"In Jackson Heights" & best of rest

Frederick Wiseman is a hero of mine, and convinces me that it could be worthwhile to live to the age of 85, if one were able to continue to turn out work of the caliber of In Jackson Heights (MC-81, FC #13, NFX).  His latest documentary has all the virtues of the institutional studies that he has been turning out for decades, but his latest is very much of the moment, embodying both antithesis and antidote to Trumpism.  Jackson Heights is a diverse multi-ethnic neighborhood in Queens, welcoming to communities marginalized elsewhere -- immigrants from Latin America and Asia, Muslims and Jews, children and seniors, LGBT people of all rainbow stripes.  In his trademark style -- running in excess of three hours, and eschewing narration, talking-head interviews, on-screen text, or any other explanatory material beyond editorial selection and sequencing – he paints a portrait of a place, and the manifold faces and stories that populate it.  From farmers markets to halal butchers, from madrasas to support groups of every sort, from beauty shops to discos, from politicians to musicians, from classes for cabdrivers to meetings of small business owners – in each venue, articulate spokespeople adumbrate themes, and evocative images drive them home.  Ominously, one undercurrent is the threat to diversity from gentrification.  Like all Wiseman’s films, this is a crowded canvas of human endeavor.

I’m still on my mad quest to see the Top 100 films of 2015, as ranked by Metacritic score, and here are the last few documentaries on the list, most available on Netflix streaming.  Dreamcatcher (MC-86, NFX) is reminiscent of The Interrupters in several ways, including the Chicago setting.  Kim Longinotto is not quite the filmmaker that Steve James is, despite her Sundance award, and the focus is narrower, but in both films reformed denizens of the mean streets go back out there to help young people avoid the same mistakes they made.  In this one prostitution, and in the other gang violence.  For 25 years on the job, Brenda was Breezy, but now she’s on mission to rescue girls from the life.  She visits schools and support groups, and drives around in the Dreamcatcher van, handing out condoms and advice to streetwalkers.  A dynamo, though damaged herself, she is profligate with her helping hand.  The subject is grim, and the lives depicted burdened with multiple dysfunction, but Brenda is a vital force and her story is inspiring, a testament to sisterhood and survival.

I do not understand the critical acclaim for Western (MC-89, NFX), which seemed pedestrian to me.  Its angle on vexed border issues between the U.S. and Mexico is different from Cartel Land, but not as fully realized.  This film from Bill and Turner Ross is about two sister cities, on either side of the Rio Grande, that have always had intimate relations, now threatened by storms from south and north, with drug cartel violence on one side and Washington’s mania for wall-building on the other.  OK, but unremarkable in my view. 

On the other hand, I found the similar ranking of Democrats (MC-89, NFX) quite justified, more engaging than a film about Zimbabwean politics has any right to be.  As with so many documentaries, Camilla Nielsson’s film is based on astounding access.  When the international community took issue with the tainted reelection of Robert Mugabe, the dictatorial president since independence in 1980, the two contesting parties agreed to cooperate on the process of creating a new constitution, first by outreach to the people themselves, and then by protracted negotiation.  We follow the personable lead negotiators for both sides through the three-year process, though Mugabe’s retention of power seems preordained.  Sad to say, but the Zimbabwean experience casts an unflattering light on America’s current political travail.

Laurie Anderson’s cinematic personal essay Heart of a Dog (MC-84, NFX, HBO) may blow your mind or may bore you to tears.  Results will definitely vary.  I liked it, but even at 75 minutes found some parts slow going -- certainly a many-layered effort, visually, musically, intellectually, narratively.  It’s largely a meditation on death, of her beloved rat terrier Lolabelle, of her unloving mother, and implicitly of her recently-deceased husband Lou Reed.  It mixes her narration -- including shout-outs to Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard, and the Tibetan Book of the Dead – with her music, and various sorts of animation and found footage, including her as a child.  Making frequent use of superimposition, through raindrops or snowflakes, as well as friezes of nature, the film is often witty and sometimes woo-woo.  It makes me more eager to see the part she will play in the imminent expansion of MassMoCA.

One well-received film that I liked even better than the critical consensus was Hitchcock/Truffaut (MC-79, NFX, HBO), though I have to confess partiality, on the grounds that Truffaut is my favorite director, the book of interviews being celebrated has long had a treasured place on my shelf, and the director of the documentary, Kent Jones, is a Pittsfield native and a friendly acquaintance of mine.  But there’s no denying that the film is very well put-together, so if the subject has any interest for you, I strongly recommend it.  Kent’s choice of Hitchcock films to analyze is different from my own list of favorites, but his visual analyses, guided by the masters’ own conversation, are always acute and informative.

There’s one more recent documentary that I should mention before it disappears from view.  She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry (MC-80, NFX) is a memorable group portrait of second-wave feminists from the late Sixties on.  Mary Dore’s film shows, then and now, the collective that created Our Bodies, Ourselves; womanist writers, scholars, and critics; female Black Panthers and Young Lords; and others who comprised the woman’s liberation movement.  The historic footage is evocative of what I think of as my era, and the recent interviews fascinating as a record of the passage of time.

Oops, one more worthy doc I forgot was Twinsters (MC-81, NFX), about Korean twins separated at birth, growing up in LA and in France respectively, who happen to meet and connect through social media.  The girls are energetic and endearing, and so is the film, perhaps not as lightweight as it seems.

Okay, this is the last one for now, I promise.  I’ve had Levitated Mass (2014, MC-82, NFX) in my Netflix queue for some time, but a profile of Michael Heizer in the 8/29/16 New Yorker made me move it up, and then I saw that its streaming availability was ending soon, so I watched it immediately and was glad to do so.  Doug Pray’s film about the installation of the eponymous work of art at LACMA works on many levels, and I’ll look for the opportunity to show it at the Clark sometime.  The work was a 340-ton boulder that made a 100-mile, 10-night journey through 22 communities, from Riverside quarry to downtown LA, to rest atop a long concrete trench alongside the museum.  The picture takes in origin and destination, and most especially the journey itself, which became a public sensation.

I conclude with my own ranking of the best documentaries from the past year, compared in parenthesis to its MetacriticTop 100 ranking of all 2015 films.  (My similar listing of fiction films will be posted soon, and you can find my review, and further links for each film, by pasting title into search box at top of this page.)

DOCUMENDATIONS for 2015 (in rough order of my preference):

In Jackson Heights (#59)

Amy (#27)

Iris (#67)

Seymour: An Introduction (#34)

Hitchcock/Truffaut (#77)

Look of Silence (#8)

Black Panthers (#75)

She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry

Dreamcatcher (#25)

Salt of the Earth (#31)

Cartel Land

Democrats  (#18)

Winter on Fire (#60)

Finders Keepers (#72)

Little White Lie

How to Dance in Ohio

Twinsters (#53)

Heart of a Dog (#29)

Best of Enemies (#94)

Listen to Me Marlon (#21)

Going Clear (#61)

Western (#17)