Hot Docs - The Young Man Was (Part 1: United Red Army)

 

Rating: **1/2

I don’t know if director Naeem Mohaiemen is a genius, but he’s blazed a trail for a completely new style of documentary filmmaking: the minimalist footage documentary. You see, The Young Man Was (Part 1: United Red Army) is more the type of documentary you read than watch. Much of the film is text against a black screen transcribing the communications from a hostage crisis 35-years-ago, the rest is a limited amount of archival footage, and clips of a bizarre 6-part British spy show from the 60s.

The subject is the 1977 hijacking of flight JAL 472 by the Japanese Red Army. The drama unfolded over 80 hours, and while many were captivated to the then unprecedented 24-hour media coverage, one boy, Mohaiemen himself, tuned into his TV hoping to watch The Zoo Gang, a TV series about World War II spies reuniting to get revenge for one of their own who was killed.

The politics of this hijacking, if you don’t remember first hand the era, might require you a couple of minutes of internet research or more to get up to speed. That’s one of the problems with the film, not context; who were the Japanese Red Army? Where did they come from? Where did they go? Why is this affair important to broader history? On the other hand, I don’t think this is supposed to be a history lesson, which is fine. There’s a bizarre kind of real time aspect to the film. You’re trying to understand what’s happening and you’re going on very little information, as if watching a current event unfolding on TV, which I liked.

Mohaiemen’s chosen format is compelling, although probably not to everyone’s taste. What I think it does capture well is the kind of absurdist nature of this crisis, various conversations and the limited-English of both the hijackers and hostage negotiators is almost hilarious in places given the seriousness of the situation. I applaud Mohaiemen for stretching the bounds of what a documentary can do and how it does it, but at the same time it kind of stretches one’s patience in places too. Ultimately, you will either go with it or you won’t, and for the most part I went with it.

Hot Docs - Ping Pong with The Record Breaker

Both Films: ****

In terms of sport, ping pong hardly ranks amongst the Top 20 of physically challenging activities. But… Maybe that’s because you’re not a senior citizen over the age of 80. For octogenarians around the world, ping pong is not just a hobby, but a lifestyle. It sharpens the mind and the reflexes, and sometimes it provides an escape. Or it provides hope. It can mean so much to people, and just generally be life affirming. And that’s the spirit that Hugh Hartford captures in his documentary simply titled Ping Pong.

The film follows about eight different ping pong players from around the world as they descend on China for the world championships of table tennis. There’s Terry, who supposedly has a week to live and seems to keep living through the magic of ping pong; German Inga lives in a home because she has dementia, but she’s as sharp as anyone half her age at the table; and Dorothy, from Australia, is officially over the century mark age-wise, but she can still take on all contenders, even abandoning her wheelchair when its game time.

There’s about 703 years of life experience between all the various players, so there’s a lot of great insight aside from just being kind of life affirming. It reminded me of Young at Heart, a doc that was released a few years ago about a group of seniors in a choir singing rock hits. It’s more than just a “aren’t old people funny” kind of thing, but you really appreciate the positive effects of ping pong on them, and how, in some cases, the sport has literally saved their lives.

The actual competition portion of Ping Pong goes by too fast, and I think that could have easily been stretched out a bit longer, and as consequence of that, I think some of the characters get more screen time than others. The build-up is very, very solid, but the competition and the denouement of the stories kind of go by without really leaving an emotional effect. But what’s surprising is that it doesn’t matter that much, because the film is funny and effecting with what it does, and it proves affirmatively that there’s life after 80.

Ping Pong is well matched with The Record Breaker, a short film about Ashrita Furman, a Queens man that holds the record for the most records in the Guinness Book of World Records. I think there’s an argument that can be made for the quality of records like walking up a mountain on stilts or cutting apples with a samurai sword, but what is unavoidable is Furman’s zest for life, and his proactive promotion of an active lifestyle. Because Furman is so giddy about being The Record Breaker, and because he’s such a complex and interesting character, this film is definitely a winner.

Hot Docs - Finding North

 

Rating: ****

How can you be both hungry and obese? It’s a paradox that more and more people in the United States are beginning to understand, and a question that’s convincingly answered in Finding North, a provocative documentary about hunger within America’s own borders.

Finding North tackles a variety of desperate questions that come into conflict with each other. America is the richest country in the world, so why do nearly 50 million people not get enough to eat everyday? Food seems plentiful, so why is it so hard for people to get nutritious and healthy food options? Obesity is huge problem, but why is it a problem amongst the poor? How are you fat, if you don’t eat much? All challenging questions, and interestingly, they all come down to a couple of interconnected reasons.

Filmmakers Lori Silverbush and Kristi Jacobson interview health experts and advocates, as well as talking to people affected by food issues, like Barbie. Barbie is a single mother in Philadelphia who not only has to stretch her budget because she’s on food stamps, but she has to take a two hour round trip to the nearest grocery store that sells fresh fruits and veggies. Elsewhere, a local pastor deals with an explosion in the use of his church’s services, an accessible food bank and a free meal night, and a teacher tries to deal with a classroom of students where more than a few struggle with attention at school because they aren’t getting enough to eat at home.

Celebrities like actor Jeff Bridges and chef Tom Colicchio are also tackling the subject of “food insecurity,” the predicament that nearly 1 in 6 Americans find themselves in where they don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Colicchio tries to demonstrate that the some $2 and change that the American school system spends per student on meals, does not offer enough nutritional bang for their buck. But while the diagnosis is clear, the issue seems hopelessly tied up in the current American political climate that says there’s no room for free loaders on the system, even if they need the help, and maybe need a little more.

Finding North reminded my of Davis Guggenheim’s great education doc Waiting for Superman, trying to shine a light on a complex and important issue that so easily gets shaped and cast aside based on broad assumptions. The film’s an incitement on America’s approach to a problem it once quite nearly eliminated, only to be revived through ignorance and the seeming uncaring of the people that can do something about it. But it’s also a tribute to those working so hard on the ground to try and change things for the better.

Hot Docs - We Are Wisconsin

Rating: ****

In November 2010, the American political movement known as The Tea Party suddenly became a political force the likes of which had not been scene since an Illinois attorney and politician became the first Republican President in 1860. With a seeming political mandate, many of these politicians, many of whom elected to state governorships, began promoting an economic agenda that attacked unions and the poor. But in Wisconsin, the process came to a screeching halt when teachers, police officers, health workers and students begin protesting at, occupying if you will, the state capital in Madison.

As fortune would have it, director Aime Williams was there to capture it all on video, and combining her own footage with news clips, You Tube videos, and an eventual second camera operator, she’s created We Are Wisconsin, a kind of war movie chronicling what happens when the people wake up to the fact that their democracy’s being taken out from right underneath them.

Yes, it’s true, this film will resonate with the “Fight the Power” crowd more than any passive observer, or apolitical cynic, but there is a visceral and immediate kind of power to Williams' film; a mixture of Michael Moore’s fight for the little guy gusto with the intimacy and outrage of the work of Michael Winterbottom. Williams also mixes after the fact observations and interviews with her first person footage, both of which paint a more simple and serene picture of the protests than was portrayed by the media at the time. And as the Occupy movement seems to be gearing up for a spring campaign, there’s a fair bit of foreshadowing here too.

But what was most interesting to me was that laying aside the fact of the issues, there’s almost an apolitical feeling to We Are Wisconsin. The majority of people recognized that what Governor Scott Walker was doing, eliminating collective bargaining amongst state employees and the way he was able to work around it in the end despite the outrage, galvanized the people in a way not scene since Vietnam. The small victories of these Wisconsinites are inspiring, as they prove that the old adage about not being able to fight city hall isn’t always the case.

Hot Docs - We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists

Rating: ****

Memes? D-Dos’ed? 4chan? Lol Cat? To the average ludite, a stroll through the world of We Are Legion might be a bit like taking a trip to Wonderland without knowing how to speak the language. One wrong turn and you’re eating cakes that make you shrink and taking advice from hookah-smoking caterpillars that nearly gets your head chopped off.

We Are Legion explores the impact and evolution of Anonymous. Labelled by some as cyber-terrorists, others as merry pranksters, and others still as the defensive wing of the internet, it naturally occurs that Anonymous is none of those things, and all of them. And then maybe a bit more. Director Brian Knappenberger follows what was once a loose coalition of net-savvy users sharing the weird and outrageous on a message board called 4chan, and traces it through its activist incarnation as the legions of the Anonymous take on Scientology, defend Wikileaks, and rise to still greater prominence even as its original members splinter.

I think Knappenberger does a couple of things very smart. While his admiration for Anonymous is apparent, he doesn’t present this as a smirky fan boy rendering of “look how clever these guys are and you’re not.” There is some very fair analysis in We Are Legion, and Knappenberger does more than fetish the Guy Fawkes mask (though I wonder if he was able to, or even considered, taking to V for Vendetta creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons). The other thing that Knappenberger does well is work within the parameters of Anonymous, which is the anonymity of several of its members. Scene after scene of talking heads hidden behind one type of mask or another as seen through a Skype connection could have made the doc technically jump the shark, but Knappenberger handles the mixed mediums well.

It’s a testament to just how well trusted Knappenberger was by the people of Anonymous that he was able to get these comments in the first place, but to reiterate, I don’t think We Are Legion is a glowing piece of propaganda for the group. Knappenberger tackles the good and the bad, the benefits and the demerits, and the potential good of Anonymous and previous actions that don’t reflect well on them moving forward. We Are Legion may not prompt you to remake yourself as a hacktivist, but it will give you a greater, more detailed appreciation of the culture.

Hot Docs - My Mate Manchester United with Trials, Tribulations & Sustainable Growth of a Cock

 

Manchester: ***1/2

Trials: **

What’s stranger, the sight of a grown, middle aged man weeping when being told that he’s going to meet his soccer hero, or the fact that the man’s name is legally Manchester United? Scratch that, it’s a draw. An answerless riddle like “If a tree falls in woods and no one’s around to hear it, does it make a sound?” The fact of the matter is that Manchester United is a real guy, who lives in Bulgaria, and takes his name from the world famous football club in the orange jersey that he adores so.

So what is the source of Manchester’s devotion to the team hundreds of miles away, based in Old Trafford? It could be any number of reasons. One could argue that it’s one man’s mid-life crisis, or a variation of arrested development that’s manifested in Manchester. Or maybe it’s that Manchester, like a lot of people of his generation, caught between the days behind the Iron Curtain and the current era where teenagers know nothing of communism, just needs something to believe in.

Manchester’s simple quest to shake hands with MU’s Bulgarian player Dimitar Berbatov is achieved after he and a friend collaborate on a heartfelt e-mail to Berbatov’s agent. Initially in the film, it felt like that scene was played as a kind of lark for Manchester, as if he had never before written fan mail to his team, but it’s quite the opposite. As much as a kind of comedic character Manchester is, you can’t help but be brought to tears with him when the same agent tells Manchester that not only will he get his chance to shake hands with his hero, but he’ll be flown to England to see MU play in person and get the whole English football experience.

Having his dream come true renews Manchester’s faith and spirit that there are some good things in this world, and they can sometimes come to you. And through him a bit of your own spirit is renewed. If a simple Bulgarian builder can make his dreams come true with a simple e-mail, maybe the rest of us are over-thinking it in trying to make ours come to fruition.

On the flip side was Trials, Tribulations & Sustainable Growth of a Cock, which is either overly sexual, or overtly environmental, or both. Like a nudist camp. No, this is about the evolution of chickens and a circle of life type thing. We see a nest of chicks hatch and grow into adult roosters and hens, until one of the roosters is chosen to… Well, why ruin the surprise? Needless to say it’ll have PETA manning all battle stations. If I give this short doc a low grade, it’s because I don’t see anything coming from it that could be construed as a message and seems cruel for the sake or cruel.

All I’ll say is that at least Hot Docs ran the positive, life-affirming one second.

Hot Docs - Inocente with The Quiet One

For Both Films: ****

Filmmakers Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine do the incredible in Inocente, they made a bright and positive film out of the struggles of one young homeless girl’s quest to find something in this world to believe in. That’s not to say that Inocente doesn’t have its fair share of drama, but despite the titular subject’s circumstances – homelessness, being an illegal immigrant, personal struggles with her single mother – there’s always a bright side, and the world still manages to be a beautiful place at the end of the day.

Inocente and her family struggle. They are not truly homeless, as Inocente points out. Homelessness does not mean you are sleeping in an alley or a park, it might just mean that you don’t have a permanent home. Inocente’s family is continually on the move, mostly because they get evicted from the places they stay when Inocente’s mother, an illegal immigrant whose work options are limited, can’t make-up the rent. Living in San Diego, Inocente goes to school with some of the richest kids in the country, but despite all her troubles, Inocente keeps a positive outlook, and focuses on the thing that makes her happiest: her art.

I think rather easily Inocente could have become a dark and depressing effort, and it’s not that the issues that affect Inocente’s life aren’t serious, but I think the filmmakers were right in taking the lead from their subject and trying to stay on the sunny side. Inocente’s no naïve, pie-in-the-sky dreamer. She knows the odds are staked against her, she knows she’s going to have to work three times as hard to get half as far, but she’s bound and determined to make it, and make it through her art. You cheer for her successes and you feel for her disappointments. The documentary works exceptionally well telling its tale from Inocente’s point of view.

Inocente is a charming documentary that manages to prompt more than a few smiles, and given the tough issues involved that is a surprising approach to the story. Inocente herself, meanwhile, has a bright future ahead of her; the hero of her own story that breaks the bounds of what’s possible as much as any of the fantastic visions that come out of her paint brush. Inocente is a wonderful, life affirming story.

The Quiet One, the documentary that accompanies Inocente, is another immigrant story. This one is in Sweden and follows six-year-old Maryam, who’s come to the northern European country with her family of Iranian refuges. Maryam struggles to not just learn the language and culture of her new home, but to fit in with the class of native Swedish kids, who with their near universal blonde hair and fair complexions make Maryam stand out all the more.

But despite the educational and cultural differences, what struck me was that underneath it all, kids are all the same. The other kids in the class run hot and cold with Maryam, sometimes they’re all friends and sometimes they tease her. But after every fight, there’s a brief period of calm where the kids are all friends again, introducing Maryam to the strange new world of snow suits and tobogganing. After her first trip down the hill, Maryam lays in the snow and smiles; she’s proved her metal to her classmates, and maybe for the first time she feels more at home in this strange new land than ever. If only it were so easy for all of us…

Hot Docs - Booker’s Place: A Mississippi Story

Rating: *****

In 1965, Frank De Felitta, a documentary filmmaker for NBC News, went to Greenwood Mississippi to take a look at the state, then embroiled in the burgeoning Civil rights movement, to try and make sense of this part of the United States that was the subject of so much conversation.

In his travels, Frank met a black man named Booker Wright. Booker was a waiter at a local, whites only, Greenwood restaurant called Lusco’s, and in the midst of reciting the restaurant’s menu by heart, which the restaurant was known for, Booker made some what were really rather benign observations about how whites treated black people in Mississippi at the time. But givern that time and that place, his comments were really quiet incendiary. Over 40 years later, Frank’s son Raymond decides to seek out Booker, and learn his fate after he appeared in his father’s documentary. But fate wasn’t kind to Booker, and as the De Felittas learned, Booker was killed not too long after the documentary aired in ’65.

But this isn’t a conspiracy thriller. The death of Booker isn’t the point of the film, but rather a galvanizing force to understand this man and his world. Raymond connects with Booker’s granddaughter Yvette, and for her this is a journey of discovery too. She had always thought that her grandfather was an “accidental activist,” as she says, that Frank De Felitta had caught Booker’s comments on the fly. Yvette had never seen the film until it was put online by Raymond, but as they both learn, Booker not only knew what he was doing, but he knew there would be implications. “You realize if this airs, they will kill you,” Frank remembers telling Booker at the time. And yes, he did realize it.

As race continues to be a great dividing line in the United States, I really couldn’t think of a better time for this movie. I might still consider Brooker Wright an “accidental activist” in that he didn’t seek out a stage, but he seized an opportunity when it came knocking. It’s a recurring theme in the history of activism that people rise to the occasion, and usually act out of the blue. The story of Booker Wright is the story of a man that saw an opportunity to speak a simple truth, which are quite often the most dangerous, and he took it.

Remembrances of Booker are recorded, and paradoxically, the old Booker’s Place, the restaurant/pub that Booker ran when he wasn’t working at Lusco’s, still stands vacant in Greenwood. It’s as if the building and the town were waiting for the day a camera crew would return to learn the fate of them and Booker. Raymond De Felitta really does bring history to life, and blends his father’s original footage with his own by shooting in black and white. The picture is beautiful and crisp, and all the more visceral and textual. The film is incredibly affecting, full of memory and sadness, but also a lot of hope.

Booker’s Place also raises a lot of interesting questions about the nature of documentary film, and whether you can capture a story without affecting it. But really, this is a human story of inspiration and tragedy. A silent (and not so silent) tribute to the people that change the world is small ways whether they realize it, like Booker. Or almost never realize it, like Frank De Felitta.

Hot Docs - In the Year in Hip Hop

Rating: ***1/2 

Many consider hip-hop a uniquely American musical style, a sound and attitude that came from the streets of the urban population of the U.S., who are also, predominantly, people of minority. And that is why a film called In the Year in Hip Hop was so weird because it focuses on hip-hop artists in the Eastern European country Slovenia, which is made up of 2.5 million, mostly, white people.

Director Boris Petkovic does an amazingly exhaustive job of tracing hip-hop’s influence on his country, from its novelty days in the 80s (“BAN-NAN-AS”) to its socially relevant place as the voice of a generation disappointed with their government and the powers that be in the present day. Along the way, Petkovic encounters all sorts of characters that are a part, or have been a part, of the Slovenia hip-hop scene: former Olympic calibre skiers, beat box guys and buskers that still keep the spirit of the 80s (or at least the accessories) alive.

Well-known and influential Slovenian hip-hop artists like 6 Pack Cukur, N’Toko, and Klemen Klemen are all interviewed. During the Q&A after the screening, Petkovic said that there was a protest at one of the screenings back home because of a perceived slight against artists not included in the film. Not that I know anything more about Slovenian hip-hop than I do about Japanese baseball leagues, but it seems to me that Petkovic did an exemplary job. So who did he leave out, the Slovenian Ice Cube or the Slovenian Kris Kross?

Petkovic puts together a heck of a “Behind the Music” special, but I wish there had been a wider context. The modern hip-hop artists of Slovenia are trying to say something important, but what’s driven the shift from the jolly hip-hop of the past to the social conscious current movement of the art form? It’s a question that never gets answered, and I kind of wish that it would have been. Laying that aside, I found In the Year of Hip Hop an engaging enough trip through another culture’s adaptation of hip-hop. I guess the message of the film is rap matters, and it matters all over.

Hot Docs - One Fine Day

 

Rating: ***

At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, two African American athletes placed in the medal categories for the 200 meter dash. As the “Star-Spangled Banner” played, gold medalist Tommie Smith and bronze medalist John Carlos raised their fists in the air. In the midst of the social upheaval of the 60s, 1968 being the pinnacle of it, Smith and Carlos couldn’t have made a gesture more incendiary than what became the “Black Power salute” heard ‘round the world.

Of course to Carlos, now a track coach at Palm Springs High School in California, it was more a symbol of solidarity, but that didn’t matter to the U.S. Olympic officials who recalled him and Smith to American soil immediately after the medal ceremony. It also didn’t matter to the people that hired Carlos years later and fired him when they found out he was that “John Carlos.” And apparently it still matters to those retractable few who still send Carlos hate mail more than 40 years after the Mexico City games.

Carlos is one of the six people profiled by Dutch director Klaas Bense in One Fine Day. Each of the people profiled, in one way, shape or form, have inspired change through simple acts of non-violence. There’s María Jesús Sanhueza, who led a student protest in Chile to get better and more affordable access to education; there’s Christian Führer, a Protestant pastor who opened his East Berlin church as a free speech zone, which played no small part in the eventual fall of the Berlin Wall; and Kovida, a Burmese monk who stood up to his country’s military might only to end up expelled from his home country.

These are all incredible stories, and I admire the very steady and hands off way that Bense collects their stories and gets their insights. But there’s no real context and I’m not sure why these people were singled out. Bense’ definition of achievement too seems rather all over the map; Sanhueza changed the way Chile’s educational system works, but Carlos fist seems to have just gotten him into one instance of hot water after another for life. I think the message is very, very good, the idea that one person can make a world of difference is as apropos now as it’s ever been, but I am still stuck as to the more specific idea that connects them. But I suppose as a source of inspiration, One Fine Day is fine enough.

Hot Docs - The Field of Magic with Home Turf

 

Both Films: ***1/2

In the film, The Field of Magic, a group of people eek out a living for themselves on the literal margins of society. Forging for food in the Buda Forest of Lithuania and collecting scrap metal for money from a nearby dump, they return to their self-built shacks at the end of the day, and celebrate the small things in life. It may not be how you’d want to live your life, but you’ll be darned if they don’t live their lives with dignity and resolve. It’s an oddly empowering film to say the least.

Director Mindaugas Survila spent four years visiting these people, collecting their stories, chronicling their lives and seeing how they lived. Survila’s style is kind of a fly on the wall, and with a couple of exceptions he just records things as they happen. He also lets the people go about their lives, never probing them about how they ended up here, and why they stay. The lack of the why actually doesn’t bother you; filming somebody going about their life in Toronto, you may not necessarily ask why they’re there after all…

The Field of Magic shirks a very crisp and digital look for something more akin to a grittier video feel. That may come from the technical demands of where Survila was shooting, but at the same time it suits the film. It’s like a time capsule of a bygone age, a lifestyle long gone. Sadly, that’s not too far from the truth, but watching The Field of Magic you at least get to see, feel and understand a piece of an unusual world that may not appeal to many, but you’ll be darned if these people don’t live with some kind of grace.

Speaking of days gone by, Home Turf takes us to County Kerry, Ireland and the tradition of turf cutting. The cutting and drying of turf provides fuel for the fire, literally, in the Irish winter, and it’s been done in County Kerry for over 100 year, but as these things go, it’s a dying tradition. In just 14 minutes, Ross Whitaker expertly takes us through the turf season, and shows us the hard work and rewards for these men keeping an old way of life alive in spite of the odds.

Hot Docs - Shadows of Liberty

Rating: ***

So it turns out that corporate media is bad. That’s the surprisingly unsurprising message of Shadows of Liberty, a documentary about how the monopolizing of media – newspapers, radio and TV stations – under the umbrella of a handful of giant media conglomerates has made news consumers and the general public less informed if not downright ignorant. As the world burns, they say, and people of impure motives work their evil deeds, we the viewer, or listener, or reader, thrill to the tabloid exploits of celebrities who are making sex tapes, dying young, or going to jail…

And you know what? …They’re not wrong.

Director Jean-Philippe Tremblay is meticulous and cutting in his analysis. He puts together a tremendous cast of commentators to illustrate the problem – among them Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman, former CBS anchor Dan Rather and Danny Glover (?) – to provide context. His case studies are well chosen; a CBS expose on Nike sweatshops is killed after CBS Sports reaches a sponsorship deal with the company for the ’98 Winter Olympics, another CBS reporter is fired after openly questioning the FBI’s official explanation for the crash of TWA 800, and the grand-daddy of media missed opportunities, the case against Iraq.

Again, nothing in that is at all surprising.

Indeed, Tremblay’s moral and historical autopsy on mainstream media is impressive, and exhaustive, but what I think was missing was some semblance of balance. I don’t mean the defense of companies like News Corp, Disney and Viacom, but I mean signs of hope; the people working independently, on the outside of the system. He had Julian Asange there, but didn’t talk about how his upstart Wikileaks ended up feeding the New York Times as a source. It also would have been nice to get a rebuttal from the people Tremblay was lambasting. I don’t think Bill O’Reilly would have sat down with him, but Anderson Cooper maybe. Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell possibly…

But the film is really well made, beautifully filmed and fulfilled, and in the end, Tremblay makes his case very, very well. But here’s the rub: I think he’s preaching to the choir. This was an extremely hot ticket Friday at Hot Docs, and I doubt it was just because it was the one of the first screenings of the fest. To this crowd, they know the media is not all it should be, and they know the reasons why that is, but the question is how do we change that culture, and how to we convert the non-members of the choir to that tune. Maybe we’ll save that for the sequel.

Hot Docs - The Invisible War

Rating: ****

The women featured in The Invisible War are everything one would expect from modern U.S. military officers: they’re driven, ambitious, skilled, accomplished, and selfless. True leaders in every sense of the word; women dedicated to serving their country and answering the call to be a part of something bigger than themselves. For all these reasons, it’s all the more unfortunate, one way or the other, that they were forced to give up their commissions after being sexually assaulted by their fellow soldiers or superiors.

The Invisible War explored by Kirby Dick (This Film is Not Yet Rated) in this film is the struggle of literally thousands of women who have served in uniform, were sexually assaulted and forced to cope in a system hopelessly stacked in favour of their attackers, a small fraction of whom ever see a court room, and an even small fraction of those receive severe consequences. Dick and his crew chronicle the daily struggles of the brave women who came forward for the film, while at the same time trying to get to the bottom of why, despite the government’s own statistics and the accusations of its female officers, the military is left to police its own in the case of rape on armed forces personnel.

The statistics are staggering, as is the seeming indifference of military leadership and representatives in the U.S. Department of Defense. Even women in the system, who you would think would be more sympathetic, show tremendous callousness and ignorance for the issue. Dr. Kaye Whitley, the former head of the military’s program to combat rape in the ranks, SAPRO (Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office), advocates for female service members to use the “buddy system” as an acceptable strategy to combat rape. In another segment, a former officer in the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID) explains that cases of rape reported are always given to male agents, since the perception is that female agents are “too sympathetic” and can’t be “impartial.”

Meanwhile, former Coast Guard Seaman Kori Cioca tells a waitress she meets to reconsider a career in the navy because chances are she’ll one day be raped and her superiors will do nothing. And while politicians in Washington agree there’s a problem, with nothing ever seeming to be done about it, female veterans suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) are more likely to be suffering not because of combat trauma, but because they were raped.

It’s a startling tale, but it does not enshrine victimhood. There’s tremendous sympathy for these women, but there’s also anger for what’s been done to them, and for what’s not being done for them. Hearing Dr. Whitley hem and haw through her interview with Dick would be funny if it weren’t so shocking, but it’s part of an astonishing system of ostriches all sticking their heads in the sand together. A glass-shattering story, and a wake-up call to anyone that still wants to believe that you – male or female – can be all you can be in the U.S. armed forces.

Hot Docs - Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

 

Rating: ****

Ai Weiwei is a giant in Chinese arts scene, a giant in the international arts community, and a giant pain in the butt for the Chinese government. Despite China’s reputation as a place that clamps down hard on any and all criticism, Ai Weiwei stood boldly in contrast, poking and prodding the state, practically daring them to “black bag” him. For a minute there last year, it seemed that Ai Weiwei had finally been silenced, but international response was resounding, and after 81 days he was released from custody.

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry offers incredible access into the artist and his world, but it’s also a serendipitous chronicle of the weeks leading up to Ai Weiwei’s arrest and the events that may have been the last draw for the Chinese government. In stark contrast to his homeland, Ai Weiwei is open and engaged, willing to be questioned and challenged in conversation. He really is the perfect subject matter for a documentary, and is a thoroughly captivating character.

But beyond the hindsight build up to Ai Weiwei’s arrest, director Alison Klayman plays with a number of themes: the fine line between art and activism, working within and without strict state-run censorship, and trying to promote change from the outside while still working from the inside. It’s heady stuff, but Ai Weiwei is such a relatable figure. Quite often the arts seem impenetrable to the layman, and the discussion of it requires a language most people don’t understand. But Ai Weiwei and his work flies in the face of that.

What’s weird is that in the midst of being surveilled and continually, sometimes literally, sticking his middle finger out to the Chinese government, you’re never concerned for Ai Weiwei, even if you have some idea what’s coming. He’s a rebel with a cause, and a glass half-full disposition. The film too is an extension of the artist’s spirit, not preaching, not condemning, and not afraid. The dividing line between art and politics falls away, and for Ai Weiwei, his politics become his art. Or vice versa.

Klayman effortlessly balances a lot of balls in the air and manages to tell a story that’s biographical, political, cultural and human. It’s all of those things and none of them. At least all that once. It’s a fascinating trip inside the mind of a man that shares his uniqueness without having to deconstruct the magic out of it.

Hot Docs - Boy Cheerleaders

Rating: ***1/2

The idea of seeing boys on cheerleading squads amongst the girls is hardly new or surprising. At this point, I’m not exactly sure how rare a thing it is to find squads made up entirely of boys. Of course, if boys being cheerleaders was the sole preoccupation of James Newton’s British-made documentary Boy Cheerleaders, it would be a terribly dull affair. What’s interesting is the film’s setting, a council estate in Leeds, and the main characters, a colourful cast of troubled boys, many of whom are being raised by single mothers, and all of whom are finding something challenging and redeeming in the sport of cheerleading.

What’s interesting about the film is not that so many of the boys take it on the chin from their school chums that they’re into cheerleading, or even the fact that they’re working class boys that like to dance while waving pom-poms. What’s interesting is that it seems that cheerleading is one of the only things that can reach them. These boys so often drift into fighting and other forms of acting out, they’re indifferent to authority of any kind, but absolutely live to dance. There’s a great scene where one of the boys is forced to take a time-out from cheerleading after some particularly unruly behaviour. His disappointment, and his penance, eventually allow him back in, but it’s interesting watching him try and deny that he’s really missing something by not being allowed to cheerlead.

The film flows very naturally. It follows Coach Ian Rodley as he tries to galvanize the boys to become the tops in their field, and not just as boy cheerleaders, but for all cheerleaders. There’s a stop on a popular British talk show along the way, and an important audition for one of the boys that could lead to a possible future as a professional dancer. Obviously, the film comes down to the championships and whether or not the boys will rank. Whether they do or do not is superfluous to the fact that you can just lean back and have a good time watching this documentary. It’s like Billy Elliot, but with a bunch of Billys and it’s a documentary. What’s not to love?

Hot Docs - Better This World

Rating: ****

Better this World is a rather disingenuous title. On the one hand, it is about young people trying to make the world a better place, but on the other it’s about how those ideals can be betrayed by a paranoid government, a opportunistic informant, and two young guys from George W. Bush country in Texas who pave their own road to hell with good intentions. Against the background of the madness and protests at the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, MN, David McKay and Bradley Crowder found themselves in a world of trouble, just by following their passion and fighting for what’s right.

The story starts in Texas, where David and Brad meet up in Midland and bond over their shared convictions in social justice and opposition to the war. The meet a charismatic activist named Brandon Darby, who had just come off months of helping survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans keep their homes and rebuild their lives. In the summer of 2008, Darby invited David and Brad to join him in Minneapolis as part of the Republican Welcoming Committee, helping to disrupt the GOP’s activities in the Twin Cities.

What Brad, David, or anyone that was part of their group didn’t realized was that Darby was an FBI informant, who, while helping to organize disruption activities with his group, was actually narcing on them as well. David and Brad were arrested and put on trial in Federal Court. They tried to argue entrapment, and that Darby, while acting as an agent of the government, convinced good people to plan violent acts so that he could report them and have them arrested as terrorists.

Directors Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega tell the story in a very straight-forward manner, but with incredible access to family, friends and associates of David and Brad, as well as members of law enforcement that were involved in the case. Everyone tells their story plainly, and what’s interesting is that there is a lot of agreement on the details. Where people disagree is the intent of the investigation. Both David and Brad admit that they probably would have committed to their plan to bomb a jumbotron with Molotov cocktails without being egged on by Darby. But if Darby hadn’t been leading them by the wrists, so to speak, up to that point, would they have taken their activism that far?

Better This World has a lot to say about the legal process, the definition of entrapment, the nature of government obsessed with security and stretching those definitions to near ridiculous degrees. Interestingly, while the convictions of David and Brad seem as strong as ever, Darby has forsaken community organizing for fleeting fame on right-wing radio. Trying to portray himself as a patriot to the very people he was fighting against just a few years ago? I guess the first casualty of war protests, in Darby’s case, is your convictions.

Hot Docs - Highway Gospel

Rating: ***

Skateboarders are well represented at this year’s Hot Docs between the acclaimed Dragonslayer and this effort by co-directors Jaret Belliveau and Craig Jackson. But where as Dragonslayer focuses on a singular subject in a disjointed manner, Highway Gospel focuses on many subjects and the whole thing just seems disjointed. The long board racing scene in B.C. is the stage in this doc, and a colourful cast of characters populate that stage as they race for various levels of legitimacy for their sport.

A lot of the story action is around two important races. Most long board competitions take place along mountain roads and down hill on highways, impromptu races in almost complete disregard for safety and the rules of the road, weaving in and around traffic. Some people like this “fast and furious” method racing, but there is a thirst too to legitimize the sport and get long boarding its proper recognition.

The film talks to a lot of the characters that are part of the scene. Some of them are extreme sports wannabes, some of them are D.I.Y. board creators looking to make faster and more manoeuvrable boards. If there is a star, it’s 52-year-old Claude Regnier, a championship skateboarder who’s still as good as any kid now on the circuit. He suffers from health issues related to his heart, and he’s suffering financial hardships related to an indoor skate park he’s trying to run. Between a rock and a hard place, Regnier works himself ragged for the sport that he loves, while his next race could literally kill him.

Regnier is a wonderful subject, and it’s enough to make you wish that the entire film was built around him. His is a deeply personal story, and one that is completely inspiring; he’s a true iron man because of his endurance and perseverance. It’s just too bad that it’s bogged down with a lot of skaters behaving badly scenes, and a bunch of guys talking about the rebellious, off the grid, be cool lifestyle of skating. The problem is that no one outside Regnier is particularly engaging, and many times the film feels as though it were editing together like someone making a promotional skate video.

Highway Gospel is interesting, but I’m not sure what it’s preaching. Some of the footage captured is amazing, and there’s clearly a passion and an interest translated through the material, but the focus is disorganized and the narrative seems almost non-existent. When the film does find focus, it really engages, but sadly these moments are as plentiful as they should be.

Hot Docs - Dragonslayer

Rating: ****

Although it sounds like an 80s fantasy movie, the documentary Dragonslayer has very little to do with dragons or slaying. At the heart of the film though is a lone hero, always on the move but seemingly lacking in ambition and direction. In California’s Orange County, where the bursting of the housing bubble was created no shortage of abandoned houses with empty pools a perfect ground is created for the opportunistic skater looking for his next challenge. It’s perfect ground for a young man named Josh "Skreech" Sandoval.

Filmed as a kind-of expanded, day-in-the-life-of style film by Tristan Patterson, a friend of Skreech’s making his first movie, Dragonslayer can be a disjointed and unflinching looking at the under-inspired, the under-employed, and the less than passionate. Scratch that, because Skreech is actually very passionate, just about skateboarding, getting high and chilling out with friends. Or in the immortal words of Jeff Spicoli, “All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I'm fine.”

To most of the audience, I imagine it’s hard to see yourself in the shoes of Skreech. He has no prospects, a son that he has to help care for, and a semi-pro career as a skater. You could say that he’s couch-surfing, but just as often his accommodations are a tent in someone’s backyard. Why would someone want to live like this? How can they? Is there no greater ambition than just to keep skating and doing as little as possible?

Despite that, there is something admirable about Skreech. As much as you can admire someone for living their life without compromise or apologies, you can admire Skreech. And Patterson’s cameras aren’t flattering; the drug abuse, the living conditions, and the ennui are captured for all their glory, if that’s really the turn of phrase you want to use. It’s not that Skreech is not smart, it’s not that he’s not charismatic, but this is the life he’s chosen, and in a society full of people telling you what to do and who to be, you can’t help but admire the one guy that refuses to conform.

There’s something weird about Dragonslayer in that it follows a protagonist who could generously be called a slacker, there doesn’t seem to be any kind of real motivation or goal, but the movie is still rather hypnotic and engrossing in the telling. What happens now to Skreech? Where is he going? What will he do? Those questions almost seem superfluous in the asking. Dragonslayer captures the moment. The moment comes, and the moment goes, and really, isn’t that all there is?