what (not) to doc

New to DVD this week: LANDFILL HARMONIC

Brad Allgood and Graham Townsley’s portrait of an impoverished children’s orchestra debuted at SXSW last year, where it picked up an audience award. It went on to screen at Sheffield, New Zealand, Vancouver, Cleveland, DocAviv, and AFI Fest, among several others.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, December 14: GHOSTLAND

Simon Stadler’s chronicle of Kalahari bushmen’s experience of the West debuted at Thessaloniki Doc earlier this year. Its festival circuit also included SXSW, Ambulante, Atlantic, Bergen, Flahertiana, Durban, Rio, and Vancouver, among other events.

For more than 25 years, the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen of Namibia have been barred from hunting the wildlife that has sustained them for millennia. In response they have had to adapt to a capitalist system and depend on the tourism industry, entertaining Europeans with staged dances and demonstrations, and selling them handmade crafts. Stadler, a German filmmaker, seeks to privilege the perspectives of the Ju/’hoansi in their interactions with these outsiders, representing them as knowing participants in an awkward but necessary exchange rather than the stereotyped “savages” that visitors likely assume they are observing. When the setting changes from Namibia to Frankfurt, however, owing to an invitation to four of the Bushmen to travel as part of a cultural exchange, the film struggles, opting instead for a less complex fish out of water approach. While Stadler transforms the Bushmen from the object of the gaze to the gazers themselves, these new tourists’ observations of Western culture are presented in consistently unsurprising and simplistic terms, noting that Germans and their city are too large, anonymous, and noisy. The result is a mildly amusing role reversal from the initial scenes of the film, but one handled with too broad a stroke to be particularly complex or revealing.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, December 13: THE HOLLYWOOD SHORTIES

Ryan Steven Green’s history of a little person sports team had its premiere at SXSW earlier this year. The doc went on to screenat Sidewalk, Chagrin Doc, Carmel, BendFilm, Hell’s Half Mile, and San Francisco DocFest, among other events.

I previously wrote about the doc

Coming to ESPN as part of its 30 for 30 series tomorrow, Saturday, December 10: CATHOLICS VS CONVICTS

Patrick Creadon’s look back at an infamous college football rivalry debuted at Chicago this Fall. It has also screened at Denver.

In 1988, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the University of Miami Hurricanes were both undefeated, led by coaches with a contentious history. The rivalry consumed both campuses, inspiring Pat Walsh, an entrepreneurial student with athletic dreams of his own, to risk official censure by expanding his illegal dorm-room t-shirt-making business with a new release: a shirt boldly emblazoned with the slogan “Catholics vs Convicts.” Pressing the dichotomy between the teams – the traditional, conservative Notre Dame against the upstart Miami, whose players had had some run-ins with the law – the shirt was an instant hit and added fuel to the fire in the countdown to the teams’ gridiron face-off. Creadon, who was a Notre Dame student at the time and Walsh’s roommate, weaves the story of the infamous t-shirt through this recounting of the legendary rivalry and memorable game. While the background on the shirt doesn’t quite have enough heft to carry the project to the extent it’s focused on here, it offers an unusual angle through which to appreciate the larger story.

Coming to theatres and VOD tomorrow, Friday, December 9: HARRY BENSON: SHOOT FIRST

Justin Bare and Matthew Miele’s profile of the noted photographer had its debut at the Hamptons last year. It went on to screen at GlobeDocs, Tallgrass, Gold Coast, and Greenwich, among other festivals.

Photographer Harry Benson became well-known after he shot The Beatles landmark 1964 US tour, capturing iconic images like the Fab Four’s hotel pillow fight and their face-off with Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay). In the decades since, he developed a body of work of celebrity portraiture, covering actors, sports figures, and politicians, including the most reclusive of figures. As Bare and Miele demonstrate in their appreciative but light tribute, Benson’s work isn’t limited to the lighter side, and includes more serious subjects, from the civil rights movement to conflict zones. While they interview the charismatic and still-working octogenarian, the filmmakers never really find a narrative lens through which to approach their subject, resulting instead in a general survey of his illustrious career and iconic images.