Tag Archives: Documentary

Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: A SPELL TO WARD OFF THE DARKNESS (2013)

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DIRECTED BY: Ben Rivers, Ben Russell

FEATURING: Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, Nicholas McMaster, Weasel Walter

PLOT: A commune member goes off on his own for a more solitarty existence but eventually heads to the city, where he plays in a black metal rock band.

Still from A Spell to Ward off the Darkness (2013)

COMMENTS: Michael Winterbottom’s 2004 romantic drama 9 Songs is ostensibly about the life of a relationship, in which we see the central couple enjoy each other’s company, argue, and have sex; in between, they go to concerts and see bands like Franz Ferdinand, the Von Bondies, and the Dandy Warhols. The back-and-forth nature of the production begs the question of whether the songs are there to justify the explicit sex scenes, or if the sex is an excuse to showcase all these up-and-coming bands. 

I thought of this as I followed the tripartite journey of the central figure in A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness. This man who goes from a commune to a lone encampment in the woods to a concert in a small nightclub never speaks, never offers any insight into his heart or mind. Even in performance, he and his fellow bandmates sing exclusively in wordless intonations. So what are we seeing? Is this concert the culmination of a journey? The logical endpoint for his travels from nature to urbanity? Or did the band come first, and the movie was reverse-engineered to get us here?

As winner of the award for Best Documentary Feature at the Torino Film Festival—aside from reminding us just how many film festivals there are out there—Spell brings up the question of just what a documentary is. Nothing in A Spell to Ward off the Darkness is fictional, strictly speaking, because nothing in it is functionally narrative. Arguably the most vérité section of the film is in the first third, when we hang out with a bunch of hippies at their wooded retreat as they build a small dome, frolic about in the sauna, laze by a river, and engage in idle chit-chat. It seems pleasantly rustic (they still have wi-fi and sound systems), and the residents are a little crunchy-granola, but not annoyingly so. Still, there’s a distinct lack of specifics. We don’t even know anyone’s name, let alone what led them to walk away from society or permitted them to find each other. It documents by capturing on film, but completely elides the facts or context that would give the images meaning.

But the remainder of the film doesn’t even possess the veneer of the found moment. When one of the campers (Lowe, whom we’ve only seen occasionally up to this point) decides to go off and live on his own, it feels enormously calculated, as we jump directly to the middle of his escape in a canoe. Nothing has precipitated the move, and not much will come of it as he hikes his way to a remote cabin where he can read, fish, and get dressed for the last portion of the film. Having put on makeup and set fire to the cabin, Lowe heads into town to join a concert in a tavern. Surely this was no surprise to the filmmakers. Certainly these are known events, staged and shot with forethought and intention. So the questions arise again: What are we seeing? Does the dog wag the tail, or vice-versa?

A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness is a beautifully shot motion picture, and the slow and contemplative pacing is enticing, encouraging you to watch to see where it’s going to go. But it isn’t going anywhere, because it isn’t really storytelling. It feels more like a collection of the most professionally shot home movies ever assembled. Having seen the pretty pictures, the viewer leaves with no more than when they began, without even hot sex or a cool song to take as a souvenir. So I guess it’s weird. I’m not sure if it’s a movie.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“This muddled curio doesn’t coalesce into anything, even by its own dreamy, associational terms.”–Tara Brady, The Irish Times (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by Blizard. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

A Spell to Ward off the Darkness

A Spell to Ward off the Darkness
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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: HOW STRANGE TO BE NAMED FEDERICO (2013)

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Che strano chiamarsi Federico; AKA How Strange to Be Named Federico: Scola Narrates Fellini

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DIRECTED BY: Ettore Scola

FEATURING: Vittorio Viviani, Antonella Attili, Tomasso Lazotti, Giacomo Lazotti, Maurizio De Santis, Giulio Forges Davanzati 

PLOT: Film director Ettore Scola remembers his friend and contemporary, the legendary Federico Fellini, recreating moments from the great filmmaker’s life on the soundstages of the fabled Cinecittà Studios.

Still from How Strange to Be Named Federico (2013)

COMMENTS: If we’re being honest, How Strange to Be Named Federico is not a movie at all. It’s a eulogy, an Italian take on an Irish wake, replete with fond remembrances and amusing tales of a sadly absent friend. For most of us, it’s the kind of thing that might be shared at a bar or a VFW hall. But then, most of us aren’t successful filmmakers, and our friend isn’t a titan of the art form. So it’s only to be expected that Ettore Scola’s eulogy for Federico Fellini would have to take the form of a film.

Scola makes no effort to try and sum up Fellini’s career or the tremendous mark he left upon cinema. How Strange is a deeply personal account, and we see Fellini’s life exclusively through Scola’s eyes. Early scenes depicting Young Fellini’s big break drawing cartoons for the satirical magazine Marc’Aurelio are presented as a prelude to Scola’s own arrival at the periodical and his subsequent tutelage under Fellini and the staff of hard-bitten comedy writers. Later scenes depict the men holding court at an outdoor café, recounting Fellini’s successes. This isn’t an opportunity to analyze or deconstruct Fellini. Scola just wants you to know what it was like to hang out with the man.

If we learn anything about Fellini, it’s how much of his films seem to come from his observation of others. Scola suggests that Fellini’s intense insomnia, which he addresses by taking lengthy drives through his beloved Rome, provided inspiration in the form of passengers he picked up and encouraged to expound upon their views and experiences. We see two such raconteurs: a prostitute who deliberately overlooks the lies told to her by a thieving suitor because she derives happiness from the falsehoods, and a sidewalk chalk artist whose need to express himself is paramount. They don’t map directly to characters from Fellini’s films, but you kind find their spirit throughout his career.

This isn’t going to make much sense to the uninitiated, and the narrow focus of Scola’s memory play may be more likely to close off audiences, rather than invite them in. The wordless opening scene is like a parade of Easter eggs for Fellini aficionados, as a series of performers appear to audition for the director on a beach at dusk (one of many such scenes set on Cinecittà’s iconic Stage 5), evoking the memory of such classics as La Strada or 8½. And there are occasional side trips into archival footage of Fellini at work: making a rare turn as an actor, traveling to Hollywood to pick up an Oscar, or finding ways to showcase his avatar, Marcello Mastroianni. (We see the actor’s mother confront Scola with the charge that Fellini makes her son look handsome while Scola’s films turn him into a monster.) But these are all part of the kaleidoscope of Scola’s reminiscence. He’s remembering his friend through the method of storytelling they both knew best.

The final scene is probably the most unusual – or Felliniesque – as the not-dead-after-all filmmaker bolts from his own funeral, eluding the honor guard and escaping to an abandoned fairground where he finds pleasure in the rides, and we are treated to a whirlwind montage of striking visions from throughout his catalog. It’s akin to a celebrity-themed version of Cinema Paradiso. But the moment is affecting, because this is truly Scola’s farewell to the man he loved and admired, using Fellini’s own cinematic language to render him forever free. It’s the wish we all hold for the ones we hold dear, but only a filmmaker can make it come true. 

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“How Strange to be Named Federico, Scola Narrates Fellini hits just the right notes of whimsy, nostalgia and mocking tomfoolery to bring this memory of Fellini and his times vividly to life… Scola leaps around casting bits and pieces of expressionist portraiture before us. This makes the film much more interesting to watch, even for audiences who know little about the director.” – Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by Brad. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

How Strange to Be Named Federico ( Che strano chiamarsi Federico ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Italy ]

How Strange to Be Named Federico ( Che strano chiamarsi Federico ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Italy ]
  • How Strange to Be Named Federico ( Che strano chiamarsi Federico )
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  • Che strano chiamarsi Federico
  • Non US Format, PAL, Region 2
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Capsules, Shorts

CAPSULE: GODARD CINEMA (2022)/TRAILER OF A FILM THAT WILL NEVER EXIST: PHONY WARS (2023)

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 Godard, seul le cinéma/Film annonce du film qui n’existéra jamais: ‘Drôles de guerres’

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DIRECTED BY: Cyril Leuthy

FEATURING: (archival footage)

PLOT: A documentary overview of the career of nouvelle vague icon Jean-Luc Godard, programmed together with a sketch for the director’s final, unfinished film.

Title card from "phony wars trailer of a film that will never exist" (2023)

COMMENTS: There have been a number of director retrospective documentaries lately: Dario Argento Panico (2023), Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer (2022), Satoshi Kon: The Illusionist (2020). These affairs are typically hagiographies wherein talking heads (usually other directors) sit around complimenting their comrades. Godard Cinema, originally made for French television, digs a bit deeper into its subject, and isn’t afraid to expose a few of Godard’s warts (his habit of literally stealing to finance his early films, his troubled relationship with first wife , his “inexplicable” decision to go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao). If there is an ongoing theme to Leuthy’s portrait, it’s Godard’s ultimate unknowability: early on, he observes that there are no known boyhood pictures of young Jean-Luc. Although, by the end, we understand why this free spirit did not quite fit in with his bourgeois family, the absence of much childhood biography reinforces the idea of Godard as a sui generis being who arises spontaneously in response to his time in cinema history.

If there’s one complaint here, it’s that, as an examination of a man’s life, the the pacing feels wonky. You may find yourself wondering how the doc is going to fit in the majority of Godard’s five-decade career when it’s already at the midpoint, and they’re not even through 1967. They aren’t; the doc rushes through the final 45 years of Godard’s life, spending only about 15 minutes on the entirety of his output after 1985’s controversial comeback, Hail Mary. Godard Cinema follows the commonly-accepted dogma (which this writer also endorses) that Godard’s vital movies were all completed in his first eight years of filmmaking, and that his work falls off an ideological cliff after 1968. The front-loading makes sense if you consider the documentary as an essay on film history, but as a complete biography of Godard the man, it falls short. But perhaps that’s why it’s called Godard Cinema and not Godard.

The main selling point to Kino’s Godard Cinema release may not be the documentary itself, but the supplement: “Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars,” the auteur’s incomplete sketch for a final feature. The piece is a skeletal outline for a work that would be, by all appearances, a very loose adaptation of the novel “Faux Passeports” by Communist artist Charles Plisnier. What we get, mainly, are a series of photographic collages, with Godard’s enigmatic handwritten notes scrawled on some of them (e.g., one reads “it’s your business and not mine to reign over the absence of…” The next phrase is blotted out by magic marker). Much of it is silent; other segments are scored to dissonant classical music. There is almost a minute of actual film, studies of a young actress wandering around smoking, overdubbed with Godard giving some background on Plisnier; later on, we hear what seems to be a dialogue rehearsal, read in both French and Russian. It’s impossible to guess what the final film might have looked like—did Godard intend to flesh it out, using these stills as an outline, or was it always intended to be a longer version of the experimental abstraction we see onscreen? It’s hard to imagine anyone but the most dedicated Godard scholar watching this “trailer” more than once, but it is an interesting artifact, a peek into a master’s creative process, and therefore worth a gander.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“[Godard Cinema] provides an immersive exploration of his influence on both the celluloid world and broader cultural landscapes… TRAILER OF A FILM THAT WILL NEVER EXIST: PHONY WARS, the final work from Godard, emerges as a daring and inventive visual tapestry.”–Chris Jones, Overly Honest Reviews

Godard Cinema / Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars [Blu-ray]

Godard Cinema / Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars [Blu-ray]
  • An in-depth look at the career of revered French director Jean-Luc Godard
  • Includes Godard's final work, Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars
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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD (2007)

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DIRECTED BY: Werner Herzog

PLOT: A profile of the scientists and adventurers who spend months at a time in Antarctica exploring the mysteries found there.

Still from encounters at the End of the World (2007)

COMMENTS: Somehow, Werner Herzog has emerged in the past several years to become the most unlikely of pop culture celebrities. His voice, chronically pessimistic but tempered by an exhausted Teutonic restraint, has become the stuff of legendary parody. This distinctive delivery has inspired an unexpected career as an actor in projects as diverse as a Tom Cruise thriller, a Star Wars TV series, a sitcom, and even an animated jokefest starring penguins. If you had predicted that the man behind Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre: The Wrath of God would become a participant in postmodern ironic comedy, then I hope you also invested heavily in lottery tickets.

It’s that last item I mentioned—the voice cameo in Penguins of Madagascar—that is surprisingly relevant here, because the minds behind that film must surely have screened this one, in which Herzog brings his cameras to Antarctica with no intention of filming, in his words, “fluffy penguins.” Herzog’s Earth is a harsh, cruel place governed by the unforgiving vicissitudes of nature, and a bunch of goofy flightless birds aren’t going to change that.

Herzog is very much on brand here. His general distaste for the bulk of humanity is triggered by the sight of McMurdo Station, the busy port-of-call that has dragged the most distasteful elements of civilization to this once-pristine wasteland; he calls out the presence of an ATM with particular scorn. But he seems captivated by the strange rituals that have sprung up as part of survival in such an inhospitable climate, such as a training exercise in which a platoon of newcomers simulate finding a lost colleague in the midst of a snowstorm by putting plastic buckets on their heads.

Herzog is a crank, of course. “I loathe the sun both on my celluloid and my skin,” he intones, as if trying to prove that he’s nothing like you. But the people he encounters challenge Herzog at his own game. They are willing to endure harsh climates to pursue their passions, and yet they bring along their own personal whims and amusements, such as talent shows, electric guitars, and monster movies. One such scientist—a penguin researcher, naturally—seems just as disgusted by other humans as Herzog professes to be, and the filmmaker seems so cowed by being judged pedestrian by this man that his questions end up justifying the assessment.

Part of what’s so strange about Encounters at the End of the World is that there’s a traditional nature documentary peeking out from under Herzog’s misanthropy. Footage from beneath the Antarctic ice reveals a stunningly unfamiliar world that James Cameron should be tripping over himself to capture. Underwater canyons are populated by string-legged crabs who gambol over frozen stalagmites. Seals make sounds straight out of science fiction. And a remarkable collection of scientists have assembled to catalog these wonders, often with the South Pole being just the latest stop in an unexpected series of mileposts around the globe, such as the lawyer who now drives McMurdo’s bus, or the pipefitter who claims ancient royalty as ancestors. Herzog may hold out little hope for the human race, but even he must admit that no one here is leading a life of quiet desperation.

Ultimately, even Werner Herzog can’t escape the gravitational pull of the penguins. But of course, he captures them in the most Herzogian manner imaginable: we watch as a lone member of the species becomes separated from his compatriots and—either by confusion or madness—sets off on a trek to nowhere. Humans are proscribed from interfering, so they can only watch the hopeless march from the sidelines. As the camera pulls back to reveal the vast nothingness that surrounds the lost bird, it appears that Herzog has finally found someone who reinforces his worldview: we are all doomed, but strangely determined to be ourselves to the bitter end.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“But I make the movie sound like a travelogue or an exhibit of eccentrics, and it is a poem of oddness and beauty. Herzog is like no other filmmaker, and to return to him is to be welcomed into a world vastly larger and more peculiar than the one around us.”–Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (contemporaneous; Herzog dedicated the film to the critic)

(This movie was nominated for review by Marcella, who wondered, “is it really a documentary? or found footage used by a human actor claiming to be an alien…” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

Capsules

CAPSULE: WERNER HERZOG: RADICAL DREAMER (2022)

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Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer can be rented or purchased on-demand.

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DIRECTED BY: Thomas von Steinaecker

FEATURING: Werner Herzog

PLOT: Talking heads and archival footage come together to explore the career of Werner Herzog.

COMMENTS: I recall reading a review of a Herzog film from some years ago in which the critic dismissed the director as riding his own coattails for a good long while. But here’s the thing: this is Herzog, and he’s allowed to do what he wants. Even if he weren’t allowed, he’d do it anyway—a point made firmly, but gently, in Thomas Von Steinaecker’s Radical Dreamer. Combining the traditional mix of archival footage, eager talking heads, and conversations with the director-subject, this ninety minutes breezes by compellingly and informatively, painting a picture of this pleasantly non-traditional artist detailed enough for nearly any Herzog-habitué.

Steinaecker benefits not only from having a chattily obliging subject—Herzog’s wit, openness, and slightly non-sequitur way of thinking makes him always interesting to observe—but also from those “eager talking heads”, which proved an impressive line-up. , , Carl Weathers, , and , as well as his two brothers (finding that there are in fact three Herzog boys, all alive and well, was a delight): all had intelligent, and impressed-but-not-sycophantic remarks to deliver.  Bale, in particular, provides a font of amusing, unlikely observations; for example, “Look at Werner’s face, right? He’s got a good face. A really fascinating face.” These contemporary conversations, paired with archival footage of most of Herzog’s major projects, provide a thorough summary of the man and his career without overwhelming the viewer with minutiae.

Just before the documentary went to credits, the screen froze at a perfect moment during the wrap-up. Herzog appeared in the first season of “The Mandalorian” as, you might say, an evil version of himself. Seated across from the titular bounty hunter, Herzog’s character is chiding the other, arguing the pointlessness of the revolution. “I see nothing but death and chaos.” And in a way, that sums up Herzog’s view—as perceived by a dark soul. Werner Herzog, as illustrated amply during interviews throughout his life, as testified by countless creatives who have worked with and under him, and as shown, grandly and obliquely, through so much of his work, is not “dark,” however. There is death to life; there is chaos to life. But being intrinsic to these elements, there is also gentleness and wonderment.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The true value of Thomas von Steinaecker’s thorough feature documentary is the ease with which he has Werner on-side. The true test of a biographical documentary of this nature is the depth of investment by its subject. Herzog is at total ease with Steinaecker’s camera.” — Chris Greenwood, A Sliver of Film (contemporaneous)