Doc Corner: Laura Poitras' Risky Business

By Glenn Dunks

There is a knack to watching Laura Poitras’ latest film, Risk, her first as a director since winning the Academy Award for Citizenfour. And it’s not being abreast of the life and controversies of its on-screen subject, Julian Assange. Although that certainly helps to a point, his journey felt to be of little consequence to me in regards to how I ultimately felt about the movie. The film is messy and often perplexing, no better personified by an utterly surreal and bizarre sequence with Lady Gaga that is not kind to either of its participants.

Rather, the key to Risk’s success is to not view the film as about Assange at all, but rather  Poitras herself. Sure, the WikiLeaks co-founder is front and centre in the film, and documenting him was the modus operandi, but as a documentary subject he’s often far less interesting than the people that orbit him. I am not unaware that I am cutting Poitras an awful lot of slack here...

Click to read more ...

Doc Corner: 'Gaga: Five Foot Two' Does the Lady a Disservice

by Glenn Dunks

Lady Gaga can be a great musician, it’s true. But the new documentary about her, Gaga: Five Foot Two, would make anybody unfamiliar with her question why. The film follows a year with the singer as she records her latest album, Joanne (admission: I’m not a fan), and prepares for the big stage of the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Yet something about this film lingers as ever so slightly off.

Part of the problem with Chris Moukarbel’s film is that it’s never quite verite. The camera is never just a fly on the wall to Gaga’s world, but instead a witness to events that lack authenticity...

Click to read more ...

NYFF: Faces Places

by Murtada

Agnes Varda, recently named one of 2017's Honorary Oscar recipients, retuns to cinemas very soon. Her latest documentary is Faces Places or Visages Villages - sounds more delicious in French, n'est pas? It's Varda's collaboration with visual artist JR to celebrate the power of images. For that it was the perfect confection to see first at NYFF. The two artists set out on a journey inside France, finding farmers, miners, dock workers and others to document and preserve in the places in which they reside and work. They don’t have a plan, they just go where luck takes them or as Varda puts it:

Chance has always been my best assistant.

Varda and JR operate their own separate cameras, but they were also recorded in their travels by multiple other cameras in both still and moving images. What we get is a delightful mix of the histories and stories of the people they meet, JR’s eccentricities (he never takes off his small rounded sunglasses), plus Varda’s grapple with her mortality (she’s 88 and has problems with her eyesight). A joy from start to finish. It’s worth the price of admission just for recreating the running in the Louvre scene from Godard’s Bande A Part (1964), with Varda’s age adding poignancy and exuberance.

Grade: B+

Faces Places screens at the New York Film Festival on October 1st and 2nd. It will be out in limited release on October 6th. On November 11th, she will be awarded the Honorary Oscar at the annual Governor's Awards in Los Angeles.

Doc Corner: Tribeca's Big Winner, 'Bobbi Jene'

by Glenn Dunks

Who is worthy of a documentary about themselves is a question that comes up a lot when watching and occasionally writing about documentaries. A long life doesn’t necessarily make you any worthier of one, just as youth doesn’t imply unworthiness. Of course, who is a worthy subject is ultimately in the eye of the beholder so to speak and it is the film itself is what should be judged.

I am sure there was a reason that director Elvira Lind chose to follow Bobbi Jene Smith for a documentary. Beyond ‘she’s a great dancer’, of course...

Click to read more ...

Doc Corner: Emmy Awards Go to Meryl Streep, Ava DuVernay, and Somebody Close to an EGOT

Like sand through the hourglass, the Emmys gave out far too many trophies. I actually forgot that the television Academy’s ‘you’re not famous enough’ ceremony was on last weekend – because who wants to see RuPaul win an Emmy? Hello, anybody? Good call, Emmy! – and so my planned pre-Emmy focus on some of the documentary/non-fiction titles proved poorly timed. However, I thought we might look through the winners of the unfairly forgotten ceremony since at least in these categories, the voters are often forced to choose new winners every year. Meanwhile, the televised telecast could be a repeat and, truly, would anybody actually notice?

O.J.: Made in America, Meryl Streep, and which winner is just a Tony away from en EGOT after the jump.

Click to read more ...