what (not) to doc

New to VOD via Microsoft this week:
PUTUPARRI AND THE RAINMAKERS

Director:
Nicole Ma

Premiere:
Melbourne 2015

Select Festivals:
Hot Docs, New Zealand

About:
An aboriginal man recounts his family’s decades-long fight to regain their native claim to ancestral land.

Ma’s film focuses on Tom Lawford, whose aboriginal name is Putuparri, whose people were uprooted from their land by white Australians. While elders like his grandparents were directly affected, and have felt a longing to return for decades, younger generations like his own have been left rootless, disconnected from language and culture, and prone to drug and alcohol abuse. After the Australian government acknowledged past Aboriginal mistreatment and affirmed their sovereignty, they began hearing land claims. With his family making such a claim for their ancestral homeland of Kurtal, Putuparri experienced a reconnection with his culture, including traditional rainmaking rituals, and has since become a leader for his people. The film details how Putuparri oversaw a convergence of Aboriginals that resulted in the painting of a massive map delineating various native lands – a canvas that has traveled throughout the country and helped set boundaries for land claims. Because Kurtal itself has not been officially recognized, however, Putuparri continues his struggle. While Ma has taken on a worthwhile topic, her use of Putuparri as a narrator makes the project feel overextended as a whole, and too rooted in the past, robbing the film of a forward-moving dynamism.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, February 7:
FORCED PERSPECTIVE

Director:
Nick Cavalier

Premiere:
Cleveland 2015

Select Festivals:
Beverly Hills, Atlanta Doc

About:
A profile of artist Derek Hess.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

New to VOD via Microsoft this week:
THE ARMS DROP

Director:
Andreas Koefoed

Premiere:
DOXBIO (Denmark, 2014)

Select Festivals:
IDFA, Göteborg, DocPoint, CPH:DOX, ZagrebDox, Hot Docs, Docs Against Gravity, Reykjavik

About:
Two men become caught up in a dangerous arms deal.

In December 1995, a cache of weapons were dropped from a Latvian plane over West Bengal, supposedly meant for monks and nuns plotting to overthrow the state’s communist government. Onboard were Niels Holck, a Danish development worker, and Peter Bleach, a British mercenary arms dealer with ties to MI5. Holck claimed that he was working with the support of the Indian government, while Bleach countered that he was setting Holck up to be arrested. But after Holck managed to escape, Bleach found himself behind bars in India instead. Fifteen years later, Holck, safely in Denmark, faces extradition, reopening this labyrinthine case and questioning what really happened, and how the Indian, Danish, and British governments were involved. Koefoed unfortunately heavily relies on clunky re-enactments for a large portion of his film, but then abruptly drops them, making for uneven storytelling which muddies an already overly complicated and contested narrative.