[Chat] Some good documentaries from Sundance this year

[WeinsteinM at aol.com]

Eight of the 14 films I saw at Sundance this year were documentaries, and 
hopefully some of them will eventually see the light of day in one form or 
another.   Apparently it can be a slow process; last year's big winner, "Why We 
Fight," is just now going into general release, a year later.   But in case you 
are a fan of documentaries, here is the rundown on what I saw, plus a few I 
missed that I wish I had seen.

-Matthew


An Inconvenient Truth
aka “Al Gore's PowerPoint about Global Warming.”   (Though actually he uses 
Apple's Keynote instead of PowerPoint, but you get the idea.)   It's the movie 
of the man who “used to be the next president of the United States,” as he 
likes to joke, giving his slideshow about climate change.   He estimates that 
he has presented the slideshow over 1,000 times to audiences all over the 
world.   It is so comprehensive and compelling that a documentary filmmaker decided 
to make a movie around it, and it is a spellbinding 90 minutes.   

In my experience, a well-presented slideshow really can transform how people 
think about a topic.   If any slideshow is going to save us from this great 
crisis facing humanity, Gore's is the one.   Truly a must-see PPT.   All the 
data in one place to demonstrate that what we have already done to carbon levels 
in the atmosphere is radically outside the range of the natural variations 
seen over the last 650,000 years of earth's history -- and continuing to rise 
rapidly.   It has lots of anecdotes and dramatic video, such as the drowning 
polar bears, the collapsing towers of ice, the melting Arctic and Antarctic ice, 
the disappearing glaciers (did you know there will soon no longer be a glacier 
in Glacier National Park, or an ice cap on Mt. Kilimanjaro?).   He even has 
the graphics showing how the inhabited portions of South Florida (and other 
coastal areas from the San Francisco Bay to large populated areas in India and 
China) disappear under water when sea levels slowly and inexorably rise 20 feet 
because the Greenland ice sheet -- over 1,000 miles of solid ice up to two 
miles thick --   melts into the North Atlantic.   

www.ClimateCrisis.net 

(See also this recent front-page Washington Post article: 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/28/AR2006012801021.html)


5 Days
A very complete documentary record of Israel's removal of all the settlers 
from Gaza last summer.   The filmmaker had eight camera crews and complete 
inside access to the army, the settlers, the non-settler protestors, even the 
Palestinians living nearby.   The most fascinating part for me was where the film 
cuts from the weary police officers sitting during a break talking amongst 
themselves about how brainwashed the settlers are to a group of weary settlers 
talking about how brainwashed the police are.   The Israeli security forces were 
incredibly well prepared and showed amazing empathy and restraint, which is 
certainly a sharp contrast to how things went during the forced evacuation of 
settlers earlier this month at Amona in the West Bank. 


Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner
Tony Kushner, who turns 50 this year, is one of America's great public 
artists.   This fascinating documentary tells the story of his life so far, from 
growing up Jewish and gay in Louisiana to winning more awards and prizes (Tony, 
Emmy, Obie, Pulitzer) than one can count.   I had seen both parts of “Angels in 
America” and own the children's book Brundibar that he wrote with Maurice 
Sendak, but I had no idea about so many other things he has done, for example his 
play “Homebody/Kabul” about Afghanistan and the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden 
that was already in rehearsal on that fateful day in September 2001.   


Black Gold
A beautifully-shot film about coffee growers in the birthplace of coffee, 
Ethiopia, and their struggles with the nameless, faceless global market forces 
that keep them impoverished, even as they produce some of the finest quality 
coffee in the world.   Global coffee consumption has boomed in recent years, yet 
world prices have plummeted to pennies a pound, leading to malnutrition and 
disease throughout Ethiopia.   The “Fair Trade” movement tries to boost the 
amount paid to the growers, and we follow the leader of a growers' cooperative as 
he travels Ethiopia and Europe to help his people.   The film's weakness is 
on the policy side, where it wastes 10 minutes on the WTO's role in excluding 
African grain farmers from North American and European markets - an important 
point, but completely unrelated to coffee.   Nonetheless, the film is a window 
into a world we seldom see - the lives of our fellow human beings somewhere 
thousands of miles away laboring to produce a commodity that we enjoy every day. 
  


KZ
Many Holocaust documentaries examine the historical record, bringing us the 
voices of victims and survivors.   Rex Bloomstein's latest work takes a 
different approach - looking at the Mauthausen concentration camp of today - the 
tourists, the tour guides, and those who go about their daily lives in the town of 
Mauthausen in the shadow of this incomprehensible place.   


Viva Zapatero
Sabina Guzzanti's film about how Italian public television network RAI 
canceled her political satire program “RAIOT” after broadcasting only one episode 
in 2004 is her revenge against both the government of Silvio Berlusconi on the 
right that censored her and the gutless opposition on the left that failed to 
fight for her.   It sheds light on both the autocratic nature of the 
Berlusconi regime and the strangely compliant political culture of the Italian 
opposition that just does not see satire as a fully legitimate form of political 
expression.   
 

An Unreasonable Man
Two and a half hours of Ralph Nader.   With all the focus in recent years on 
presidential politics, it is easy to forget the extraordinary and indisputably 
positive impact of this one individual on all of our lives over the last 40 
years.   An Unreasonable Man seeks to rescue Ralph's public reputation by 
presenting the whole story.   And it does so, exhaustively documenting his life and 
work.   It spends a little too much time presenting both sides of the debate 
over his impact since 2000.   Nonetheless, it is a good reminder of the impact 
that one person can have - especially someone who is willing to forego family 
life so that he can spend all his waking hours on his chosen projects.   One 
thing I walked away from the movie with was the realization that his years of 
greatest impact took place prior to 1980, when the Democrats still largely 
controlled the federal government.   


Who Killed the Electric Car
Until just a few years ago, there were thousands of electric cars on the road 
in California, most prominently GM's EV-1, as car companies responded to a 
state mandate that they sell 2% zero emission vehicles by 1998 and 10% by 2003.  
 Today there are none and the mandate is gone.   Why?   The answers are 
infuriating, and they showcase yet another sad example of America's Bush-era denial 
of and refusal to deal with the pressing challenges of pollution and climate 
change.   

www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com
     

The ones that got away - some interesting documentaries that I'm sorry I 
missed

“Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man”
The catalog says it's “a riveting tribute concert and artful biopic combined.”
   I had a ticket, but I had already seen three films that day and was just 
too tired…   I did hear one complaint from someone who thought it was too much 
of other people singing his songs instead of him.   

“Neil Young: Heart of Gold”
Jonathan Demme's performance film of Neil Young in the studio and in concert 
last year while working on his new album.   Terry Gross did a show on it last 
week, so it must be opening soon.   

“Iraq in Fragments”
The catalog calls it “a stunning, electric collage of hypnotic sights, 
evocative sounds, and arresting voices” representing “diverse points of view in 
three Iraqi enclaves” covering Sunni Baghdad, the Shiite south, and the Kurdish 
north.   

“The Ground Truth: After the Killing Ends”
What our war in Iraq is doing to the soldiers who fight it.
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