Category Archives: Recommendations

New to DVD this week: THE DECENT ONE

Vanessa Lapa’s portrait of infamous SS commander Heinrich Himmler made its world premiere at Berlin last year. It went on to screen at Documenta Madrid, DOK.Fest Munich, Planete+ Doc, Jerusalem, Telluride, Bergen, Rio, Reykjavik, Vancouver, and ZagrebDox, among others.

Uniquely constructed around a cache of personal letters and documents discovered in Himmler’s home at the conclusion of WWII, Lapa’s film foregoes outside perspectives to present the life and crimes of the Nazi leader through his own and his immediate family’s words. Beyond the extensive archival period footage employed, the film makes use of voiceover actors to enact letters between Himmler, his mistress Hedwig, his wife Marga, and their daughter Gudrun – while they occasionally over-emote, once the conceit is firmly established, it generally works to provide a candid sense of the administrator’s reprehensible beliefs and self-serving sense of morality. At one moment enumerating his duties in overseeing genocide, and the next sending love letters to his mistress, expressing concerns for the well-being of the concentration camp operators while hand-waving mass murder as a service to racial purity, Himmler presents himself as a master compartmentalizer who is somehow able to rationalize his actions, and those of his party, as inexplicably “decent.” Where Lapa makes a critical error is in doubting the stark power of the archival footage at her disposal – rather than present it undoctored, she instead unwisely employs sound effects and music that gravely cheapens its impact.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, September 1: DIOR AND I

Frédéric Tcheng’s inside look at the legendary fashion house made its debut at Tribeca in 2014. Its extensive fest circuit also included Seattle, Sydney, Provincetown, Outfest, Jerusalem, New Zealand, Rio, Hamptons, Warsaw, Abu Dhabi, CPH:DOX, Tallinn Black Nights, and Madrid Fashion among others.

Tcheng’s point of entry to the storied brand is the arrival of Raf Simons, Dior’s new artistic director of the haute couture line. Having built his reputation as a menswear designer before moving on to Jill Sander, the Belgian is considered a minimalist, making him an unusual choice to take over the Dior legacy. With much to prove, he sets out to complete his first collection in a scant eight weeks, providing the necessary countdown tension that serves as the impetus here, compounded with the challenge of navigating the demands of an in-demand atelier and its staff of seasoned, and often charming, veterans. While there’s friction at times, Tcheng’s thoughtful approach is much more concerned with detailing the creative process than with focusing on interpersonal drama, for example by showing how Simons develops a preoccupation with the paintings of Sterling Ruby into an innovative thread-printing process. Simons largely remains fairly buttoned-up – all business, all the time – allowing occasional interludes from Christian Dior’s memoirs to serve as a somewhat more personal and revealing thread through the film, which does double duty by imparting a sense of history.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, September 1: JFK & LBJ: A TIME FOR GREATNESS

Alastair Layzell’s focus on civil rights across two presidencies made its bow at the Annapolis Film Festival this Spring. It made its broadcast debut on PBS last month.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to DVD this Friday, September 4: HARLEM STREET SINGER

Trevor Laurence and Simeon Hutner’s portrait of an unsung musician premiered at DOC NYC in 2013. It also screened at St Louis, Leeds, Revelation, and Tallgrass, among others.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to DVD and VOD this coming Monday, September 1: BRADDOCK AMERICA

Jean-Loïc Portron and Gabriella Kessler’s meditation on a vanished industrial town made its premiere at La Rochelle’s Escales Documentaires in 2013. Screenings followed at Cannes, Thessaloniki Doc, Cleveland, Lussas, Nashville, France’s International Environmental, and Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers film fests, among others. In addition to a DVD release, it now comes to VOD via iTunes.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to VOD this coming Tuesday, September 1: DEEP WEB

Alex Winter’s look at the illicit world of the secret Internet premiered at SXSW earlier this year. Screenings followed at Full Frame, San Francisco, Hot Docs, and Montclair before its broadcast on EPIX. Bond/360 now releases the doc on VOD via iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Instant Video, and VUDU.

I wrote about the film upon its broadcast debut here.

Coming to PBS’s POV this coming Monday, August 31: THE STORM MAKERS

Guillaume Suon’s intimate exploration of the toll of human trafficking made its debut at Busan last year. Other fest appearances include IDFA, Thessaloniki Doc, Movies That Matter, Full Frame, DOK.fest Munich, Docs Against Gravity, Sheffield, and AFI Docs, among others.

Suon’s effectively understated film tackles the disturbing topic of human trafficking in Cambodia from an unexpected perspective – not only from that of a former slave who managed to escape, but also from two individuals actively involved in recruiting and entrapping young people into captivity, and, in so doing, creating the turmoil in the lives of their family that lends the project its title. Representing the former is Aya, a young woman sold into supposed maid service in Malaysia when she was just 16. Instead, she faced forced imprisonment, the confiscation of her passport, mental and physical abuse, and rape. Though she managed to escape, Aya’s mother treats her with contempt, angry that she has brought back a baby out of wedlock – another mouth to be fed. If that isn’t disturbing enough, Suon weaves in the stories of Pou Houy, the owner of a recruitment agency who matteroffactly notes the vulnerabilities upon which he preys, and who has somehow rationalized his actions to the extent that he believes he is a pious Christian; and Ming Dy, a local recruiter Pou Houy employs to find victims from rural villages. Shockingly, Ming Dy has already sold her own daughter into slavery in order to pay her bills. Suon presents these figures refreshingly free of histrionics, underscoring the fundamental economic and social disparities that inform their troubling decisions and that have led them to justify the exploitation of even family members for income.

Coming to theatres this Friday, August 28: I TOUCHED ALL YOUR STUFF

Maíra Bühler and Matias Mariani’s unusual chronicle of an unreliable narrator’s love life debuted at Rio last year. It has also screened at FID Marseille, Minneapolis-St Paul, RIDM, and MoMI’s First Look fests, among others.

Initially setting out to document the stories of foreigners in Brazilian prisons, Bühler and Mariani, who appear on camera here throughout, quickly shifted gears once meeting their ultimate protagonist, Christopher Kirk. An American who traded his rote life as an IT consultant in Olympia WA for one of self-stylized “adventure” in Colombia, Kirk relates his story in a well-rehearsed yarn delivered from prison, but what becomes quickly apparent is that this film is not really about how he ended up behind bars. Instead, the focus seems to be on Kirk’s obsessive and exasperating relationship with a Japanese-Colombian woman – referred to only as “V” and only shown in fragmented or blurry visuals – who he suspects, and confirms through shady means, is an unfaithful liar. However, as Bühler and Mariani demonstrate through interviews with Kirk’s friends, V is little more than a MacGuffin here as well, with Kirk himself emerging as the more curious, and potentially even more manipulative, figure. While the filmmakers make a number of frustrating missteps – their largely unnecessary inclusion within the film, Kirk’s groan-inducing voiceover, and the repetitive and not particularly illuminating footage of scrolling through his hard drive – their overall sense of story construction makes the film thoroughly engaging.