For a long time, documentary films existed as a mere side-glance to the Hollywood sheen and marketing muscle of feature films. Not anymore. Documentary films are now frequently showing up in mainstream theatres (think Spellbound) and the more compelling docs are beginning to rival film in both technique and ambition (think Errol Morris). There’s never been a better time to be a documentary film lover.
Specifically, there’s never been a better time to be a film lover in Toronto. That’s because Toronto is home to Hot Docs, the largest North American event of its kind, which took over select theatres from April 23-May 2. The once-fledgling festival has grown impressively over the years (a 60% sales increase from last year) and its reputation attracts the very best docs, not to mention long lineups.
This year’s crop, though strong, lacked the compelling eclecticism of years past. Personal narratives (Super Size Me, Another Road Home) seemed more abundant this time around, and perhaps echoing these sombre times, the selection was dark and serious. Films about AIDS, genocide, war and domestic violence dotted the festival lineup. But as always, the very best of them deftly mix tension and hope, humour and tragedy. John Kastner’s Gert’s Secret finds answers in the depressing confines of a nursing home, and Travis Klose’s Arakimentari reveals the individual passion behind the art of photographer Nobuyoshi Araki. Never dull and always surprising, Hot Docs managed once again to inspire.
ROAD TO EUROPE
Director: Christoffer Guldbrandsen
Christoffer Guldbrandsen’s Road To Europe is a frenzied look at the back-door negotiations behind the EU’s 2003 plan to expand by ten nations into Eastern Europe. We watch as Danish Prime Minister Fogh Rasmussen juggles Germany’s unwelcome bilateral negotiations, Putin’s dicey relationship with the media, Turkey’s US-backed inclusion, and Poland’s demand for more money. The camera staggers between meetings and captures private phone calls and strategy tête-à-têtes that have more to do with image control and poker-face tactics than forging a new Europe. Although short on exact points of negotiation, the film includes shocking and humorous moments. Most memorable is when Rasmussen is asked to explain the division of monetary funds between potential states, only to pause and answer, “It’s arbitrary, but that’s politics.” Road To Europe is proof that reality often lies not in public pronouncements of “democracy” and “progress” but in the heated-and sometimes capricious-private moments of politics.
ARAKIMENTARI
Director: Travis Klose
The only thing more over-the-top than Nobuyoshi Araki’s bondage pictures is Araki himself. Author of over 350 books, the Japanese photographer comes off as a man on acid, constantly in motion and filled with uncontainable energy. In taped interviews, Araki is described by singer Bjork and renowned actor Kitano Takeshi as “crazy” and a “monster”, but others call him “cute” and “adorable”. The range of adjectives only begin to cover the largeness of this man’s character. Araki dances and skips, literally, while shooting in his studio. His loud and endearing nature, complete with triangle-rimmed shades and spiked hair, makes Travis Klose’s profile of Araki and his work irresistible. But juxtaposed against photographs of bound-up women, often adorned with flowers and hung from ceilings by ropes, are poignant family pictures of his wife before and after her death. Driven by a love of photography and an explorer’s curiosity, Araki is endlessly watchable and thus Arakimentari is endlessly compelling.
THE MASTER AND HIS PUPIL
Director: Sonia Herman Dolz
A masterful rendering of the teacher-student relationship, The Master and His Pupil is the story of famed maestro Valery Gergiev as he takes three young apprentice conductors under his wing for a week-long master class. Director Sonia Herman Dolz does an equally masterful job. The youngsters come off as tentative and unsure against Gergiev’s charismatic style, whose arsenal includes guttural sounds and wide-eyed enthusiasm. Their obvious eagerness to please and Gergiev’s critical but helpful musical suggestions persuasively capture the always anxious give-and-take dynamic. Although the film centers around the young conductors, the real star is Gergiev; the scruffy, deep-throated Russian never fails to entertain. Dolz wisely leaves long sequences of the master class uncut, giving the film a verisimilitude and tempo that feels just right. Add to this Paul M. van Brugge’s haunting cello and piano score that nicely reflects the tension latent in the minds of the young conductors, and the result was one of the more enjoyable and charming films of the festival.
ANOTHER WAY HOME
Director: Danae Elon
Danae Elon, who is Jewish, travels to New Jersey to meet her childhood babysitter Musa, a Palestinian, and his family. The drama, unfortunately, ends there. When one son asks “How do you see my father?” the camera is met with dumb silence. The film is often filled with such embarrassing moments and airy platitudes. The elephant in the room-
the Palestine Question-is confronted only tangentially, as the two families talk over dinner and in private moments together. More fatally, Elon and Musa’s early history is never fleshed out for the viewer. Elon’s father and mother never detail their relationship with Musa either, and neither do Musa’s sons. All of which leaves one to question Elon’s motivation for reconnection. The film suffers from characters that fundamentally have nothing new to say. Elon does no better: her presence on-camera emits an awkward self-consciousness, asking the questions she knows the camera wants. In the end, Another Way Home fails to bear up under the weight of uninteresting characters and a feeble dramatic arc.
GERT’S SECRET
Director: John Kastner
Faced with death and dementia around her, 101-year-old Gert somehow manages to live in a nursing home with spunk and laughter. Gert’s secret? A fierce independence and a loving family-but also an intangible zest for life. This moving film follows Gert at the racetrack and records her thrice-daily wardrobe change, all interspersed with her incisive humour and observations. Most in the nursing home, however, aren’t so lucky. Encroaching Alzheimer’s, failing minds, and non-existent family networks reduce many to rapid degeneration. After a fall and SARS quarantine test her resolve, Gert becomes sullen and depressed. But her strong-willed personality is enough to lift her from this dark period and return her again to the demanding and watchable character seen at the beginning of the film. Important and humane, Gert’s Secret makes it clear that, just as in any feature film, great characters also make for great documentaries.
WAR FEELS LIKE WAR
Director: Esteban Uyarra
This revealing but ultimately unsatisfying doc records the travails of independent journalists as they try and make their way into Baghdad on the eve of last year’s war in Iraq. With them are 3000 other journalists, all trying to cajole their way through uncooperative Iraqi officials and US checkpoints, desperate for the inside story yet keenly aware of the dangers around them. Although the film makes a point of highlighting the profession’s cynicism (one journalist flat-out admits he would kill his mother for a photo), the film also shows the ambiguities of war. Speaking to the camera, a Chicago Tribune photographer worries of war’s corrosive propensity to desensitize but is drawn by the chance to capture the best photos of her career. Unfortunately, the film suffers from a lack of engaging personalities, and conflicted viewpoints such as the photographer’s are never deeply probed. By the film’s end, the picture suffers a fate of circumstance: Director Esteban Uyarra misses the fall of Baghdad as well as the U.S. bombing of the Palestine Hotel that killed two journalists, a fitting climax-if only the filmmaker had been lucky enough to record it.
