documentaries

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May 9, 2009

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

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Marina Zenovich accomplishes an interesting thing with her 2008 documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired when she unearths the fact that Douglas Dalton, Roger Gunson, and Samantha Gailey Geimer all agree that justice was not served. The documentary is talking about Polanski’s arrest and trial for unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl, of course. The piece assembles the case, driving right down the middle with no slant one way or the other, to enlighten the viewer as to the abuses of the justice system during the whole Polanski circus.

In Roman Polanski we have the ultimate tragic figure. Here is a man who lost his parents in the Holocaust and lost his wife and unborn child to the Manson Family. He was able to escape the war-torn streets of his native Poland only to land in the surreal world of Hollywood. Polanski got swept up in the fame, gave the world films like Rosemary’s Baby, married Sharon Tate, and so forth. He lived the high life and he liked his women young.

As Zenovich explains, Polanski’s tragic tale has many twists and turns. The incident with Samantha Gailey Geimer is explained, with the use of clippings and typed courtroom questions serving as backup. Polanski did indeed break the law and did indeed need to be punished for his crime, but what Zenovich compiles in her documentary is astounding rationale as to why the director might have fled in the first place and why that might have been the smartest move he could have made.

Gunson, straight-laced Mormon that he is, stands as the starkest witness against the judge of Polanski’s case, Laurence J. Rittenband. Rittenband was a judge so corrupt that he sought out fame at every angle he possibly could. We learn that he broke promises to both Gunson and Dalton, we learn that he staged fake courtroom sessions with Gunson and Dalton only to pass out the “real hearing” behind closed doors, we learn that he discussed cases with outsiders and even consulted a courtroom reporter in regards of sentencing Polanski.

Enter Gunson and his one incredibly telling remark: “I’m not surprised he left the country under those circumstances.” Zenovich audibly replies “really?” and Gunson affirms it. Gunson, the assistant D.A. constructing the case against Polanski, actually says that he understands why the defendant fled the country and the justice system. The presentation of this is staggering, but Zenovich does a nice job in the documentary with not letting it run away from itself. Instead, it’s just another piece in this massive case of justice left in the background by a lecherous judge.

Zenovich’s work with producing staggering admissions and constructing a summary of the Polanski case is good stuff. Those unfamiliar with the case would do well to see this documentary. While it is capable, it is also not overly interesting. Those with no interest in Polanski or the case will find little here beyond a sort of Law and Order style corruption case. The evidence unearthed is compelling and some of the file footage of Polanski and others is interesting, but this is certainly not edge-of-your-seat stuff.

Sadly there are no current interviews with Polanski himself and I couldn’t help but hope for a final moment of revelation where the director stepped foot in front of the cameras and spoke to Zenovich. No such luck. Regardless, this little documentary does its job and then some in its exposure of a corrupt judge and the way the justice system failed all parties involved, including Samantha Gailey Geimer.

7.6/10

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April 23, 2009

The 11th Hour

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At the core of the Leonardo DiCaprio-produced doc The 11th Hour is the principle that global warming/climate change, damage to the air and oceans, and other ecological problems are not the problems but rather the symptoms of a larger cultural problem. Punctuated by greed, selfishness, and ignorance, we humans have a tendency to ignore and reject the messages our planet sends. We tend to squabble about details or hide behind denial when real change and real answers are required.

The 11th Hour, directed by Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners, is akin to all documentaries regarding environmental issues in that it faces the innate uphill climb of a sceptical society. The comparisons to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth are obvious, but there are differences in the overall message of this film. For starters, The 11th Hour is much more compelling, concise, and urgent in contrast to Gore’s picture.

The collection of experts and scientists amassed for The 11th Hour is deeply impressive. Professor Stephen Hawking, David Suzuki, Interface Inc. chairman Ray Anderson, Mikhail Gorbachev, Thom Hartmann, Wangari Maathai, William McDonough, and others all factor heavily in the conclusions reached in the documentary. It is awe-inspiring to listen to Hawking describe the planet he loves so much and how its decline plays out.

The presentation is clear and the experts make sense without pandering to the audience. There is no condescension and no guilt-mongering here, just cold and difficult facts. The planet will not just up and die; we won’t kill it. Throughout the course of life on earth, over 99% of all species have become extinct. Amazingly, life goes on and more life is created. While human beings are at the top of the food chain for now, we may not stay there if we continue to render our environment unliveable. But as a bold voice expresses towards the end of the film, the lakes, trees, rivers, and land on Earth will replenish without us.

The 11th Hour succeeds because it presents us with the idea of global warming as a symptom. This is not a movie about global warming; it is a movie about the human condition and how our very existence, as it is now, leads to these various symptoms. Our consumption, our consumerism, and other aspects of our humanity are seemingly incompatible with our environment. We cannot simply dump our waste into the air, water, or ground and not expect some sort of reaction from our living planet. It’s just not logical.

The film presses the notion that the Industrial Revolution offered us the idea of consumption on a massive scale and told lies about the endlessness of natural resources. We know now that we don’t have an infinite amount of natural resources and we know now that we must adapt to the planet rather than forcing the planet to adapt to us. While Al Gore’s Truth makes much out of rising graphs and Power Point, The 11th Hour goes a step further and presents these ideas in tangible form.

It would be easy to discard The 11th Hour as a blathering collection of talking heads, especially if one considers the message redundant. But the philosophy here is anything but redundant. It is unpopular, bold, and audacious. The risk is our very extinction, not the planet’s, and the notion of changing our ways to adapt to a tide that threatens to bowl us over can be a tough pill to take. It is the truth, however, and we must acknowledge it as a species and act.

8.7/10

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February 19, 2009

Religulous

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Bill Maher tells us that the only rational position when it comes to what happens when we die is one of doubt. Religion, therefore, must die in order for humanity to live. We cannot afford to have one if we expect to have the other. Of course, Maher doesn’t get into how seriously he takes religion and how ominous he believes it all to be until his closing remarks in 2008’s Religulous, a documentary that spends the majority of its time ducking honest discussion and playing to the cameras.

It is ironic that Maher closes off Religulous with an expressive supplication filled with the vehemence of the most fervent of religious folk. We are bombarded with visuals of brutality, devastation, intolerance, and environmental calamity as Maher tells us over a broad and insistent score that religion has to get the old heave-ho or we’re all going to die. The irony is rich, as the social critic/comic gives us the choice between ditching religion or dying in a blistering mess.

Much of Larry Charles’ Religulous is humorous, but much of it appears to fly in the face of its own purpose and undermine its own alleged seriousness. As serious as Maher claims to take the topic, he spends the majority of the documentary rolling his eyes or showing off how clever he is with nods to the camera, subtitles a la Stephen Colbert’s “The Word” segment, and cutaways to oft-hilarious clips. In fact, any time Maher has a halfway insightful subject to talk to, the segment is cut short and Maher winds up asking the most gutless questions ever conceived.

If you’ve read the latest pile of tomes from the likes of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, or Christopher Hitchens, there will be nothing remotely unique here. Maher’s argument, especially the argument presented at the end of the picture, is nearly taken verbatim from books like The End of Faith. Yet our travel guide does little to actually cobble together a revelation that matters, instead choosing to pester worshippers at a truck-stop chapel.

When Maher does match up with a subject worth talking to, such as Francis Collins or a compelling Muslim rapper, he does such a wretched job at managing the interview that one almost wonders why he bothered. The rapper, Propa-Gandhi, is interrupted so habitually by Maher that the exchange feels manipulated and deliberately impaired. Maher employs these tactics so frequently throughout the film that he moves from “The Seeker” presented during the opening sequence to “The Evangelist” within minutes.

The main focus of Religulous appears to be Christianity. In the beginning, Maher assembles his mother and sister for a “tête-à-tête” that gives background as to why the family left the Catholic faith. Apparently, Maher’s father and mother were using birth control and that was against the Catholic doctrine. The only rational thing to do for his family was to leave the faith outright. Sounds reasonable enough, right?

Maher’s whole institution is built on such involuntary philosophies. He bases Religulous on the concept that the weirdest and wildest religious adherents speak for the entire flock. A trip to talk to Ken Ham, the wacky character behind Answers in Genesis, yields an inevitably odd outcome that Maher assumes mirrors the entire Christian understanding of creation. Luckily, there’s George Coyne, former director of the Vatican Observatory, to offer an epigrammatic balancing stance that is discarded moments later when Maher heads to a preposterous Bible theme park.

With Maher’s concerns about religion being the death of us all, you’d think he’d pay more attention to his subjects or care more about the material. Instead, we’re given an undeveloped glance at the fringes of America’s Christians, a brief pop in with a few bizarre Jews, and a detestable inspection of Islam that uses footage of explosions to “counter” arguments that Muslims can be peaceful people. Maher even employs the use of clips from Scarface to equalize an outlandish dialogue with the Puerto Rican Jesucristo Hombre, José Luis de Jesús Miranda.

Religulous satisfied me to a point as a respectable work of religious satire. But once Maher began pontificating in the last few minutes of the picture, he lost me and his derisive itinerary was emptied of all import. Religulous turns out to be a shell of a movie. It is an emotionally-charged, scheming documentary with fetid intentions laced with alarm and trickery (Maher didn’t even tell his subjects what his film was about and most didn’t even know who was coming to interview them until the second he arrived). If Maher is truthfully serious in his charges against religion, he ought to take his subject much more sincerely.

3.1/10

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February 1, 2009

Taxi to the Dark Side

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2007, documentaries, entertainment, historical, movies, trailers, war | Tags: , , , , , |
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When filmmaker Alex Gibney’s Taxi to the Dark Side won the Best Documentary Feature Oscar, he said the following: “This is dedicated to two people who are no longer with us, Dilawar, the young Afghan taxi driver, and my father, a navy interrogator who urged me to make this film because of his fury about what was being done to the rule of law. Let’s hope we can turn this country around, move away from the dark side and back to the light.”

Indeed, it seems that the United States is comfortable operating on the “dark side.” The obvious use of torture in the fictional “War on Terror” has continually eroded the claims of moral superiority on the global stage. The symbol of Guantanamo Bay – now thankfully closing down c/o President Barack Obama – has served to recruit and impassion more terrorists than ever thought possible. And the continued abuses of power by the Bush Administration undermined every international law and statute pertaining to ethics in combat and war.

We all know by now that the Bush Administration may stand in history as one of the most horrific governments in American history. The damage to America’s reputation on the world stage seems, at times, irreparable. Yet, as Gibney stated in his Oscar acceptance speech, there is a sense of hope that the country can turn around and move towards the light. Perhaps Barack Obama is the answer to that.

Gibney’s documentary uses the tragic death of an Afghan cab driver named Dilawar to provide entry to what stands as a damning indictment of the Bush Administration’s policies towards torture and conduct during the concocted fight against terrorists. With an open license to join the “dark side” and use techniques against detainees that Darth Vader would find cringeworthy, the United States established themselves as the world’s foremost experts on the process of torture.

Taxi to the Dark Side examines the process as it trickles down from top military brass and White House occupants to reach the grunts on the bottom who are “just following orders.” Gibney interviews soldiers, many of whom have participated in torture, and casts light on the entire stinking process. He ruthlessly unearths data, news footage, and other footage to compile a damning case against the Bush Administration on the topic of torture. But, as we see, Bush and his cronies have left the backdoor open for themselves and knew which laws to manipulate and which buttons to push.

We also hear from administration officials and others who have resigned because of torture and the processes outlined by Donald Rumsfeld’s bloodthirsty policies. Rumsfeld, always the soulless joker when dealing with the media, is especially snappy and senseless as he tries to worm his way out of questions in front of the White House press corps.  

Taxi to the Dark Side makes the case that torture does not work and that it does not provide accurate or even remotely useful information. We know this already if we have common sense on our side. Gibney works to debunk farcical notions supported by fictional television programs like 24 and right-wing blowhards like Bill O’Reilly that there is a professed “ticking time bomb” scenario that is actually realistic. Instead, the filmmaker argues that such a scenario is about as dubious as Sean Hannity having a sensible idea.

Taxi to the Dark Side is a must-see documentary. There are many who will argue the other side of this discussion, although I’m curious to know what those people tell themselves in order to sleep at night. The fact remains that the Bush Administration proceeded entirely and deliberately in the shadows in a sorry attempt to conduct a careless war on bare principles, leaving a population in the dark and a pile of top brass in the clear.

9.1/10

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January 26, 2009

Encounters at the End of the World

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Bleak, immense, and eternally mesmerizing, Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World is a brilliant piece of filmmaking. The documentary received an Academy Award nomination in 2008 and stands as a stark and dispassionate glimpse at life, humanity, and the decisiveness of our condition on this planet.

Herzog’s magic as a filmmaker is in his pursuit of legitimacy. He avoids conventions, staggeringly straying for common reliance on showpieces or exploitations in order to tell a story. In Grizzly Man, he does not expose us to “the tape” but rather his reactions to it. In his other films, his more fictional works, Herzog avoids violence and sexuality in the ostentatious sense of Hollywood blockbusters. His version of the world is free of special effects and manipulative elements, like music and camera angles. Indeed, Herzog is one of modern cinema’s foremost truth-tellers.

And nowhere is the truth more austere and more wounding than in his Encounters at the End of the World. In many ways, this motion picture feels like Herzog is returning from some far-off land with tales of the people and the sights there. With this film, the far-off land is Antarctica and the people are indeed compelling and interesting. His tale describes the people who live and work there, the land, the wildlife, the desolation, the inevitability of existence at the end of the world.

Herzog, along with cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger, head to McMurdo Station. McMurdo is an American research station located on the southern tip of Ross Island in Antarctica. It is also largest community in Antarctica, supporting a population of up to 1200 or so residents. As Herzog discovers, most of the people that come to McMurdo have decided to “fall off the map” and have come to the bottom of the planet.

Herzog’s discovery of the people of Antarctica is pure and engaging. His unflinching camera takes us to meet maintenance workers, iceberg geologists, zoologists, biologists, volcanologists, and a penguin scientist whose solitude makes him subdued company. These are the people of McMurdo; they are diverse, intelligent, aware, and ultimately pessimistic about our sustainability on this planet. Herzog joins the chorus in his barren German tones, narrating the film with rawness and an odd sense of boredom.

It’s not that dear Werner doesn’t care about his subject matter. It is, I believe, more that Herzog is buckling under the pressure of the desolation. It is hard to match up the line between truth and fiction in his pieces of art, but Encounters at the End of the World finds us with a filmmaker learning about how bleak things really are on this planet. Global warming or climate change, whatever one would like to call it for easier understanding, is real and it is having an impact on our world. But Herzog isn’t here to make a sequel to An Inconvenient Truth.

His truth is more lyrical.

Through the images and sounds of Encounters at the End of the World, we learn about our planet’s very soul. We learn about penguins getting lost and going the wrong direction, marching to their deaths far from where they ought to be. We learn about neutrinos, frozen trinkets and mementos, fumaroles, and the human psyche under the immense weight of natural responsibility.

With unforgettable imagery, strange sounds, and the bold crush of time’s ticking clock on this planet, Encounters at the End of the World might, for some, seem like a series of vacation slides from Hell. For others, such as myself, it will prove to be one of the most exciting and engrossing film experiences in recent memory. This is not a cuddly penguin movie, I assure you.

9.7/10

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November 14, 2008

Manhattan, Kansas

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“This is my movie. She is my subject,” filmmaker Tara Wray reassures herself as she heads to reconnect with her mother. She prepares herself to concurrently distance herself and pull herself deeper into the difficult, gripping character that is her mom Evie. In the beautiful documentary Manhattan, Kansas, 25-year-old Wray wrestles with family, absolution, and herself in unprotected, helpless fashion.

Evie suffered a psychotic breakdown and lives under the weight of an untold, unknown mental illness. Tara distanced herself from her mother, heading to New York City and starting a life of her own while trying to place her mother and the abuses of her past life in the rear-view mirror. With instances of resentment and horror coating the lining of Tara’s upbringing, one can hardly blame her for fleeing her demons.

With her documentary piece, Wray confronts her demons and makes an effort to help her mother face her own. But the path is far from straight and the road is far from painless. Both mother and daughter struggle under the burden of their lives and regrets, yet both mirror the same vigour and tenacity. Evie rambles and struggles to determine a purpose for her daughter’s documentary, while Wray struggles to keep the camera on and keep her emotional space. In many ways, we are witnessing a tug-of-war.

Tara frequently battles her own sense of good will and concern. She is trying not to get hurt again by her mother but also strives to understand her, wishing for calm and a better life for the homeless, meandering Evie. Tara’s mother is attempting to make a career for herself as an abstract artist, selling “$25,000 art for 30 cents.” She is also the recipient of various “assignments,” which appear to come into her head at ostensibly haphazard intervals. When Tara arrives back in her mother’s life, Evie is working on finding the Geodetic Center of the United States.

Tara elects to help her mother find the Geodetic Center, which is located in Lebanon, Kansas. Upon taking her mother there to realize her mission, Tara learns that Evie believes that world peace and prosperity will come as the consequence of her finding the spot. Evie is overwhelmed for the moment, but quickly moves on to preparing for the next “assignment.” World peace doesn’t occur, but a chain of events is set in motion in Evie’s life that eventually does bring some resemblance of harmony.

Manhattan, Kansas is a tough film to watch. At once voyeuristic and adoring, we are often left with the feeling that we shouldn’t be seeing this. We shouldn’t be seeing Tara cursing at her mother from afar and tearing at the grass in a field. We shouldn’t be seeing the private conversations of this family. And we shouldn’t be seeing Evie in the shape she’s in. Is it exploitative? I’m not so sure. In many ways, Wray’s documentary is a form of healing and in many other ways it is a film of investigation. I’m reminded of a lyric from a Stereophonics song: “You gotta go there to come back.”

And Tara Wray does indeed go there to come back. Reading the liner notes of the DVD, which functions as a sort of post-film diary or stream of consciousness from Tara, it is revealed that the filmmaker struggled with alcohol during the making of Manhattan, Kansas. It is a compelling aspect to note, as Tara’s struggles with her mother are augmented by the evident struggles she has inside.

Manhattan, Kansas is a complicated piece. It is affectionate and angry, heart-rending and raw, delicate and distanced. Tara Wray’s documentary is a movingly special piece of filmmaking and it deserves to be seen. It is potent in ways that only the most reflective personal stories can be. For all of her flaws and all of her own shortcomings, I have nothing but the ultimate respect for this young filmmaker and her determined, boundlessly genuine project.

8.1/10

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September 29, 2008

Born Into Brothels

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The soiled streets of Calcutta ought to be no place for children, but sadly the reality has limitless kids diminishing and falling through the gaps of society in our modern world. Those of us who live half a world away from the grunge, foulness, and vulgarity of the slums cannot fully know the experiences of the inhabitants or their children. We cannot know the ache, the terror, the misery, and the gloom of the average day in the red light district of Calcutta.

With Born Into Brothels, the 2004 Oscar-nominated documentary, we are shown that humanness can exist in the most depressing and distressed of circumstances. The filmmakers, Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman, went to Calcutta to learn about and to film the lifestyles of the women who lived in the brothels. It wasn’t long before a more compelling story arose from the grime, as the children of these women, expected to exist in the dirt, emerged to the surface to breathe. Briski and Kauffman turned their attention and their cameras over to the kids and this brilliant documentary is the result.

Briski, an American photographer, found herself morally charged with the notion of providing some form of escape for the children of these prostitutes. She provided them with cameras to capture the world in which they lived, allowing a form of both escapism and confrontation behind the lens. The results are staggering, as we see the world underneath through the eyes of bright and charming kids.

Most of the children are amazingly capable and gifted. That is perhaps the most overwhelming aspect of Born Into Brothels, as we are faced with untutored, untouched children that still hold gifts of personality and wisdom that many educated, refined, “proper,” North American children lack. Perhaps life on the streets has been a forced education, as the process of avoiding a beating or chasing down money for dinner has provided more profound influence to the children than can be expected from any school or educational facility.

Through the eyes of the kids, we are able to see the pain and the squalor, but we are also able to see how desperately many of them cling to hope. Sadly, we are also able to see how quickly many of them can crumble into heaps of desolation and apathy.

With prostitution not a choice but rather a decided-upon way of life for many of the people in the red light district, most of the young girls we see simply lack a future. Prostitution is certainty; they will end up “on the line.” Yet the children remain buoyant, one way or another, in a world in which most of us would have long given up.

Born Into Brothels reminds us of optimism, but it also reminds us of the frantic cycle. While Briski and Kauffman are able to save some from their futures, there are countless others that are damned to their fate by cruel twist of being born in the wrong place. While individuals in North America argue over causes of poverty, the children in Calcutta and in similar regions are being beaten and turned into prostitutes. Would any of us dare look into the eyes of one of these precious children and actually blame them for their poverty?

A powerful, stirring documentary, Born Into Brothels will tell many of us what we already know. But for many others, it will illuminate a dreadful, disconcerting world in which the children simply exist. They have no choice, they do not live, and they do not even die. They are simply born into it.

9/10

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August 11, 2008

Mardi Gras: Made in China

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Most people don’t care where they come from. Most people only care that an effortless pitch of a set of hideous synthetic beads will be returned with the lifting of a shirt and the baring of breasts. The truth behind where the beads were fashioned isn’t of any concern to the thousands of drunken and farcical revelers who frequent New Orleans’ Mardi Gras celebration each year.

The beads have been traced to the Mardi Gras celebration from the late 19th century. The most common form was made of glass and featured many colours. Originally made in Czechoslovakia, the production of the majority of the beads moved to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and finally China after the free market took hold on the mainland.

David Redmon’s 2005 film Mardi Gras: Made in China highlights the assembly of beads for Mardi Gras in a small factory in Fuzhou, China, and contrasts it with the way in which the beads are used in New Orleans.

An impressive look at the effects of globalization, Mardi Gras: Made in China is a documentary that relies on the human stories and highlights inquisitiveness over talking heads. There are no purported “experts” in Redmon’s film; there are only the factual stories of Mardi Gras revelers and Fuzhou factory workers. The contrast is disquieting and discomforting.

This film focuses in on the true stories of the factory workers and offers exceptional access to a bead-making factory. The working conditions are bleak, the lifestyles of the workers are appalling, and the chronic pledge of “punishment” for any bad behaviour on the job is unsurprisingly intimidating.

Factory workers make approximately a penny for every twelve strands of beads they create, while in America the beads vend for about one to twenty dollars a strand. Most of the strands of beads are left behind, done in on the New Orleans streets and swept up by rubbish collectors after Mardi Gras concludes.

Redmon’s documentary spends time with the owner of the Fuzhou factory, a man named “Roger” who seems legitimately proud of what his beads are used for and seems to believe his workers enjoy the conditions and have good lives.

A fleeting look at the workers belies a different story, conversely, as the 15-plus hour days at ghastly wages in the company of perilous machinery and noxious chemicals showcase a less-than-admirable place of work. And a “No Talking” rule, enforced under threat of removing a full day’s wages, seals the deal. Don’t even think about getting together with a member of the opposite sex, as the punishment for that “crime” is a month’s wages.

Contrast the reality in Fuzhou with the actuality in New Orleans: Mardi Gras revelers hop up and down the crowded streets with countless strands of unsightly plastic beads, unmindful of where the artificial crap came from and ready to run from anyone threatening to “ruin their good time.” When Redmon does corner some individuals willing to see the Fuzhou conditions and where their beads came from, the results are often overwhelming.

It’s hard to ignore the terrible contrast between the wounded and bloodied overworked hands of a young Chinese girl and the ostentatious grins of bare-breasted bleached blondes.

Back in Fuzhou, the workers find it hard to believe that the beads they made are being used in such a way. “They’re so ugly,” one worker says of the beads. Other workers chuckle and giggle at the concept that their craftsmanship is being utilized to acquire a second-long flicker of bareness. It all seems so preposterous to them. I can hardly blame them.

But Mardi Gras: Made in China is not about shutting down the New Orleans festival and it’s not about guilt trips. It’s simply about equality. Redmon’s piece isn’t unforgiving or hypercritical; it simply utilizes human stories to expose the truth about the ostensibly capricious plastic beads that are so thoughtlessly tossed and wasted starting on Twelfth Night.

The DVD also contains an “educational version” of the film, which leaves out the boob-flashing. There are some clips from upcoming films, a few deleted scenes, and a worker’s diary from a 16-year-old unidentified worker who recently arrived at the Tai Kuen Bead Factory.

8/10

 

July 6, 2008

What Would Jesus Buy?

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The dizzying throng bursts into Wal-Mart, tramping one another like a stampede of desperate, hungry animals. Their ire is raised at each aisle as the throng bursts forth, pouring through the rows and lanes of the box store with desperation and glazed-over pupils. Focused entirely on Xbox 360 or Nintendo Wii, the throng reaches the apex of their journey and collides in a violent heap, pulling and pushing one another and forcing elderly women to the ground for a better vantage point. The fray reaches its climax when one of the blue-vested villains shouts, “We’re all out.” And that’s when all hell breaks loose…

It’s just another Christmas. The obsession over getting the perfect gift has reached a fever pitch and people are willing to do just about anything to be the Holiday Hero, even if it means acting like a complete fool.

Enter Reverend Billy and his Church of Stop Shopping. This crew of exuberant performance artists and activists has formed around the enigmatic figure of Reverend Billy (Bill Talen) and is practicing their brand of fighting the commercialism of the holidays. Using the form of revival meeting and exuberant preaching, Billy and his supporters congregate in box stores, chain stores, and on sidewalks to preach the message of “Stop shopping!”

What Would Jesus Buy? is a 2007 documentary that follows the exploits of Reverend Billy and his church as they journey to the “Promised Land” on Christmas Day. The Promised Land in this case is, of course, Disneyland. Directed by Rob VanAlkemade and produced by Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me), this film is wildly funny and thought-provoking, shedding light on the enigmatic character of Reverend Billy and showing the real face of Bill Talen at the same time.

The format is that of a basic documentary, as small sound-byte organized interview segments fill the gaps between the footage of Reverend Billy and his church on their journey to Disneyland. Along the way, there is a bus accident and a few incidents that bring Billy close to being arrested. He preaches outside of a Target, for instance, and “baptizes” a baby in the spirit of anti-consumerism. Billy’s church actually has nothing to do with religion, though, and his followers simply congregate to fight the “evils” of commercialism and corporate greed using the lexicon of religious language and dogma.

The use of this religious context leads to some hilarious moments, such as when Billy “exorcises” the demons in credit cards or when he tries to pull the evil forces out of a Wal-Mart sign. His theatrics are pulled right from the sensationalized preachers of old-time evangelism and he plays the role perfectly. The church behind him is generally comprised of ordinary folk dressed in choir uniforms, all of them fully behind The Good Reverend in his quest to stop the “Shopocalypse.”

What Would Jesus Buy? centers around the idea of returning meaning to Christmas, adding quickly that any “meaning” from the holiday does not need to be centered around a religious belief but rather around a belief in the possibility of peace. After featuring footage of the dizzying spectacle of holiday shopping and highlighting stories of individuals obsessed with it (like the disturbing display of a young woman with an entire closet filled with clothing and accessories for her dog or the story of a store employee spit on and cursed out by an elderly woman for not having the right game system in stock), the documentary attempts to show that there is another way to celebrate the holidays.

“You don’t have to buy a gift to give a gift,” Reverend Billy opines outside of a shopping mall.

In this day and age of obsession over consumption and of Christmas spending reaching thousands of dollars a person, Reverend Billy’s simple message is needed more than ever.

North America is spiralling into debt, with literally trillions of credit card debt hovering over us like a dark cloud. Perhaps the only thing that can save us from the Shopocalypse is a credit card exorcism and a little simplicity. In that regard, What Would Jesus Buy? gets things just about right. Besides, who can argue with the ridiculously funny visual of Mickey Mouse on a cross?

7.1/10

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April 7, 2008

The Fog of War

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2003, documentaries, entertainment, movies, trailers, war | Tags: , |
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Errol Morris creates fascinating documentaries. He doesn’t often use a narrative style, choosing instead to tell stories through the interview process. His first film was 1978’s Gates of Heaven, a film about pet cemeteries. Since then, Morris released several critically acclaimed documentaries. Perhaps the best known is 1988’s The Thin Blue Line. Much was made about a lack of Academy Award nomination for the film, but the Academy argued that the movie was “non-fiction” but not a documentary. Go figure. With 2003’s The Fog of War, there was no doubt and Morris picked up the Oscar for the documentary.

The film covers the life and times of former United States Secretary of Defence Robert S. McNamara. It uses archival footage, White House recordings, and an interview with the 85-year-old McNamara to construct its story. Lesser documentaries would have buzzed around collecting extra sources and other interview subjects to flesh the story out, but Morris uses a simplistic approach that helps create a concise narrative.

The Fog of War covers McNamara’s work during World War II as one of the “Whiz Kids,” a group of information managers who wound up becoming Ford executives in 1946. The film goes on to detail McNamara’s work at Ford, then follows through to his appointment by JFK to the position of Secretary of Defence. McNamara served under Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. The brutality of the Vietnam War and the complications of the conflict are explained by McNamara in the interview segment.

The movie uses the framework of eleven “lessons” as outlined by McNamara to guide the proceedings. McNamara’s lessons were created by Morris through various statements the former made in the interviews. Morris interviewed McNamara for over 20 hours, filing the footage down extensively for the piece. In the end, McNamara complimented Morris on the eleven lessons and added ten more for the DVD release of the film.

Errol Morris uses an interesting technique to interview McNamara here. For those who know Morris’ work, you likely have heard of the “Interrotron.” The Interrotron is a video device that allows Morris to look into his subject’s eyes during the interview and also look directly at the camera’s lens. It is a similar device to a teleprompter and further descriptions of it can be found on the illustrious Wikipedia. The beauty of The Fog of War lies in its process, as the interview seems genuine and yet at times intimidating. Morris is even-handed and his voice comes from a distance, adding to the effect.

McNamara makes for one hell of an interesting subject. He is a spry 85-year-old, that’s for sure. Still fit and alert, McNamara continued to ski the hills at Aspen. He has the supernatural sensation of a man thinking before he speaks, choosing his words but never running out of what to say. McNamara is well-spoken, compelling, and introspective. He wonders aloud about the choices he’s made, but he doesn’t speak regretfully or mournfully. His thoughts are organized, hence the eleven lessons, and his backtracking always makes sense and deliberately leads to what he is about to say. The seemingly unnecessary tangents always lead somewhere.

The visuals of the film are fantastic and they move with Philip Glass’ score beautifully. Morris conducts the images carefully, adding a chart here or a dizzying array of Vietnam War images there to aid in the formation of the overall palette. Despite some parlour tricks, Morris’ film moves smoothly and is never forced. We never feel manipulated into a corner or as the victims of an over-baked hypothesis. It is a concise and careful documentary, constructed with care and simplicity. The Fog of War presents its subject clearly and allows McNamara the chance to say what he wishes as he wishes. That the documentary remains true to its own form throughout its runtime is a testament to Morris’ professionalism and to the quality of the film.

9/10

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