SXSW: Documentary Review Roundup
Documentaries very rarely get wide theatrical releases, and therefore film festivals like South By Southwest often provide you with the best opportunity to catch these great movies before they drift off into obscurity. Out of the 17 films I saw at this year’s SXSW, 7 were documentaries. We already ran my full review of American: The Bill Hicks Story but here are some quick thoughts on the other 6.
White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights
This concert film documents the eccentric duo as they go on their Canadian tour where they played every province and region of the country, and focused on the small out of the way towns instead of big cities. The tour included surprise daytime shows where they played on a boat, in a bowling alley, on a bus, and even did a show where they played a single note.
This documentary is a must for any White Stripes fan, even though it doesn’t reveal too much about the band you don’t already know. There are a few candid interviews and you see much more of the notoriously shy drummer Meg White than you ever have before, but for the most part it’s just a gorgeously shot travelogue with snippets of their frenetic live shows. The majority of the film is shot is a stark and grainy black and white, with the occasional red filter, that is completely in line with the bands style.
The White Stripes are arguably the only true rock stars of the modern era. They understand aesthetics and myth making better than anyone else in the business. You never really get a glimpse into who they are as people, what with Jack White controlling their image with an iron grip. This is the reason they are larger than life, and it is key to their success. However, the film closes on an incredibly beautiful scene of Jack White playing a song on the piano while Meg silently cries next to him. Then, in a moment reminiscent of Lost in Translation, he whispers something into her ear and cradles her in his arms. This rare and touching moment of humanity is the thing you will leave the film remembering, and it does nothing but make you want to break through the rock star image and see who Jack and Meg really are.
Under Great White Northern Lights is currently out on DVD, and can also be purchased as part of an amazing box set including a live CD and LP as well as a stunning photography book.
Bear Nation
Bear Nation is an exploration of the sub-culture of “bears” in the gay community. A bear is a large and hairy man that goes against the stereotyped image of the homosexual male. Bear Nation simultaneously tries to define and reveal this outsider group, and show why this kind of labeling and segregation is unnecessary and harmful. It’s really about how we are all the same and we should all love one another.
Director Malcolm Ingram is coming off of his other gay themed doc Small Town Gay Bar which was a film with a certain narrative and never resorted to just being a talking heads documentary. Bear Nation, on the other hand, unfortunately becomes very redundant very quickly. The movie very quickly explains what a bear is, and then it’s just kind of rinse and repeat from there. It is almost all just talking heads, well shot talking heads but talking heads nonetheless, just explaining what they think a bear is and why they like them. You don’t really learn anything new over the course of the film.
It’s all passably entertaining but I think it’s overall a subject that’s stretched way too far here. The closest thing it has to a climax is an extended interview with Ingram’s pal and producer, Kevin Smith. It would have worked as a small part of a larger documentary, but can’t hold up a feature on its own.
The People VS George Lucas
I need to precede this review by acknowledging a certain bias. The makers of PvG are friends with us here at Geekscape and several Geekscape regulars, including our leader Jonathan London, make appearances in the film. Hell, I’m even mentioned in the credits.
But there is a reason we are so attached to this project, and that is because it is about something that has defined all of us. Star Wars, for better or worse, is an incredibly important part of our lives and this movie sets out to hold those responsible accountable for their actions in destroying something great. The film covers the entire span of the Star Wars saga, from George Lucas’ origins as a visionary and rebellious figure all the way to his artistically void corporate present.
Tons of geeks show up in this film to give their passionate criticisms and defenses of the man who betrayed us. And yes, for many of us this is all stuff we’ve heard and said many times before but there is something cathartic about having it all condensed here. This feels like closure. With this film it seems we are ready to move on. And for the non-geeks, this gives an incredibly informative glimpse into a world that they never knew existed.
Anyone with even a passing interest in Star Wars would do well to check this out.
Waking Sleeping Beauty
Waking Sleeping Beauty is about the near death and triumphant resurrection of Disney’s animation division in the 80’s and early 90’s. It goes into detail about the Eisner/Katzenberg era and all of the tensions involved in that relationship.
There have been several Disney documentaries over the last few years and while this isn’t the best of the bunch, it is interesting in that it is comprised completely of archival footage. No talking heads to be found here. Much of the footage was shot by a young John Lasseter and features rare footage of Disney legends like Tim Burton and Don Bluth.
The film is fairly entertaining but there is nothing too revelatory here. The rivalry between Eisner, Katzenberg, and Roy Disney is well documented and a good portion of the film is devoted to a series of “and then we made this movie, and then we made this movie”, without ever going into too much detail.
It is interesting to watch this with the knowledge of what comes after. The looming rise of Pixar and the demise of hand drawn animation casts a shadow over all the proceedings.
Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission
This movie is supposed to be about how a man with a dream can accomplish anything, but it really serves as a exploration of how big a dork Richard Garriott is. All you geeks know Garriott as the man who created the enormously successful Ultima games (as well as the much less successful Tabula Rasa) and watching him prance around in costume with his dual rat tails here is consistently hilarious.
Garriott is the son of an astronaut but due to physical defects he was not able to follow his father’s footsteps into NASA. However, with the fortune he earned from game programming he purchased a flight to the international space station through the Russians. We see his preparation and his actual trip to space. The training can be a bit tedious as Garriott is not the most entertaining storyteller but the footage shot in space is pretty extraordinary. We’ve seen zero gravity antics before but never quite like this. We also get the first ever footage of the violent re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere which is pretty amazing.
This is not quite the epic it should have been, but there is enough here to warrant a viewing.
Hubble 3D
This IMAX 3D sets out to fulfill the dreams of all space geeks who will never be able to go themselves. IMAX 3D cameras followed a NASA crew as they set out to repair the ailing satellite. The footage they got is pretty amazing but unfortunately it’s very limited in scope. Very little of the film is actually filmed in 3D and the scenes that are are mostly close up views of repair work. We don’t really get to enjoy the vastness of space or see objects floating in the blackness.
The most impressive stuff is actually the 2D images the Hubble has captured. They took these images and, using some computer wizardry, allow us to fly light years through space and explore far away galaxies. These are the scenes that took my breath away, even though they weren’t “real”.
The film is also hampered by the trappings of all IMAX educational films. It is only 45 minutes long and has an overbearing and cheesy narration by Leonardo DiCaprio. This was not the experience I hoped it would be but it’s totally worth checking out for anyone obsessed with space.
On a side not, I had to go with the “glasses over glasses” approach for this and there was some ghosting. Whether or not that was due to the dual glasses thing, or just sketchy 3D is hard to say.
