Nostalgia for the Light (2011) (Thursday, January 5, 2012) (132)

I feel like watching Werner Herzog's The Cave of Forgotten Dreams should be a requirement for anyone watching Patricio Guzman's Nostalgia for the Light. Part of this is due to the fact that this film is one of the most Herzogian films not made by Herzog that I've ever seen. Furthermore, both films deal with the concept of researching and discovering the unknown past in similar ways. Both director's films look at physical and celestial things, but investigates the metaphysical along the way. They both look at the very small in a greater search for answers to the very big.

Guzman's documentary looks at the Atacama desert, a high desert in northern Chile, where, due to an unusual lack of any humidity, astronomers have found it to be an ideal place for observing the night sky and extraterrestrial bodies. In addition to this, it is also a bleak landscape where, due to it's salty soil, pre-Columbian human history for tens of thousands of years is evident. But this is not the only history that lies inches beneath the surface. During the 19th century, this area was the home of a massive mining industry that relied heavily on slave or indentured-servant labor. Most importantly it was also the home of several concentration camps for political rivals during the Pinochet regime. Thousands of people were "disappeared" to the desert, many of them were buried there for a time, until, it is suggested, their bodies were exummed and subsequently dumped in the ocean to cover the state murderer's tracks.

This film is a look at people who study several things and several points in history from the same place on earth. There are scientists who look up at the heavens through their telescopes and search for evidence of the beginning of the universe. There are archeologists who look at the pre-Columbian, prehistoric human record. There are political historians who look at the Pinochet era. Finally there is a group of women who visit the desert looking for human evidence of their lost or missing loved ones who might have been buried in the desert, even for only a short time.

The connections that Guzman makes from one person's testimony to another's is wonderful. He asks the astronomers about their thoughts on the desert itself, as a harsh, almost-extraterrestrial landscape and beautifully connects what they say to shots of women digging in the dirt for signs of human bone fragments. At one point he takes two of those women and sets them up inside one of the oldest telescopes in the area, brought there by German scientists in the late-19th century. The connection between old and new, celestial and terrestrial, known and unknown is powerful and elegant.

The film is shot on DV camera and looks more like a home movie, than a internationally funded documentary. Still, there is a homemade intimacy here that is very powerful. I appreciate that this is a very personal, human story of trying to wrap one's head around difficult matters. Of course, this is a movie that is trying to gather material about people who are trying to gather material, and I think Guzman is aware of the cheekiness of such a proposition.

The title, Nostalgia for the Light, suggests that we are all searching for some sort of light, either literal (as in the astronomers) or metaphysical (as in the women who look for their loved ones). There is also the suggestion by Guzman that seeing some of the old telescopes in this high desert is a return to the Chile of his youth, a nostalgia for the pre-Pinochet eden of his childhood. This is a totally wonderful and brilliant film that should be seen by anyone interested in great documentaries about ontological dilemmas and the human condition. This is easily one of the best films of the year, of any genre or format.

Stars: 4 of 4

Waste Land (2010) (Friday, February 11, 2011) (182)

Waste Land is a documentary that kills two birds with one stone when it comes to making white people feel good about themselves. It's about art and social justice! Yay! It follows Brazilian star artist (startist?) Vic Muniz as he goes to Jardim Gramacho (literally meaning Gramacho Garden... no so much...), the landfill outside of Rio de Janeiro and one of the world's biggest landfills, makes art with the poor pickers who sort through the mounds of junk looking for recyclables.

Muniz, who was born in Brazil, talks about how he sorted through garbage himself after he arrived in the United States 20-some years ago. The work was humbling, to be sure, but also get him inspiration to make the interesting art he makes. He normally takes found objects, sometimes garbage, sometimes sugar, sometimes toys, sometimes chocolate sauce and makes representational images with them before shooting photographs of these arrangements. He is best known for taking well known paintings and pictures by other artists and re-making them out of these found objects. It's a very interesting process and one that I like a lot aesthetically. I think it's fascinating how he removes the viewer from the subject of the work by at least one degree. This is a very clever post-modern process and it does it beautifully.

So back on the ground in Gramacho, Muniz spends a few days walking around the heaps of trash interviewing the pickers there and figuring out who runs what. He meets a few of the labor leaders who are organizing the pickers into an ad hoc union, he meets a man who has such a positive outlook on life you wouldn't know he worked in smelly junk for a living, he meets a woman who has three kids and works as a picker because she can't find any other work.

He takes some portraits of these people, and then sets to working with them to gather certain kinds of garbage that they will use to make the works. I like how in the process of making the art, Muniz (and the directors) shows us how these people do what they do so effectively. He shows us how when they need plastic water bottles the people can find them and when they need rubber tires they can get those too.

Ultimately he has the group of subjects lay the garbage down on the floor of a big warehouse where the image of their portraits is shown on the ground. They place the items, with his helpful instruction, so they end up with large-scare pictures of themselves. Through the process, the pickers learn a new respect for one another and for the beauty in the world.

This is a nice story, but is a bit annoying, to be honest. I like what Muniz does, and I think he does it with an extreme humility and honor throughout. I think the filmmakrs Lucy Walker, Karen Harley and Joao Jardim (Jesus! They needed three directors!) think that what is being done here is really important, when really it's just an art project. Sadly most of these people will ultimately have to go back to the landfill at some point in the future and most of them suffer from all sorts of diseases they get from working in such filth (from metal poisoning to lung disease, not to mention the terrible education and social services they don't receive). It's a bit annoying that this shows us a window into a really terrible thing and we see a non-solution to dealing with it. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think a more polemical view of the situation would have been good. Why not pressure the Brazilian government (which is experiencing unparalleled growth currently) to help these people better?

This film is very reminiscent of another trash documentary from 2010, Garbage Dreams. That was more interesting because it approached the issue from a more sociopolitical point of view. I thought it showed more about Egyptian society than this film showed about Brazilian society. Neither one is wonderful, but aside from Muniz, whose art and personality are fantastic, there is not much here that's very good.

Stars: 2 of 4

GasLand (2010) (Monday, January 17, 2011) (176)

Josh Fox's interesting documentary GasLand tells the story of how over the course of the past decade millions of Americans have been affected by a process of natural gas drilling, called 'fracking'. No, this is not some Battlestar Galactica sexual euphemism, fracking is a process where natural gas is collected after deep holes are drilled into the earth and water, laden with toxic chemicals, is forced into the wells. Due to massive industry lobbying and major relaxations in environmental and regulatory standards gigantic swaths of the middle part of the country, from Pennsylvania to Wyoming, are now speckled with these fracking wells.

The problem is that the chemically rich water has to go somewhere when its underground and generally ends up in drinking water. This makes the water non-potable, clearly, but also flammable, which is a neat effect to see on camera, but would be shocking to see in your kitchen. Through the film, Fox takes us around the country looking at how different families in different parts of the country have been hurt by this drilling process, how they live with the day-to-day realities of it and how they are fighting back (mostly unsuccessfully).

This is a clever polemic, but is ultimately a bit dull. It feels the whole time like a very good Frontline special or 60 Minutes report, but there's not enough intrigue to hold attention for nearly two hours (it's way too long). One nice touch that Fox uses is a wonderful banjo/bluegrass score throughout. This is probably a bit manipulative as it suggests down-homey Americana in a rather lazy way, but in the end it's wonderful music. He also uses great black and white, bold, all-caps, sans-serif titles between sections to orient us as we watch. There is a rather 'DIY' quality to these, which I like a lot.

I always hate polemics that end with a call to action and direct me to a website - that after seeing the movie, I'm supposed to get off my ass and write a letter to my congressman or senator. This is annoying do-gooderness, when just presenting the information would suffice to tell a good story. I want to watch a movie, I don't want to get involved in a movement. Stop sending me to your website, I'm in a movie theater and won't remember the address when I get home. Just show me interesting, evocative things and let me have an experience.

Maybe my issue is really with polemical docs, which are over the hump for me and on their downslide. I've had enough of liberals telling me what to cry about now (I saw as an avowed ultra-liberal). I'm no longer interested in stories about energy/chemical/food/health care companies being evil. I know those stories well.

I think Fox has a nice movie here, but he should have cut it down by 20 minutes. It drags too much and he seems to lose control somewhere after the middle of the second act. He should have tightened the story a bit and cut some of the repetitious material (how many people do you need to have on camera lighting their water on fire?).

Stars: 2.5 of 4

No Impact Man: The Documentary (2009) (Friday, January 29, 2010) (220)

This film follows the year-long life experiment of Colin Beavan, the self-proclaimed No Impact Man, as he tries to avoid any carbon-based energy sources for an entire year. To do this he and his wife and baby daughter have to give up carbon-based things like electric lights, refrigerators, cars, elevators, televisions and supermarkets with their mass-produced food. (Special exceptions are made for a laptop, so Beavan can blog about his experience, and trains, so the family can travel to Upstate New York to visit organic farms. What would a self-imposed rule be without a few exceptions?)

We see chronologically how Beaven and his wife Michelle Conlin make behavioral changes to show they can live a no-impact life. Some of the sacrifices are easy (no TV, no junk food) and some are harder (no refrigerator), but the couple deals with the situation in a very grown-up way. They fight on camera, but make up on camera as well. At times they both seem unfair to the other and unfairly attacked by the other. It's as much an interesting relationship expose as it is an environmental one.

This is not a polemic - it merely shows one family's journey. At no point does Beaven suggest that everybody should do what his family is doing. This is simply a document of an experiment. (Not giving anything away, but there is a suggestion at the end that the family will keep some behaviors and give up others returning partly to life as it was before).

The film is also very unapologetic. Both Beaven and Conlin are aware that they seem like twee urban elitist eco-wonks and the reaction they get as they embark on their project is nothing if not negative, sarcastic and cynical. Beaven and family, who got a good amount of New York-based media attention during the project as a result of his blog, were featured in a New York Times article and many other eco-blogs (the fact that they were giving up toilet paper was the most talked-about element of the project). They talk openly about the criticism against them - and sometimes talk to those criticizing them. There is something very post-modern about the subjects of the documentary talking about how they are being portrayed in the documentary about themselves.

It is interesting to make a documentary about a blogger. There is really no need for it as it is simply media about media. All you need to do is read Beaven's blog and you will might understand much of what you get from the film. Still, there is a kindness and humanity to the movie that might not come across on the computer. Beaven is a good husband and father; Michelle is a good mother and wife. They struggle as individuals with their own pitfalls and struggle together as a unit.

It is a shame that film is called No Impact Man, a title that comes from the blog, because the film is really about a no impact family. This not only shows the non-carbon impact of the people, but also shows the no impactness of the relationship between the members as well. It shows us how in the middle of busy urban lives, there should be time to stop and smell the relative roses. Go to a park or a museum in the city; enjoy spending time with your family; share a dinner with friends and neighbors; enjoy life and, if possible, don't hurt Mother Earth. How nice.

Stars: 2.5 of 4

Garbage Dreams (Sunday, January 10, 2010) (3)

The only real reason I went to see this movie is that it is on the 2010 Oscar Feature Documentary Shortlist and it is one of the few movies I have not seen from that list.

It is a very small movie about the Zabballeen, a Coptic Christian minority who live Egypt and are the only garbage collection service for most of the millions of people in and around Cairo. These are very, very poor people who have been collecting waste for more than 100 years because it was a job that needed to be done and it was the only job they could get as non-Muslims. We see how they recycle nearly everything they collect including plastic and glass bottles, metal, paper and organic materials. We see a team of social workers who take the people's children, who are not in formal school (because they work basically full time), and teach them tools like reading, writing and basic business skills.

At some point, we see the future of the Zabballeen being threatened by foreign waste removal companies who come in to make money in the rich neighborhoods of Cairo. These firms do not have the same pride in their work that the Zabballeen have (they see trash as a gift from God to them directly) and are not nearly as efficient as their poor competitors. Some estimates thrown out in the film are that the international firms are able to recycle only 20% of the garbage, while the Zabballeen are able to recycle 80% of it. (We have to take these numbers as true, but they are totally uncorroborated.)

The focus of the film is a group of a few young boys between 12- and 18-years-old. They bring a more intimate look at this world and we can see how these international firms bring with them a real getting-food-on-the-table worry for these people.

There is nothing especially brilliant about this film. Cute, naive kids are always a cheap and easy way of getting sympathy, but these youngsters are rather harmless. The middle of the film goes a bit slack and at times it feels a bit repetitive. Overall, this would have been a very good PBS special; it's only OK as a movie.

The best moment comes when a few of the boys are selected by a Welsh trash firm to visit Wales and see how garbage is collected in the developed world. (Garbage diplomacy! Who knew!) When the boys see what the Welsh do with their trash, they go a bit crazy as they see the tremendous waste that is not culled and recycled. It seems that the Welsh trash company is only 28% efficient with recycling. These boys try to explain to the management that they can recycle more, but their pleas fall on deaf ears.

This juxtaposition brings a fabulous, lucky moment. The indigent boys are brought in to learn lessons from the developed world, but they actually know more than their rich hosts. Brilliant.

Stars: 2 of 4

Big River Man (Sunday, December 13, 2009) (194)

I think the only way to describe John Maringouin's new film Big River Man is to say it is a 'gonzo' documentary. This is to say that it is hilarious and not traditional, frequently skirting standard practices and including narration that has such a particular point of view it becomes almost a narrative film in it's own right. Though most of the film is normal footage, there are scenes that are clearly scripted and acted out - re-enactments or fantasies of what could have happened.

The film tells the story of Martin Strel, arguably the world's greatest endurance swimmer. Strel is from Slovenia, which, as he tells us early on, is shaped like a chicken. Borut Strel, his son, is his manager and the narrator of the movie. Martin has made a name for himself by swimming some of the world's longest and most important rivers, including the Danube, the Yangtze and the Mississippi. This film is about his attempt to swim the Amazon from its source in the Peruvian Andes to its mouth in coastal Brazil. We see how he trains, how he raises money for the trip by pitching energy drinks and doing motivational speeches, and then once he's on the river, how he goes insane and his body begins to fall apart on the 4300km trip.

Borut is more fluent in English than Martin is, but he speaks in broken idioms and nonsensical approximations. He reminds me of Alex, the narrator in Jon Foer's Everything is Illuminated, who names his dog Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. Borut's narration is amazing and hilarious. At one point he and Martin go to the fast food restaurant, the Hot Horse in Ljubljana, Slovenia and Borut says, 'horse bourgers (sic) are like chicken bourgers - but they're made with horse.'

The Strels are joined on the trip by Matthew Mohlke as navigator on the support boat. Mohlke is a bright-eyed upper-Wisconsin man who basically knows as much about the Amazon as he can read on a map. He has no idea which back channels to take in the river and where there might be rocks or rapids, not to mention piranha and crocodiles ahead of them.


Only a few days into the trip, Strel begins to suffer from pain in his shoulders, any number of molds and mildew on his wetsuit, skin problems and sunburns. But he doesn't know the word 'quit' (he actually might not know it in English). He goes on - not because he is hell-bent on finishing as much as because he simply doesn't know that stopping early is an option (chalk that up to his communist upbringing or the fact that he says he was beaten as a child and can endure tremendous physical pain).

As he travels downriver, much like a character in a Werner Herzog movie (Fitzcarraldo or Aguirre: The Wrath of God), he goes insane. In addition, Mohlke goes insane as well, telling long stories about how Strel is Jesus and the morning mist over the river is the Holy Ghost there to witness the swim. As he goes along, he ultimately refuses to eat (not wanting to expend energy putting a fork or spoon to his mouth) and begins swimming at night and against his doctor's orders. Maringouin wonderfully uses actors at specific moments to act out some of Strels hallucinations or Borut's narration. This adds a wonderful phantasmagoric and, again, comedic, aspect to the whole story.

There is an amazing Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now element to this journey. He has a job to do and he cannot not do it. The journey becomes more important and more life-changing than the goal itself. When he finishes (after 66 days), there's a sense that it might not have been worth it as he is a shattered man.

It is unclear whether the voice of Borut is real or not, but it's hilarious. It either is totally real, or it's a constructed, rich persona. Either way it is totally entertaining and amazing to listen to. I guess it's not really fair of me to doubt him just because he sounds too-naive-to-be-true and because it is clear that Maringouin fudges the truth otherwise. All I know is that on Strel's website there is a poll that asks, 'Do you believe that Big River Man film (sic) is premiering at Sundance?' and the choices are: 'Yes, I believe', 'No, I don't believe it!' and 'Maybe, yes'. You can't write stuff that good!

Stars: 3 of 4