Doc Corner: 'The Super 8 Years'

By Glenn Dunks

At one point early on in The Super 8 Years (Les années Super 8), Annie Ernaux notes in her soothing, authorial voice that a trip to the countryside—all tall grass, wildflowers, and mud—was like experiencing nostalgia for something she had never even experienced before. A sort of primal part of the human existence that wishes for the calm, the peace, and the relative relaxation of existing within nature without the extravagancies of modern life. It’s an amusing bon mot from the Nobel Prize winner, since this documentary feeds into that very concept:

I have never experienced the world that Ernaux embeds us in, but she welcomes the viewer through narration and the intuitive editing of Clément Pinteaux in such a manner that it feels like reliving a memory that I have never experienced. I was transported. A brisk dream of 65-minutes built entirely out of her family’s super 8 camera home movies that is all fleeting memories stung with melancholy and bliss.

Come to think of it, a more fitting double-feature with Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun I could not imagine.

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Doc Corner: A to Z of the Longlist (Part 1)

By Glenn Dunks

I have been inconsistent with Doc Corner this year. Various reasons including (finally) a year outside of lockdowns, day jobs, and — as of recently — a need to prioritize movies so that I could submit my Golden Globes ballot. Now that that is done, back to normal. For now, a bit of catch-up. Using the recently announced list of 144 eligible docs, let's look at a few titles The Film Experience has missed full reviews on. Beginning on the rooftops of New Delhi, to a humble balcony in Poland, and a village high in the Vietnamese mountains—All That Breaths, The Balcony Movie and Children of the Mist...

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Doc Corner: Robert, Downey, 'Sr.'

By Glenn Dunks

Sometimes movie stars use their power for good. How else to describe Netflix—home of Lindsay Lohan in Falling for Christmas and the fittingly titled Ryan Gosling vehicle The Grey Man—releasing a black and white documentary about an underground cinema pioneer known best for absurdist satires and stoner comedies of the ‘60s and ‘70s. In this case, we surely have to give gratitude to Robert Downey Jr. It’s hard to believe Sr. would be there on millions of people’s TV if it weren’t for him.

Thankfully, not so content to just let his name sell the picture and be done with it, Sr. is a probing, funny exploration of art and the people who make it, and the impression that both can leave on those around them.

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Best International Film Reviews: Armenia, Canada and Paraguay

by Cláudio Alves

Submitting a documentary is a risky strategy in the Best International Film race. Since Waltz with Bashir in 2008, only four other non-fiction features have been able to score nominations in the category – Cambodia's The Missing Picture, North Macedonia's Honeyland, Romania's Collective, and Denmark's Flee. None of them won. Still, hope is everlasting, and one often finds that some of the year's most fascinating submissions happen to be documentaries. The same is true for our current season, with two titles going as far as incorporating animation, like Waltz with Bashir and Flee. Mayhap they can repeat their antecessors' success at getting nominated. It's unlikely but not impossible…

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144 Films Eligible for Best Documentary Feature for the 95th Oscars

by Nathaniel R

The Academy has revealed the list of Eligible films for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar. There are 144 in total. Next week the Academy will vote in the preliminary round which will narrow down the titles to 15 (announced on December 21st, 2022) from which they'll choose 5 nominees (announced January 24th, 2023). In other words this month is the last hurrah (Oscar-wise) for 90% of the contenders. After the jump the full list, where you can see the films, and our reviews if we've done them...

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