Documentary round-up

I’m going to sort through a group of recent documentary features, some well-reviewed but not recommended by me, others little-noticed but worth seeking out in my opinion.

Rachel Boynton’s Our Brand Is Crisis is basically The-War-Room-goes-to-La-Paz -- James Carville and his gang go to Bolivia to try to regain the presidency for the surrogate-American candidate known as “Goni,” massaging the message through focus groups and negative campaigning in a wide-open race. Goni sneaks through to re-election with little more than 20% of the vote, but is deposed by violent demonstrations within a year, while the consultants indicate regret but no guilt over the outcome. The story is inherently instructive about our peculiar electoral system and the limits of its exportability, but the film does nothing special to frame it. (2006, dvd, MC-69) *6*

On the other hand, Ralph Arlyck’s Following Sean appeared on the PBS series “P.O.V.” with little fanfare, so little that I hadn’t bothered to TiVo it, but tuned in purely by happenstance as it was starting and felt compelled to watch all the way through. It was pitched as another American variant of the 7 Up model, revisiting the film record of a child now grown up. But it is really a first person essay film, more like McElwee or Berliner or Steve James in Stevie. As a student living in Haight-Ashbury at the height of the hippie phenomenon, Arlyck made a film about the 4-year-old son of a hardcore hippie family living upstairs, an urchin who navigated the streets freely in bare feet and bragged about smoking dope. The film achieved some mix of celebrity and scandal, and Arlyck revisits it and the characters updated by more than thirty years, but he also weaves in meditations on many themes, his own French wife and semi-radical parents, and eventually his own grown-up kids, various philosophies of labor and activism, family and community. What emerges is thoughtful and rich, a small subject opening out to wide vistas. (2006, PBS but also available on DVD, MC-64.) *7*

Jonathan Berman’s Commune is another recent film that looks at the aftermath of hippiedom, surveying the story of the Black Bear Commune in Northern California from 1968 to date. It is reminiscent of In the Same River Twice in juxtaposing vintage footage of nude frolickings with revisits to the characters as they approach Social Security age. A sobering vision indeed. But being in the same boat, I’m kind of a sucker for this boomer nostalgia. This one told me nothing new, however, so it’s MC-74 rating is much higher than I would go. Still, it’s indicative of the lively documentaries to be seen on the Sundance Channel.

HBO is another refuge for good documentaries, if you look past Taxicab Confessions and the like. It recently broadcast Coma, a new film from Liz Garbus, who has been on my list of directors to watch since I was blown away by The Farm: Angola USA (1998.) She also directed one of the features in the recent HBO series on Addiction and was involved with Berlinger and Sinofsky in the excellent series, “Ten Days that Unexpectly Changed America.” Coma follows four patients recovering (or not) from brain trauma, framed by the celebrated cases of Terry Schiavo on one hand, and on the other the man who recovered brain function through electrical stimulation after 18 years without. These are tales of unbearable suffering and hopes raised and dashed, but the filmmakers demonstrate tact and caring in becoming intimate with each family’s tragedy, and the fitful promise of medical advance.

Nonetheless it is still PBS that most consistently showcases worthy documentaries. The two series running currently that are always worth checking out are “Wide Angle” and “P.O.V.” The first, in the usual “Frontline” timeslot, offers a fascinating hour’s worth of an international perspective too rarely seen on tv. Two recent standout hours looked at the emerging legal system of China, and an extremely popular talk show on Arab satellite tv that features four women of different nationality (only the impossibly beautiful Saudi wears a headscarf) frankly discussing taboo subjects such as divorce, homosexuality, and female masturbation, as well as fundamentalism and terrorism. Really eye-opening! And on “P.O.V.”, besides Following Sean, I have recently been favorably impressed by two feature-length documentaries: Revolution‘67, about the race riots in Newark and the other American cities on fire in what was summer of rage, insurrection, and military reaction, as well as of hippie love; and Prison Town USA, which explores the community implications of America’s huge boom in prison building, and incarcerated populations, on the rural towns where they replace old mills or any other form of regular employment.

One further note: I finally watched The Agronomist (2003), which I had TiVo’d from IFC months ago. Jonathan Demme’s celebrated film about Jean Dominique, long-time radio station owner and force for liberation in Haiti, is more than competent though trickier than it needs to be. Dominique is a vibrant character, as is his wife and partner, and their comings and goings to and from exile, and their periods of free broadcasting punctuated by shoot-ups of their radio station by government thugs, chart the history of Haiti from Papa Doc to Baby Doc, from Aristide to military coup and back again, with the U.S. always pulling the strings -- occasionally with human rights in view, at least under Carter and Clinton. Anything but a sad character, Dominique comes to a sad end in a sad country, but not before spreading the good word of hope.