A gifted Mexican-American singer-songwriter in Detroit puts out a couple of unfortunately overlooked records in the early 1970's that mysteriously achieve cult-hero status in apartheid-era South Africa while the artist himself fades back to obscurity. This is the incredible saga of Sixto Rodriquez. Solid cinematography, a riveting and moving story, and a superb soundtrack make this an unmissable documentary.
Scott Walker: 30th Century Man (Directed by Stephen Kijack)
The enigmatic life and work of singer-songwriter Scott Walker is explored by him and other people (David Bowie, Jarvis Cocker, Richard Hawley, et. al). Another gifted musician largely ignored at home, but lionized in the UK. If you haven't given him a listen, start with Scott 3 and follow his records into his contemporary offerings. There are not many that can sing like this man sings.
Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (Directed by Francois Gerard)
While you're at it, treat yourself to another film about a musical genius doing idiosyncratic things. Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould is "a masterpiece" according to the venerable Toronto Globe and Mail. I found it to be quite good, I even watched it twice. Levity aside, Canadian classical pianists are rarely this fun to watch so trudge down to your local video store that doesn't exist anymore, rent this on VHS, and watch it on that tape player that you left in the alley for the trash-pickers six years ago.
Emile de Antonio's In the Year of the Pig was restored ten years ago andis essential viewing. The inexorable build up of war in post-colonial Vietnam is the subject. Watch it below:
For the photographically-inclined, this is an inspirational documentary about Bill Cunningham, the man behind my favorite long-standing New York Times column On the Street. Still running around the streets and shooting pics well-into his eighties, Cunningham is legendary in the fashion world.
Let's Get Lost is an impressionistic, pensive documentary made by Bruce Weber in the waning years of Chet Baker's extraordinary life. Watching some of the last recording sessions involving Chet is a highlight: he possessed an inimitably warm voice and his brilliantly understated trumpet playing remained phenomenal until his untimely death. For the uninitiated, start with his records and then head to the film.
Bird is a biopic starring a young Forest Whitaker as bebop king Charlie Parker. A Clint Eastwood passion project, the film follows Parker's rise from the Kansas City jazz scene in his teens. The musical performances in the film (which include a who's-who of 20th century legends) are rousing and the acting is commendable throughout. As Parker was a junkie throughout his all-too-brief adult life, expect some lugubrious moments.
Both are from the late Eighties and slightly difficult to obtain, but worth the extra effort.
Norwegian Black Metal isn't for everyone. A scene more renowned for the arson of thousand-year-old churches and murder than the brutal sounds it created, this doc sheds some mottled light on the ideology behind the madness. Articulated by most of the pioneers in the film, I figure it to be a twisted conflation of homophobia, neo-fascism, paganism, anti-consumerism, and Tolkien mythology. Basically, if mega-churches and McDonald's piss you off, some of what these angry, reactionary Scandinavians say may strike a chord with you. The music, which reverently eschews downtuning in favor of traditionally evil scales and chord progressions, is darkly atmospheric and punctuated by high-pitched screams. Basically unpalatable to all but a select few. This is a fascinating by-product of affluence.
Watch the film in its entirety below or click HERE for a better quality video:
Unmitigated excitement gushed from Gavin when he discovered that renowned Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul's exhibition Primitive was showing at the Jim Thompson House in Bangkok. Being a big fan of Weerasethakul's 2010 workUncleBoonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Gavin was quite pleased when we inadvertently stumbled upon his latest mixed-media installation.
The video projects exhibited were commissioned in 2009 in the war-torn province of Isan and inspired the filmmaker to make Uncle Boonmee.
Primitive is showing until February 28th, 2012 @ The Jim Thompson Art Center in Bangkok. To learn more, visit THIS website.
Made as the conflict was still churning on, Hearts and Minds is the definitive filmic statement on the Vietnam War. A deftly edited collection of interviews and footage, watch this and the folly of war becomes all too apparent. Filmmaker Peter Davis was celebrated and loathed for his work and one can't help but cringe at the callousness of many of the high-ranking officials in the film. Maybe the worst of the batch, General Westmoreland (the US Chief of Staff at that time) infamously and appallingly states on camera that "the Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner. Life is plentiful. Life is cheap in the Orient."
If you have an hour and fifty-two minutes of free time, I implore you to give it a viewing:
Sun Ra + John Cage .... Terrence McKenna's final interview... The complete prose works of Samuel Beckett... an Anton Corbijn short with Capt. Beefheart... phone conversations between Bob Dylan and his most ardent stalker/paparazzo... Jean Cocteau's complete recordings... If any of this sounds of interest to you: UBUWEB.
Billed as a repository of "visual, concrete and sound poetry (historical, contemporary, insane)", this site is an astounding collection of audio/video/miscellany that begs for hours of sifting through. Enjoy and thanks to Goertzky for the tip.
Edward Burtynsky focuses his lenses upon environments that have been vastly altered by humans. Consider him the anti-Ansel Adams as he documents the disconsolate shards of this crowded globe.
His work speaks of modernity: Impetuous and unsustainable urban growth...
Wage slavery...
Deconstruction...
All photos: Edward Burtynsky (www.edwardburtynsky.com)
This is music for one city and six drummers. Percussion becomes a tool for the disruption of banality as a group of musicians infiltrates our institutional mold and stirs the pot. Inevitably, the local authorities are splenetic and the proverbial chase is on.
Droll, quickly paced, and aurally pleasing. If you find these qualities to be important in the films you watch, then I recommend this wholeheartedly.
Ham Tran's visually stunning Journey from the Fall is not a favorite of the Party. To date, this film has never been officially released in Vietnam and was denigrated by politburo press outlets upon its release. At points, it suffers from uneven pacing and some of the drama is overwrought, but this is a well-acted, heartbreaking account of what occurred in South Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975.
There is a scene in Apocalypse Now that originally never made it off of the cutting room floor, but was included in Coppola's director's cut. In the added scene, the crew briefly visits a French plantation deep in the jungles of Indochina during their journey towards Kurtz's compound. Over a sumptuous dinner spread, France's protracted struggle to maintain a colonial influence in the region is heatedly discussed. The intransigent landowner argues that his family has been providing jobs on that property for generations; essentially, that this tract of malarial earth is his family's singular livelihood and he is willing to be buried prematurely there, but not to be evicted...
Leaping forward to contemporary Zimbabwe, the last remnants of Rhodesia are defiantly gasping for air as their farms are abruptly seized by the government. Undoubtedly, a crepuscular and often pitch-black history loyally followed Colonialism in all of its guises and most of the developing world is still dealing with the aftereffects. This salient point aside, it is difficult to find a country dealing with its checkered past more absurdly than Zimbabwe. This deftly crafted documentary, a compelling indictment of Robert Mugabe's "land-redistribution" policy, will most likely leave your ruddy cheeks stained with salty rivulets. It will probably also leave you quite angry.
Mugabe, a figure once lionized for his revolutionary contributions to post-colonial Africa, has undoubtedly slipped from the pedestal he once quixotically perched upon. Attempts to find a contemporary hagiography from the international press will end in vain. Over the past thirty years of his inexorable dictatorship, he has systematically murdered thousands of members of the political opposition (a bloody practice basely coined "Gukurahundi" - the rain that washes the chaff from the wheat), watched his once enviable, agriculturally-based economy slow to a trickle, and is now solely targeting white landowners for immediate eviction.
Is ZANU-PF's current "land-redistribution" policy a catastrophic blow to human rights, a Draconian and inchoate method that might actually lead to complete "economic freedom" for Zimbabwe, or a sane, just practice? After watching this film, most of us will probably lean towards the former.
For a concise, readable summary of Mugabe's continuing reign (and a smattering of other autocrats), I recommend Christopher Hope's Brothers Under the Skin.
Superlatives abound. The best documentary I've seen in a long time. The best war film I've ever seen.
Two photojournalists are embedded with a platoon of US soldiers in the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan for a year. The ethics of conflict, the reasoning behind military intervention, and the futility of protracted guerrilla warfare in the Tribal Belt aren't discussed here. This is not a film that picks sides - it is a bleak, objective look at a group of dudes going about their chosen profession.
A (pitch)black comedy by Greek director Giorgos Lanthimos. Not for the fainthearted, but a truly original look at a family obliviously held hostage by their despotic father.
Brilliantly shot and paced, Kynodontas has been commonly cited as ametaphor for the strangulation of personal liberties by autocratic regimes and an indictment against the paranoid, anachronistic tyrants that sit at their helm.
It also works as an exaggerated example of the claustrophobia induced by traditionally restrictive Mediterranean family politics. For anyone who has spent time in Turkey, Greece, et al., this should be readily apparent.
