Archive for the ‘Documentary’ Category

Tropicália (2012)

Director:  Marcelo Machado

Script:     Vaughn Glover, Marcelo Machado, Di Moretti
Producer:  Paula Cosenza, Denise Gomez
Cast:  Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Tom Ze, Arnaldo Dias, Sergio Dias, Gal Costa, Glauber Rocha, Jorge Ben, Rogerio Duprat, Rita Lee

Bra/USA/UK   87mins    2012    Music Doc

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When done right, music and film will forever make perfect bedfellows. Concerning Brazil, 1967-1969, but a music documentary about far more than just another band or style, here the music was a vehicle for something much bigger.

‘Tropicália’ was the name attributed to a Liberalist artistic movement that came into being in 1967, in reaction to the dictatorship that came into force in 1964. Encompassing not only music but poetry theatre and film, it was a movement created by the young, fusing together traditional Folk with Rock and Roll, Pop, foreign influences and the avant-garde. It hit the choked populace of martial Brazil like a blast of oxygen. It spoke of freedom; freedom of thought and freedom of expression which to a Brazilian in the late Sixties was either stunningly, bravely, liberatingly beautiful, or a ridiculously dangerous arrestable offence.

Without knowing a great deal of the circumstances prevailing in Brazil at the time, either politically or indeed, musically, some viewers may not grasp the full import of what it is they are watching.  It’s difficult in this day and age to comprehend the notion of a song capable of changing the course of history, or influencing an entire country. What Rodriguez managed in total ignorance in Apartheid South Africa, Caetano et al did with full cognizance in Brazil.

This film chooses to concentrate more on the music aspect of the movement, rather than the theatre and poetry, although there is some film. It follows the stories of the main protagonists of the music and how their influence spread extraordinarily quickly and widely through the nascent medium of television; it’s wonderful that so much original footage, both tape and film, still exists of the singers back when it was all going down.

Filmmaker Machado has also gone to great lengths to make what few grainy black and white still photographs survive of some of the events of the time interesting using various tricks, but this is more than compensated for by the amazing music from the likes of Os Mutantes and Caetano Veloso.

Tropicália explores what the movement was and what the music signified to the people of Brazil, culminating in an album of the films title, employing all the singers and songwriters of the day creating what was effectively, a political manifesto in song. How Rock n Roll is that? Dynamite.

TROPICALIA IS ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM FRIDAY 5TH JULY AT CURZON SOHO PLUS PANEL DISCUSSION AND RICH MIX ON SUNDAY, 7TH JULY 2013

 

Venus and Serena (2013)

Director Maiken Baird and Michelle Major

With: Serena and Venus Williams, Richard Williams, John McEnroe, Billie Jean King, Anna Wintour

99mins    US Sports Documentary

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When businessman Richard Williams bought a manual on teaching tennis there was no doubt in his mind.  His aim was to hothouse his little daughters to success on the international tennis circuit.

Today Venus and Serena Williams are the first African Americans to have won the World Finals Championships at Wimbledon.  Maiken Baird and Michelle Major’s cinéma vérité piece follows the pair through the 2011 tennis season.  Alex Gibney, the director of Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God has also backed the project which combines early childhood footage of the girls, interviews with family and tennis luminaries such as John ‘You Cannot Be Serious’ McEnroe, together with top moments from the world of tennis.

The Williams sisters share a similar background to that of Michael Jackson: a controlling, even draconian father figure; a gruelling training lifestyle that precludes any childhood pleasure and, above all, a commitment to God.  A self-made man with thriving business interests, Mr Williams was determined that Venus and her younger sister, Serena, would both follow his path to success. But they took things one step further, overcoming countless setbacks along the way due to their unique bond with each other.

Fascinating and fact-filled; Venus and Serena is an absorbing watch, catching the superhuman quality of the girls with their amazonian physiques (and rock-hard thighs). Focusing on their positivity and total lack of self-doubt, it charts their glittering successes and, what is more surprising, their total respect for their father.  At one point Serena calls him ‘Sir’, despite his philandering ways: Williams is on his second marriage. They also discover some astounding home truths about their large family and reveal to us the secrets of their own brand of success which now extends beyond the tennis courts.

Venus and Serena is a well put-together documentary.  With moments of triumph and dark humour, it provides an absorbing account of this classic ‘rags to riches’ story and will appeal to sports fanatics and tennis lovers everywhere, particularly in the run-up to Wimbledon. MT.

Mission To Lars (2012)

Director:  James Moore, William Spicer

Producer: James Moore, William Spicer

Cast: Kate Spicer, Tom Spicer, William Spicer 

74min                                  UK Documentary

It is unlikely you will see such an unlikely, sweet, life-affirming film this year. Journalist Kate Spicer has two brothers. William, a filmmaker and Tom, who suffers from an inherited learning disability called Fragile X Syndrome, a rather virulent form of autism.

Understandably, Tom lives in a home, where life is familiar and ordered, but it can still seem impossible for Tom; stress, a lapse in structure, anything out of the ordinary, crowds, queues and particularly loud noises to name but a few, cause total shutdown and retreat. But both Kate and William are aware that by leading their busy, ‘normal’ lives, they have over the years grown more distant from their brother and both wish to do something to address this rift 

For someone with a fear of loud noises, Tom has a surprising fixation; the music that is Metallica, the loudest heavy metal band in the world. Moreover, his one main ambition in life has been to meet the drummer, Lars Ulrich. So, Kate and Will hatch a plot that entails taking Tom out of his comfortable home, flying him across the Atlantic and into a concert arena to see his idol. The biggest problem may be in actually getting him out of his bedroom. When Tom says no, he means No.

However, it’s not only Tom’s on-going battle with his own fears and fixations, but the dynamic between the siblings as they come together to try and make this trip of a lifetime happen that is as engaging as the idea of trying to get back stage passes for the biggest rock band in the world. For some, just being among brothers and sisters can be a trial, but doing that knowing that it is potentially exponentially more stressful for one of their number makes the endeavour all the more piquant, as they strive for familiarity and closeness.

It’s quite possible that if Tom’s brother Will hadn’t been a filmmaker, this film would not have had half the content that it does. It is precisely because the cameraman is an integral part of the unit that he is able to get the footage that this film needs to make it work so comprehensively as a film.

Even as the pair go into this Mission To Lars knowing it’s going to be a headache, it does nothing to prevent it being a migraine, as they try to cope with their own patterns of behaviour as much as try to cater for the entirely unpredictable Tom.

Hats off to everyone for even attempting it. What an amazing journey for all concerned. It’s only in the Doing that we learn what we might be capable of and solutions can sometimes come from the most surprising of places. I’m so glad I’ve seen this film. Be sure to stay for all of the end credits. AT

Roman Polanski A Film Memoir (2011)

Director: Laurent Bouzereau | Music: Alexandre Desplat | With:  Roman Polanski, Andrew Braunsberg | 90mins  Doc UK/Italy/Germany

Roman Polanski is possibly still the most controversial figure in the world of film. The mere mention of his name is apt to unleash a torrent of accusatorial abuse even from those who have little knowledge of his work or any interest in it. After the more sensational 2008 biopic Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, Laurent Bouzereau’s watchable and well-put-together documentary is a far mellower affair: a portrait of 79 year-old-man who has suffered and succeeded more than many in his cinematic career and here looks back to accentuate the positive from his cosy armchair, or, as he puts it, the amplitude of his life from his own unique perspective.

Bouzereau opts for an interview format accompanied by an original score from Alexandre Desplat, and graced by a melodious introduction from Polanski’s friend and producer Andrew Braunsberg. It works well and has them relaxing in the comfortable surroundings of the Gstaad chalet where Polanski was detained after arrest at the Zurich Film Festival, bizarrely, while receiving a lifetime achievement award. They fall into a convivial conversational style reminiscing over Polanski’s life from his birth in Paris in 1933, intercut with family photographs and archive footage of his childhood during the war years in Paris and Poland; sometimes indistinguishable, intriguingly, from that of The Pianist, his largely autobiographical work and the one closest to his heart.

Braunsberg is an easy-going almost fawning interviewer but, in his defence, one gets the impression that Polanski is a man who has a powerful affect on those around him with the ability to charm and seduce not only women but also men, into his way of thinking.

For cineastes and fans, what follows is a fascinating and engaging insight into the filmmaker’s early career in Warsaw, Krakow and Lodz, showing how his experiences lead him into the world of acting and filmmaking in Poland and eventually to Hollywood to court controversy and commercial success.  Occasionally overcome by emotion, he interlaces the story of his private life with that of his struggle for professional acclaim; his love affairs with Sharon Tate and Emmanuelle Seigner; the mix-up surrounding the Manson murders and alludes to the Geimer affair giving a strong impression that closure has been reached for all concerned backed by archive footage of Geimer herself.

The skill of A Film Memoir is that it shows Polanski to be not only a man of considerable passion and allure but also the master storyteller that we see in his films, with the ability to  overcome adversity and focus on the positive. But there also a strong sense of enigma about the man. This is how he has chosen to present himself to the World but is it the real story? That is for you to decide. @MeredithTaylor

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_w4KQ4Dc8M

 

Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2012)

Dir: David Gelb | Cast: Jiro One, Yoshikazu One, Masuhiro Yamamoto,  Daisuke Nakazawa, Hachiro Mizutani, Hiroki Fujita, Toichiro Iida, Akihiro Oyama, Shizuo Oyama | Doc 82′

For any self-professed sushi nut, this film is a must see. Jiro One is a legend in his own lifetime; a man devoted to the creation and serving of sushi for 75 years from the basement of a faceless Tokyo office building in a restaurant that only seats ten. The sushi is served up in specific order and you are expected to demolish it piece by piece, under his rather intimidating gaze in about 15minutes flat, shelling-out something like £300 for the privilege. That makes this one of the most expensive restaurants in the world.

What is remarkable though is the skill, dedication and thought that has gone into a meal. And the rest of the world has recognised this: Jiro’s tiny, unassuming Sukiyabashi Jiro sushi bar has garnered all three Michelin Stars and, as the makers of this film attest, global recognition.

Jiro One is one of the old school; a believer in hard work, total commitment and dedication to a chosen field, whatever it may be. To serve an apprenticeship under Jiro is to spend ten years of dedicated to the most gruelling, repetitive, thankless work in the kitchen, learning the trade. And all this against the prevailing tide of today’s theme of growing fat doing the minimum with little application or indeed mastery in any field, all the while aspiring to coin maximum cash.

 

The title alludes to Jiro as a young man dreaming of making not just sushi but the best sushi. This film illustrates how Jiro never believes he has arrived, and that there is always room for improvement be it in the choice of the fish, the preparation of the rice, or the serving of the sushi. In doing so it opens out the film as an allegory or lesson in life and how best to live it. But also demonstrates how hard it must be for his sons to live under the shadow of a man who has truly reached the pinnacle of his profession, even if he himself doesn’t see it as so.

Food and film often make for successful lovers and any gourmand who truly appreciates the subtleties and depth of haute cuisine will relish this one. Make sure to eat beforehand or you will find yourself scrambling to a sushi bar straight after, only to feel all but affronted that it isn’t Jiro’s hand that serves up a concerto in seafood for, hereafter, nothing else will do. AT

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