Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, December 2: SAND WARS

Denis Delestrac’s investigation into the worldwide overconsumption of sand debuted in French cinemas last year. Its festival run has included numerous environmental fests, including events in Washington DC, San Francisco, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Melbourne, Kuala Lumpur, San Sebastian, Sao Paulo, and Cape Town, among others.

Noting the ubiquity of sand in modern life, from household cleaning products and electronics to its most common usage in reinforced concrete, Delestrac’s dry but informative film explores the global ramifications of humanity’s overuse of the limited resource. Taking a survey approach, the film brings viewers to a number of hotspots around the world which illustrate the dangers wrought by the extraction of sand, such as Dubai, which imports Australian sand for its extensive building projects, including the formation of artificial islands; Singapore, which has engaged in illegal sand harvesting from neighboring nations to expand its own coastline; and the Maldives, whose smaller islands are threatened by sea level rise thanks in part to the loss of sand, among many other examples.The use of narration strings these locations together, and, with the help of talking heads experts, pushes the argument that mankind’s shortsighted greed has once again jeopardized our existence, threatening to destroy all the world’s beaches. While it’s effective enough in getting its point across, the approach taken is unfortunately more reportage than cinematic storytelling, with the only potentially engaging subjects and situation emerging only briefly towards the very end, as a small fishing community in Brittany rallies to stop plans to remove sand from their fishing lanes.

Coming to theatres today, Monday, December 1: 25 TO LIFE

Mike Brown’s profile of an HIV positive man seeking redemption debuted at the American Black Film Festival this Summer, where it picked up the best documentary award. The film now comes to theatres across the country for a series of one-night-only special screenings on World AIDS Day through Ava DuVernay’s African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement.

As an infant in the 1980s, William Brawner received a blood transfusion following a bad burn. Years later, his mother had him tested for HIV, and while asymptomatic, antibodies were detected. Fearing that her son would be stigmatized like young Ryan White was, she decided to keep his status a secret, though Brawner himself was told. As he matured and started having sex, the popular young man failed to inform his partners that he was HIV+ and neglected to use protection, potentially exposing both his high school girlfriend and nearly two dozen college classmates at Howard University to the virus. On the eve of a college reunion, and recently married and trying to have a child, Brawner decides to come clean, publicly disclosing his status on a radio show, and, not unexpectedly, getting a lot of backlash because of his morally troubling behavior. Brown follows the young man as he tries to make amends by setting up a non-profit service organization for HIV+ teens, speaking publicly about AIDS awareness, and, to a limited extent, reaching out to past partners. Brawner and his wife Bridgette are likeable, and he appears genuine in his desire to make positive change in his life, but Brown never really seems to push his subject into fully reckoning with the very questionable and risky choices he made, making this carry less of an impact than it probably could.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, November 28: THE IMMORTALISTS

David Alvarado and Jason Sussberg’s portrait of the fight against mortality had its premiere at SXSW this Spring. It went on to screen at Hot Docs, Mill Valley, Philadelphia, Portland, London, Denver, and Sydney Underground.

Unwilling to accept that death is inevitable, the two scientists profiled in Alvarado and Sussberg’s film, Brit Aubrey De Grey and American Bill Andrews, have devoted their professional careers to researching and combatting the aging process. While contrasting figures in approach and appearance, they both make for camera-friendly, if ultimately somewhat irksome, documentary subjects – with their peculiarities unfortunately too often trumping the more intriguing science. Sporting an exaggerated, showy beard, de Grey is an eccentric mad professor type who has cultivated a forced profundity that grows tiresome. He’s also a polyamorous nudist with a much older wife and a frail mother – the latter details primarily introduced to provide personal motivation for his war against senescence, with the former more simply offering evidence of his quirkiness – or perhaps foreshadowing a full turn to a developing cult of personality. The far more straitlaced Andrews is instead excessively represented through his obsession with marathon running, which is putting stress on his and his wife’s bodies as they age. For a point of poignancy and additional incentive, his research partner and friend is diagnosed with cancer. de Grey and Andrews do spend a little time explaining their theories, but Alvarado and Sussberg seem willing to gloss over the curious fact that they take opposing views on the same mechanism at the heart of the aging process. Additionally, aside from a brief debate between de Grey and an Oxford professor that touches on larger issues around immortality – overpopulation, limited resources, etc – the filmmakers generally allow their subjects to sidestep these thorny concerns. While the film has found a couple of curious characters with supposedly unorthodox ideas, it unfortunately fails to fully explore the content – or potential – of their crusade.