team for one last job. However, times have changed and maritime security is much tighter. Everyone is against his plan, including his stern mother and his vastly younger fiancée. Nonetheless, he has no trouble lining up crew and financial backers.

Pallotta and Wilting clearly invite sympathy for Somali pirates, trying to position them as modern Jean Valjeans, but they bizarrely chose a distinctly unsympathetic POV character. During his screen time, Nura emerges as a rather rash braggart, who seems to have little concern for the consequences of his actions. Although he is supposedly in hard fiscal straights, he has a new wife and a new fixer-upper house, which does not look like such a bad situation.

In contrast, radio talk show host and anti-piracy advocate Abdifatah Omar Gedi cuts a more interesting (and more heroic) figure. During his on-camera sequences, Gedi’s cell phone never stops ringing, constantly receiving calls from strangers trying to determine his location. Frankly, viewers will quickly conclude Pallotta and Wilting chose the wrong person to build their film around.

At least Nura’s hijacking exploits lend themselves to the animated bird of prey interludes that incorporate Hisko Hulsing’s striking paintings. Their symbolically charged look and feel recalls the vibe of Damian Nenow’s short Paths of Hate and select moments of the original Heavy Metal. They are effective, whereas many of the straight forward doc segments are often a bit sluggish—snoozy even.

Last Hijack makes some legitimate points here and there, but like Captain Phillips, it never pursues the shadowy moneymen underwriting the hijackings. As a result, the attempts to build empathy for Nura fall flat. Drastically uneven, it offers tantalizing hints of a better, deeper film that might have resulted from different decisions at several critical junctures. Perhaps audiences will get more of what might have been at Pallotta & Wilting’s presentation of the film’s online component. Regardless, Last Hijack was largely disappointing when it screened last weekend at this year’s NYFF, in advance of its New York opening this Friday (10/3) at the Quad Cinema.

LFM GRADE: C

Posted on October 1st, 2014 at 12:31pm.