Doc Corner: The politics of 'Slay the Dragon'

By Glenn Dunks

I had expected 2020 to be jam-packed with political documentaries. We have already had Hulu’s four-part Hillary and in the lead-up America’s presidential election had assumed that nary a week would go without a documentary about some sort of politics examination, exploration or expose. Who knows what the rest of the year holds for us anymore in terms of release for the sort of niche, boutique non-fiction fare and whether they will make their way to audiences, but I am sure they will hold lessons and important interrogations nonetheless.

Case in point: Slay the Dragon. A feature-length documentary that is getting out somewhat ahead of the pack and which picks up where digitally-released short films like Crooked Lines and Suppressed: The Fight to Vote left off on the issue of gerrymandering and the efforts (by let’s be honest: Republican politicians) to manipulate the voting process...

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Doc Corner: Hulu's Four-Part 'Hillary'

By Glenn Dunks (who is currently counting down his top documentaries of the decade over on Twitter. Follow along or swing by next week for the conclusion!)

It’s remarkable, really. Hillary—Nanette Burstein’s four-part Hulu biography of the woman who needs only one name these days—is so much like its subject, it’s just uncanny. Ambitious and by most conceivable marks of quality a perfect candidate for greatness.

And yet.

One almost has to admire the chutzpah of Hulu releasing Hillary when they did. Like Taylor Swift uploading her back catalogue to streaming services on the same day Katy Perry had a new album out, it feels like some sort of joke, even if it was more likely simply a smart and shrewd way of getting eyeballs in a tough market by utilising the political attention of another wild democratic primary race as cross promotional advertising...

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Doc Corner: Oh, the horror! 'Scream, Queen!' and 'Horror Noire'

By Glenn Dunks (who is currently counting down my top documentaries of the decade over on Twitter. Follow along!)

Horror movies are obviously an audience-beloved industry-entrenched part of the movie business. Even if the genre hasn’t always gotten the respect it deserves, horror has been a vital part in the cinematic stories for African American audiences and for queer audiences. These are, after all, viewers that have been ignored by the mainstream industry at large for as long as movies have existed. Minority audiences have often found the catharses and long-documented history of othered subtext of scary movies to be rare portals of release.

How great it is then to see two new documentaries Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street and Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror focusing on these elements and offering glimpses into the complicated realm of what it is like to be a viewer and a creator in these spaces...

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Doc Corner: Patricio Guzmán’s 'The Cordillera of Dreams'

By Glenn Dunks

Desert. Sky. Water. Mountains. Just the subjects alone suggest a nation of dichotomies. Patricio Guzmán’s most recent films about his troubled home-country of Chile have covered a lot of his people’s terrain. Capping a trilogy of documentaries that began with 2010’s Nostalgia for the Light and 2015’s The Pearl Button, The Cordillera of Dreams retains Guzmán’s searching and plaintive approach to Chile’s history as he poetically explores the connection between the Chilean people and the stretch of Andes mountains that surround the capital of Santiago.

The South American nation has remained a constant across his career despite living in exile since 1973 when his epic three-part The Battle of Chile was smuggled out of the country and premiered to extraordinary acclaim (he has lived in Europe ever since)...

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Doc Corner: Taylor Swift is 'Miss Americana'

By Glenn Dunks

A film like Miss Americana is always going to be something of a piece of image rehab. It’s just a part of the process of making a documentary about the biggest pop star in the world whose mega-fame makes her equally loved and loathed (as these sorts of things always do; hi, Madonna) by large swathes of the population. And while it is unlikely that the many shouting “fuck Taylor Swift!” in boorish unison at a Kanye West concert or those whose deep-dive into stan culture is unhealthy in its obsession are unlikely to be moved – or, probably more likely, reminded that they ever cared enough about her in the first place– from the looks of it, Lana Wilson’s doc appears to have worked.

Many journalists and listeners who once criticised her for any number of reasons (her perceived lack of sincerity, her cunning, her dating life, her choice of friends, a craven need for attention, etc) have come out to perform mea culpas and many casual observes of its subject’s meteoric rise to fandom acknowledging that maybe, just maybe, she’s human after all despite everything that they had been previously led to believe. 

Premiering as one of the opening night films at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Miss Americana may seem like something of a peculiar choice for it’s director, too.

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