January 2003 Archive
One of the most controversial films in cinematic history, as well as one of the most frightening and beautifully made. The subject is the spectacle of the 1934 session of Nazi Party Congress, at mass rallies involving thousands. The cinematography is gorgeous, the subjects are heroic. Critics brand Triumph of the Will a Nazi propaganda film that lionized butchers. True enough, and those charges had it banned for nearly 30 years. But a DVD version attempts to put the Triumph of the Will in its proper historical context by providing a substantial amount of material concerning the making of the film, including later interviews with Riefenstahl. The result is a critical look at a documentary that manages to capture a horrifying era through an extraordinary blend of inspired art, direction and cinematography.
-Jim Daley
Triumph of the Will
(Triumph des Willens)
1934, 110 min
By Leni Riefenstahl
$17 VHS
$30 DVD
Amazon
Netflix
Posted on January 26, 2003 at 10:48 AM
A gentle, polite and very mid-western look at how a hard-working Iowa farm family loses their farm and sells it off in a mid-winter auction Sounds boring, but the film manages to make it dramatic and insightful. A real ticket into the deepest crevice of heartland America.
–KK
Troublesome Creek
1995, 88 minutes
By Jeanne Jordan & Steven Ascher
$17 VHS
$35 DVD
Amazon
Posted on January 23, 2003 at 03:49 PM
Ostensibly a documentary about Muhammad Ali’s 1974 championship bout with George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire (“The Rumble in the Jungle”), but a much broader and engaging exploration of hero worship, racial divides and the ultimate marriage of PR and symbolism. The Foreman of “When We Were Kings” isn’t the jolly bald guy you see today on TV hawking low-fat grilles. With crazy hair, a crunching punch, and a look that makes him appear that he wants to tear your ears off, Foreman is a junkyard dog, ready to pound Ali into paste. The insights of fight attendees like Norman Mailer and George Plimpton provide a nice spark, but the film really lights up every time Ali appears on-screen or opens his mouth. Nice bonus: great musical moments by James Brown and Miriam Makeba at a concert preceding the fight.
–JD
When We Were Kings
1996, 89 min
Directed by Leon Gast
$10 VHS
$17 DVD
Netflix
Amazon
Posted on January 22, 2003 at 11:57 AM
Errol Morris hit on something special in this 1981 film (only his second). Possibly, the least-known of his films, it’s the quiet portrait of an odd Southern town. The film is as leisurely as a humid Florida afternoon, and perfect for the subject matter. The townspeople are eccentric without being a joke. They speak for themselves with no explanations, voiceover or narration. Vernon, Florida is a powerful portrait of a unique place by a gifted filmmaker.
–RK
Vernon, Florida
1981, 72 min
by Errol Morris
VHS & DVD
Out of Print
Special order from Amazon
available used at Half.com, $22
Posted on January 20, 2003 at 12:58 PM
Nature photography doesn't come much purer. Filmed over several years from and in a church tower in Norway, this unadorned film of hawk life, from birth to death, is seen from the birdsí eye view, with no human narration. Extreme filmmaking, extreme birdness.
The Kestrelís Eye (Falkens oga)
1999, 89 min
By Mikael Kristersson
$30 VHS
Netflix
Amazon
Posted on January 10, 2003 at 11:30 AM
An engrossing legal and societal drama based on a court case involving American Indian activist Leonard Peltier, convicted for allegedly killing two FBI agents and another Native American in a shoot-out on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in June 1975. The film gives us a vivid picture of the desperately poor Indian reservations of South Dakota, where ramshackle houses prevail, unemployment rates soar, and the landscape can reveal a magnificent vista in one direction or an unconscious drunk in another. Incident at Oglala pulls apart court testimony, highlights discrepancies and reveals that a century after the Massacre at Wounded Knee, Native Americans are still often treated like bad dogs.
––JD
Incident at Oglala: The Leonard Peltier Story
1992
Directed by Michael Apted
$20 VHS
$23 DVD
Netflix
Amazon
Posted on January 10, 2003 at 10:35 AM
On the evening of May 31, 1986, a pair of aspiring documentary filmmakers took their video equipment to the Capital Center arena outside Washington, DC, and filmed teenagers arriving for a concert by the British heavy metal thudmasters Judas Priest. Jeff Krulik and John Heyn scooped up a pure slab of teenage wasteland by simply asking dumb questions ("Does anybody here do air guitar") and recording increasingly sauced teens wheeled around in their orange cars and got "ready to rawk!" Like Jane Goodall peeking through the leaves at the chimps, the filmmakers captured an amazing anthropological slice of life, complete with bad hair, bad teeth, bare chests and semi-articulate babbling. ěHeavy Metal Parking Lot,î is a short work, only 15
minutes long, but itís an ingenious masterpiece.
––JD
Heavy Metal Parking Lot
1986, 15 min
Directed by Jeff Krulik and John Heyn
$15 VHS
Amazon
Posted on January 10, 2003 at 10:09 AM
Gimme Shelter
1970, 91 min
Directed by David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Charlotte
Zwerin
$30 VHS
$36 DVD
Amazon
Netflix rental
Makes the list simply because it's the best filmed documentary of the Stones at their bluesiest and ballsiest. When they truly were The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World. The film zips into another realm, though, when the filmmakers follow the Stones to the terrible and tragic free concert at Altamont Speedway on December 1969, where Hell's Angels whack concertgoers with pool cues, and a man is stabbed to death. Only four months earlier, Woodstock defined the Love Generation; now it lay in ruins on a windy racetrack outside San Francisco. A vivid, scary and tense work.
-- JD
Posted on January 01, 2003 at 05:46 PM
Ghengis Blues
1999, 88 min
By Roko Belic
$25 VHS
$27 DVD
Amazon
Netflix rental
What a wonderful adventure. A blind Cape Verdean-American blues singer hears some strange music on a shortwave radio, and tracks it down as Tuvan throatsinging. It sounds like a whistle and a groan at the same time, and most people an't believe it comes from one human mouth. Our hero, Paul Pena, not only learns how to do it by reinventing it sitting in his home, he also learns Tuvan language by translating English to Russian to Tuvan in Braille! He then winds up getting invited to perform in the first Tuvan throatsinging contest since such contests were allowed after the breakup of the Soviet Union. (Tuva, near Mongolia, is a small autonomous republic within the Russian Federation.) The film starts here as it follows this blind man into the heart of Mongolia to try to win a horse by groaning two notes at once while singing the Tuvan national anthem. It's a wild and strange trip.
Posted on January 01, 2003 at 05:37 PM
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