Category: Documentary

By Joe Bendel. Juan Pujol was the all-time greatest writer of spy fiction, but he wrote for a very select audience: German intelligence. Supposedly based in England, the Spanish double agent wrote incredibly verbose reports to his unsuspecting German handlers, riddled with disinformation and imaginary sub-agents, but it all boiled down to one word: Calais. Misdirecting the National Socialist war machine was the intrigue of a lifetime in Pujol’s life of intrigue, idiosyncratically documented in Edmon Roch’s Garbo the Spy (trailer above), which opens this Friday in New York.

The Germans knew him as Alaric, but the British code-named him Garbo. A deserter during the Spanish Civil War, Pujol’s story is so unlikely it would be difficult to believe without documentation. In fact, MI-5 did not believe him when the unprepossessing man came cold-calling. Rebuffed but undeterred, Pujol next approached the Germans, who immediately recruited him as an agent.

Pujol fed the Germans a steady diet of information largely culled from old newspapers that nonetheless built up his controllers’ trust. Eventually, after several further overtures, the British realized Pujol was legit and began directing his work. While he passed along a great deal of misleading intel, his most important assignment was Operation Fortitude, a concerted campaign to convince the Germans the D-Day invasion would land at Calais rather than Normandy.

Eventually, the war ends satisfactorily for Pujol. A bit of time passes, he disappears, and at some point is reported dead. Obviously though, there will be more to the master of the deception’s story. Military historian Nigel West (and former conservative MP under his given name, Rupert Allason) would tell the full tale when he literally wrote the book on Pujol, finally giving the remarkable spy his proper due.

Roch’s film is incredibly cinematic, employing extensive archival footage and clips from vintage war and espionage films as illustrative devices. In fact, the video sampling strategy often threatens to overwhelm the deadly serious subject matter, giving Garbo a vibe somewhat akin to a Jay Rosenblatt short film collage. Frankly, it occasionally borders on the inappropriately ironic. Still, the substance of Pujol’s story consistently rises above any stylistic excesses.

Garbo the film also boasts a relatively small but highly specialized cast of interview subjects, including West (as he is billed) and Aline Griffith, Countess of Romanones, a contemporary of Pujol’s working clandestinely for the OSS. Everything they have to say is quite noteworthy. It also interviews members from both of Pujol’s families, neither of whom knew of the other until West discovered his fate.

There is no question Pujol saved many Allied lives. Perhaps hundreds of thousands of servicemen survived the European theater because the Germans were dug in at Calais. The strange details and anecdotes surrounding Operation Fortitude by themselves are well worth the price of admission. Totally fascinating history, briskly if somewhat distractingly rendered on-screen by Roch, Garbo is definitely worth seeing, particularly for history buffs and espionage junkies, when it opens today (11/18) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

Posted on November 18th, 2011 at 3:52pm.

By Joe Bendel. Before Kim Il-sung, mass-murdering megalomania had never been so kitschy. The Kim dynasty’s tyrannous misrule has been marked by imposingly ugly architecture, stilted cinema, and truly bizarre mass “arirang” stadium performances, all of which promoted the so-called Juche Idea, his crypto-Confucian brand of self-isolating socialism. An expatriate leftist South Korean filmmaker takes on the challenge of making Juche propaganda art films for an international audience, when not weeding the vegetable patch of a North Korean arts collective in The Juche Idea (trailer above), Jim Finn’s experimental mockumentary mash-up, now available on DVD.

Before he bravely led the proletariat into the future, the crown prince Kim Jong-il wrote North Korea’s definitive book on film studies. Not surprisingly, he concluded any honest, class conscious film should scrupulously adhere to his father’s Juche Idea concepts. DPRK films tended to be a wee bit formulaic as a result, typically culminating with a tearful self-criticism session and a vow to rededicate one’s self to Communist Party, as Finn illustrates with several clips crying out for the Crow and Tom Servo treatment.

As Yoon Yung Lee, the filmmaker-in-residence, splices together her strange Chuck Workman-like Juche films, the insular nature of the North’s ideology-driven culture becomes inescapably obvious. As soon as any distance is applied to the cheesy visuals and overblown synchronized dance numbers, irony rushes in like air into a vacuum. There is also an unexpected abundance of accordion music to heighten the surreal vibe of it all.

Finn never directly addresses the brutal reality of DPRK concentration camps, intrusive secret police, and widespread famine. As a result, Juche Idea really ought to be seen in conjunction with other North Korean documentaries, like Mads Brügger’s fearlessly subversive Red Chapel, which Lorber Films has also just released on DVD.  Unlike the play-it-safe “Yes Men,” Brügger and his colleagues punk a target that wields absolute, unchecked power, on its own turf. You have yet to truly live until you have witnessed a pair of Danish-Korean comedians perform a slapstick rendition of “Wonderwall” for an audience of stone-faced DPRK apparatchik-minders in this mad expose-performance art hybrid.

In contrast, Juche Idea is all about the outrageous over-the-top propaganda serving the Great and Dear Leaders’ personality cults, without any reality-based context. Though it seems hard to miss the joke when a Russian tourist’s loose bowels lead to a lecture on the merits of North Korea’s socialized medicine, some of those protesting downtown might just swallow it whole.

Clearly, Finn is not exactly an underground conservative filmmaker, having also produced the short film Dick Cheney in a Cold, Dark Cell, which should have certainly maintained his standing in the experimental film community. Still, after watching Juche it is clear North Korea is a profoundly scary place, at least by any rational aesthetic standard.

Viewers who missed Brügger’s Chapel in theaters should definitely catch up with it first and then supplement it with Juche’s head-spinning images and sly satire. Though only sixty-two minutes, there are some nice supplements on the DVD, including some deleted scenes, such as a whacked-out Juche comic book given the motion-comic treatment, as well as Finn’s short film Great Man and Cinema, which essentially boils down the essence of Juche Idea to three minutes and forty-nine seconds. Recommended for the ironically-inclined and the propaganda-savvy, Juche Idea and Chapel are easily two of last week’s most notable DVD releases.

Posted on October 13th, 2011 at 5:05pm.

By Joe Bendel. He was frequently dubbed “the Quiet Beatle,” but George Harrison could also be called the cineaste Beatle. One of his first solo projects was the original soundtrack for Joe Massot’s psychedelic Wonderwall, completed while the Fab Four were still together. After the band broke up, he eventually founded Handmade Films, providing a jolt of capitol for independent British filmmakers. Harrison himself gets a full 208 minutes of screen-time in Martin Scorsese’s definitive documentary, George Harrison: Living in the Material World, which screens this Tuesday at the 49th New York Film Festival, just ahead of its HBO premiere.

Yes, George Harrison was a lad from Liverpool. The youngest Beatle, he was initially recruited because he could actually play. The general gist of the Beatles story will be generally familiar to just about everybody: initially, Lennon and McCartney were front-and-center, carrying the songwriting load, but slowly Harrison asserted himself, introducing the sitars and tablas into their later, trippier recordings. Since Yoko Ono consented to an on-camera interview, their eventual break-up is presented solely in terms of the stress of working so closely together for such a long time. Still, it is hard not to get sucked into Scorsese’s Harrison-centric retelling of the Beatles mythos.

However, it is something of a surprise how eventful Harrison’s post-Beatle years were, despite his often deliberately low profile (essentially constituting the second half of Material). Of course, his spiritual quest continued, which is a major focus for his widow, co-producer Olivia Harrison. Those who saw the IFC Channel’s behind-the-scenes history of Monty Python will already be well aware of Harrison’s close personal relationship to the comedy troupe, but who knew he was a Formula One Racing fan? In fact, one of the most touching interview segments features his friend Jackie Stewart, the “Flying Scotsman.”

If Ono gets a pass, at least Eric Clapton is forthright enough to address on-camera the whole business of how he romanced Harrison’s first wife while they were still married, albeit rather gingerly. Yet, for personal drama, the events surrounding the violent home invasion Harrison survived late in life effectively serves as a rather stark climax.

Harrison’s friends and family make a compelling case he just might have been the most interesting Beatle. Scorsese calls in some major star power, including both surviving Beatles as well as fellow Traveling Wilbury Tom Petty. It is also a pleasure to see Jane Birkin (from Wonderwall) on-screen in any context, but it is just plain creepy when his one-time producer Phil Spector shows up.

Material is a very good rock doc, but the nearly three and a half hour running time is pushing the limit. According to IMDB, it is almost half an hour longer than Ken Burns’ Thomas Jefferson—and Jefferson was the first to do just about everything. Nonetheless, it is consistently more engaging than the Lennon documentary that screened at last year’s NYFF. As a further point in Material’s favor, Scorsese, Olivia Harrison, and their collaborators almost entirely avoid politics, focusing squarely on the musical, spiritual, and personal aspects of his life, essentially in that order of concentration. Informative and entertaining, Material screens this Tuesday (10/4) at Alice Tully Hall as a Main Slate selection of the 2011 New York Film Festival and airs on HBO in two parts this Wednesday and Thursday (10/5 & 10/6).

Posted on October 4th, 2011 at 2:00pm.

By Joe Bendel. New Yorkers are tough. Since the horrific events of September 11th, the City has weathered blackouts, blizzards, tornadoes, earthquakes, and hurricanes. Still, the lingering trauma of 9-11 dwarfs all subsequent travails. Capturing the physical rebuilding of Ground Zero and the emotional healing of five New Yorkers profoundly affected by the tragedy, director and conceiving producer Jim Whittaker shot almost a thousand hours of footage, resulting in perhaps the first documentary with its own non-profit governance structure: Rebirth, which opens this today in New York at the IFC Center.

Affectionately called “Captain Manhattan,” FDNY Cap. Terry Hatton was already widely regarded as a fireman’s fireman, even before his heroic death during the collapse of Tower 1. For his best friend and colleague Tim Brown, both grief and survivor’s guilt would debilitate his psyche. Yet, despite his depression, we watch as Brown tries to take affirmative steps to prevent such acts of terror in the future, accepting an appointment to the then newly created Department of Homeland Security and serving as an advisor to Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s ill-fated presidential campaign.

Like Brown, Tanya Villanueva Tepper grieves a New York firefighter, her fiancé, but her new life seems to fall so well into place, she starts to feel guilt over her happiness. In contrast, construction worker Brian Lyons has a more difficult recovery process. He also mourns for a FDNY brother, his younger brother, Mike. In addition, his tireless work in the rescue and recovery efforts has left him with persistent health issues and a case of PTSD. Nick Chirls also lost someone close to him: his mother. Unfortunately, a difficult bereavement would lead to an estrangement between Chirls and his father.

Yet, of the five interview subjects, Ling Young is arguably the most compelling. A dutiful state employee at work on the 78th floor at the time of the attack, Young suffered burns so serious, they caused considerable physiological complications. Though her physical healing process remains unresolved, she emerges as the film’s most inspiring figure.

It is hard not to be moved by pain and honesty expressed by Whittaker’s POV figures. However, the time lapse footage of the Ground Zero rebuilding project might ironically prove counterproductive. While it is impressive to see the construction of the transit hub and smaller buildings in fast forward, it is conspicuously obvious that the Freedom Tower has yet to rise triumphantly from the rubble.

To his credit, Whittaker treats his subjects with sensitivity and respect. Still, it seems clear he chose to play it safe at each juncture, glossing past Brown’s reasons for signing on with the Giuliani campaign and including only a brief vent from Chirls directed at moral relativist apologists for the terrorists. Perhaps it is just as well, focusing Rebirth squarely on the personal makes it more immediate and universally relatable, but the gaps still show. After all, what happened in Lower Manhattan was not a random happenstance, but a deliberate act of mass murder motivated by a hateful ideology. Rebirth completely ignores that reality, concentrating solely on the consequences.

In truth, it is a defensible decision, but it requires far more context than that found in Rebirth to fully understand September 11th. Technically, it is also a well-crafted production, with important aesthetic contributions coming from composer Philip Glass and cinematographer Tom Lappin, who gives the oral history portions a warm glossy look. (As an aside, viewers should look for Jon Fein & Brian Danitz’s thematically related documentary Objects and Memory, also boasting a Glass score, when it airs on PBS as part of their ten year anniversary programming). Well intentioned and executed, but clearly determined to avoid controversy, Rebirth opens today (8/31) in New York at the IFC Center.

Posted on August 31st, 2011 at 5:41pm.