"The Look of Silence" (Denmark, 2015)

Nine Things About the Film The Look of Silence

1. In 1965, the Indonesian government was overthrown by a part of the military, which resulted in the murder of about a million people. This act of genocide was pretty much ignored by the world (including Indonesia itself), and became the subject of Joshua Oppenheimer's brain-melting 2012 documentary, The Act of Killing.  In that movie, the killers (who are still in power today) were interviewed. They freely spoke of the tortures and murders they committed. They even re-enacted their crimes, sometimes in the style of a Hollywood movie.

2. The Look of Silence is not really a sequel to The Act of Killing. It's more like the other half of it. The main subject of this documentary is Adi Runkun, a village eye doctor who met Oppenheimer during the filming of his movie. Runkun saw some of Oppenheimer's interviews and realized that a couple of the killers were talking about how they tortured and murdered his older brother. So Runkun decided to give free eye exams to his brother's killers, and then confront them with what they did. Oppenheimer agreed to film the "interviews", and the killers allowed it because they still trusted him (this film was completed before The Act of Killing was released in theaters).

3. This film does not have the surreal, reality-warping shock value of The Art of Killing. Instead, it goes in the opposite direction. It zooms all the way in to look at one family still dealing with the aftereffects of genocide, 50 years later. It's a somber meditation on different kinds of silence: denial, fear, victim-hood, history, and being surrounded by murderers.

4. Most of the Indonesian cast and crew are listed as "Anonymous" in the credits, because they are afraid they will be killed if people know they helped make this movie.

5. Runkun risked his life to do these confrontations (he had to move after he finished the movie). It's amazing to watch him approach the killers and their families. It's just as agonizing to watch him learn that things are closer to him than he thought.

6. The movie kind of eats at you like an acid mist. It starts out being slow moving, maybe even a little irritating. And then about halfway through, you realize the movie has melted through your skin and is disintegrating your bones.

7. Oppenheimer turns the rules of documentary film-making upside down. He doesn't pretend he's not there. The people in the film don't ignore him or the camera. Some of the people being interviewed talk directly to him, even though he's not in the shot. And while the conversations are natural, the physical set-up of some of the scenes is very obviously staged. Oppenheimer transforms documentaries into art.

8. Although the movie is made up almost entirely of conversations, there are several scenes that have burned themselves into my mind and will probably never leave.

9. This film sounds totally fake, but it's not. It's an extraordinary achievement, and will change the way you see the world. It deserves any award it wins. It's also utterly depressing and can make you lose faith in humanity. After it was over, I just wanted to be by myself and not talk to anyone.

The Nightmare (USA, 2015)

Nine Things About the Movie "The Nightmare"

DISCLAIMER:
 It was hard to write these "Nine Things". I've had sleep paralysis more than once, and my experiences fit right into this movie. It's naturally going to bias my thoughts on the topic, no matter how hard I try to separate them.

So it goes.

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Nine Things About the Movie "The Nightmare"

1. I'm not sure if you can call documentaries "scary", but this is the scariest documentary I have ever seen.

2.  It was directed by Rodney Ascher. He's the guy that made "Room 237", the documentary about conspiracy theories behind "The Shining".  I wasn't so impressed with "Room 237", but it was perfect practice for this movie, which also consists of interviews with people who have strange ideas. This movie has people talk about their experiences with a phenomenon usually known as "sleep paralysis", or "night terrors". Then the movie recreates those experiences.

3.  This movie is a great illustration of what sleep paralysis is and what it feels like. You get a good sense of the common universal themes behind the phenomenon, as well as the individual differences.

4.  For people that do have sleep paralysis, this movie should probably come with a trigger warning. Seriously.

5.   The movie sometimes brings up a scientific explanation for what's going on, but that's not really the point. The point of this movie is not to convince people what sleep paralysis actually is. There are no interviews with scientists or spiritual leaders, just regular people. The point of the movie is simply to make the viewer understand what it's like to be in one of these insane episodes.

6.  Ascher does this clever thing where he shows "behind-the-scene" glimpses of the film set sometimes, to remind the viewer that it's all fake - and yet it's all happening.

7. A fascinating segment of the film ties night terrors to horror movies, and suggests that they may come from the same place in the human psyche... and maybe even create a feedback loop.

8. The people interviewed in the film all have their own ideas of what sleep paralysis is, and they all have their own reasons for it. No matter what they think is the cause - biological, psychological, demonic, Jungian, alien abductions, a disease, or something else - you can understand why these people come to the conclusions they do.

9. This is a strange movie. Then again, this is a strange topic. Sleep paralysis is not talked about very much, but it is a very real and psychologically traumatic part of many peoples' lives. And in order to properly capture such an extreme phenomenon, you've got to be willing to go there. This movie is willing to go there.

Are All Men Pedophiles? [Netherlands, 2012]

Nine Things about the Movie Are All Men Pedophiles?

1. This is an unusual documentary about the natural attractions that men have to younger girls. It weaves together threads from evolution, religion, psychology, and society.

2. A lot of time is spent explaining that what a lot of people consider pedophilia is really hebephilia (which is attraction to adolescents). This distinction is very important to narrator/director Jan-Willem Breure.

3. There are interviews with victims of pedophiles, and admitted pedophiles.

4. The movie highlights the hypocrisy of western culture, which condemns attraction to younger girls while simultaneously portraying girls as sex objects, especially in the fashion industry.

5. The movie does a remarkable job of walking a fine line on the subject... as much as one can. It seeks to understand the different forms of men’s attraction to girls, without condemning all forms outright. This has caused controversy, and the director has been accused of not having a strong enough agenda, making him kind of suspicious.

6. The movie also makes the case that the fear of pedophilia has gone too far, that paranoia is taking over, and that men and boys are being taught that they are naturally a danger to girls.

7. There is a weird strangeness to the film, due to the way the interviews are edited. The people move and talk in slightly abnormal ways, almost like they were computer generated. It’s very creative, but it’s also very distracting.

8. After the credits, you see director/narrator Jan-Willem Breure give his own answer to the question in the title of the film. It’s sort of a bold answer.

9. This is an interesting, confrontational, and sometimes uncomfortable examination of human sexuality. It leaves you feeling that love and desire are hopelessly uncontrollable, no matter how society tries to structure them.

Tiny [USA, 2014]

Nine Things about the Movie Tiny

1. Capitalizing on the “maker” movement and the “downsizing” movement, this is supposed to be a small documentary (it’s barely an hour long) on the recent popularity of building tiny houses, which are houses under 400 square feet. But it’s not really a documentary. It’s a home-brewed screed against consumerism. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I was hoping for a more balanced and informative piece of filmmaking.

2. The movie follows a guy named Chris as he buys a piece of land in the middle of nowhere in Colorado, and builds a tiny house on a trailer. Chris is assisted by his angst-ridden girlfriend, who stresses on what is the meaning of “home”, probably because she wants to move to New York City while her boyfriend is getting ready to leave the entire civilized world behind.

3. Even though the movie is only lasts an hour, it’s about 30 minutes too long. It makes all of its points very quickly, and then repeats them over and over. This is why, in between watching scenes of Chris building his house like an HGTV special, we see lots of pictures of other tiny houses. Lots of pictures. Lots of them.

4. The movie also interviews other “tiny housers” while they wax romantic about their life perspectives. They are earnest and friendly, but they come off sounding a little smug and pretentious. They give us nuggets of wisdom like:
“The world gets a lot bigger when you’re living small.”
“The whole world is now my living room.”
“I wanted to be larger than the small person that I needed to be in my big house.”

5. Very little discussion is given to the problems of tiny houses, such as storage, occupancy, and privacy. And only once does the movie acknowledge the elephant in the room: Chris admits that there’s a weird irony in what he’s doing. He loves open spaces, so he bought some and built a house on it. But if everyone did that, there would be no more open spaces left.

6. I think it’s funny that one of the gurus of tiny housing lived for a decade in buildings of less than 100 square feet, but then broke down and bought a 500 square foot house to live in with his family. He has another tiny house in his backyard.

7. One thing the movie never really touches on is the psychological makeup of these tiny housers. A lot of them are the crunchy granola types. But Chris literally wants to live on a 10 x 12 foot slab of wood hundreds of miles from other people. He’s determined to do it whether his girlfriend stays with him or not. That’s really interesting, but it’s never explored. Probably because it’s his girlfriend doing most of the filming.

8. The movie tries to make you feel bad if you don’t want to be like these people, or if you are not in a position where you can do it (like if you have kids). And in case you don’t learn the lesson that tiny houses are a wonderful, natural state of being, the film ends with an aerial shot of Chris’s house surrounded by grass, trees, and a rainbow.

9. This movie is mildly interesting, but a lot of it is nothing more than personal home movie footage, and doesn’t really explore the topic like I was hoping. Perhaps most critically, the movie backfired on me. While I was neutral on the topic before I saw this, now I find that the fad of tiny housing is kind of silly, creepy, and hypocritical.

Bronies [USA, 2013]

Nine Things About the Movie Bronies

1. This little documentary was much more interesting than I expected. I actually watched it twice in one week.

2. It’s about how the show “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” was created to use the classic My Little Pony characters as archetypes for various positive character traits, and challenge female stereotypes. It was aimed at little girls.

3. What nobody expected is that guys got obsessed with the show, too, and began to call themselves “bronies” - which is a combination of “bro” and “pony”. Their favorite form of greeting is the fist bump - which they call the "bro hoof".

4. The movie follows several different bronies from all over the world, and how they found each other. It also goes into the difficulties they face for being open about how much they like a
“girlie show”. It also shows their journeys to various “BronyCons”, which are huge conventions of bronies.

5. People that are uncomfortable with bronies suspect that they are either gay, or the opposite - they like little girls too much. This movie does a good job of dispelling those myths. One of the more interesting scenes is a gathering of bronies in the military.

6. What’s fascinating is how this show has obviously hit a real nerve among men - this is not an isolated phenomenon. We see people from redneck small towns, couples in Germany, a DJ in Israel, and a British kid with Asperger's Syndrome. This is not an isolated fetish.

7. Some bronies feel this documentary is too one-sided, by making bronies all look socially awkward and prone to discrimination. It also tends to ignore grown women that like the show (they call themselves “pegasisters”)

8. Other bronies are upset that the movie doesn’t talk about clopping - which is the porn part of My Little Pony fandom.

9. I’m not a brony, but I support them. This movie makes the point that men can be sensitive and inclusive and loving. In a world where violence among men is “normal”, but friendship and love is “deviant”, the movie shows that the problem is with the brony-haters, not the bronies.

The Act of Killing (USA, 2013)

Nine Things about the Movie The Act of Killing

1. Made with the help of Anonymous, this is probably the most psychologically complex documentary I’ve ever seen.

2. In 1960’s Indonesia, there was a failed military coup. As a result, thugs and small-time gangsters were turned into paramilitary death squads. They roamed the country and killed millions of people who were suspected of being “communist”. Anwar Congo was the most feared leader of one these death squads.

3. Filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer managed to make contact with Anwar, and asked him to recount his memories of that time. As the death squads are openly celebrated as heroes, Anwar eagerly agreed to make this movie.

4. The movie starts out with Anwar and one of his flunkies openly boasting about the ways they tortured and killed people. The stories then turn to actual recreations of some of the murders and massacres.

5. As the movie progresses, we meet other people who were involved with the murders. They all have their own ways of dealing with what they’ve done. They believe that the key to not be haunted by the ghosts of those they murdered is to never feel guilty.

6. In between the recreation of history, we also get a close look at the way Indonesia is run today – the rampant corruption, cynicism, and extortion. People love to explain repeatedly that the word “gangster” means “free man”. We come to understand that the death squads are part of an entire horrific pattern in the country’s psyche. This is normal life to them.

7. As Anwar recreates his “adventures”, he moves from playing himself to playing the victim’s role. Then he wants to act out the nightmares he has. The torture and murder scenes become increasingly elaborate. You can see him progress from self-important psychopath to trembling human being that questions everything he’s done. But he can’t apologize for it.

8. The movie is alternately absurd, nightmarish, horrific, and amusingly surreal. Anwar is sometimes glib (like discussing the best clothing to wear when you kill people), and sometimes regretful (such as when he admits that he usually didn’t close the eyes of the people’s heads once he cut them off).

9. The movie is long, running almost three hours. It’s hard to watch, because of the graphic discussion and re-enacting of torture and murder. It’s bizarre and unexpectedly beautiful. It’s an unprecedented look at the psychology of mass murderers and the effects of trauma on those who cause it.

Blackfish (USA, 2013)

Nine Things about Blackfish

1. Don’t be fooled by the oddly bland title, or the fact that you may not have heard of this film. This is a stunning and heart wrenching documentary - perhaps the best of the year.

2. In 2010, SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau was killed by a whale at the park. The official news story was that Dawn made a mistake by letting her ponytail hang out, and the whale grabbed it and she got pulled under. Filmmaker Gabriela Cowperthwaite thought the story sounded suspicious, so she started digging around. The result was this film.

3. While the death of Brancheau is the hook of “Blackfish”, that topic isn’t really dealt with until the end. The movie is much deeper and more comprehensive than that. It’s a compilation of interviews, court testimony, SeaWorld commercials, and home video over several decades.

4. It documents 30 years of SeaWorld’s actions, including accounts of how they capture, treat, and train the orcas, especially one particular killer whale, Tilikum.

5. By contrasting SeaWorld’s public image with what really was going on behind the scenes, this movie reaches far beyond one sad incident and becomes a blistering indictment of SeaWorld itself.

6. SeaWorld is understandably upset at this film, and released a statement saying, in part, “Blackfish is billed as a documentary, but instead of a fair and balanced treatment of a complex subject, the film is inaccurate and misleading... to promote its bias that killer whales should not be maintained in a zoological setting, the film paints a distorted picture…”

7. Interestingly, the filmmakers repeatedly asked SeaWorld to be interviewed for “Blackfish”, and SeaWorld repeatedly declined, only releasing that statement after the film came out. That was probably smart on SeaWorld’s part. I don’t see any way they could successfully defend themselves here.

8. Pixar studios is currently working on “Finding Dory”, a sequel to “Finding Nemo”. When the director of that movie saw “Blackfish”, he rewrote parts of the film, including the ending.

9. If enough people see this movie, it may be able to single-handedly take down SeaWorld.

Leviathan (USA, 2013)

Nine Things About the Movie Leviathan

1. This is what you would call an “experimental documentary”.

2. It’s about the fishing industry off the coast of New England in America.

3. There is no narration to explain what’s going on.

4. There is no soundtrack other than the sounds of the fishing boat and the ocean.

5. It was filmed by attaching tiny cameras on parts of the fishing boat and on the fishermen.

6. This movie makes fishing look really intimidating and scary.

7. Instead of being a traditional documentary that explains something, this one makes you feel like you are looking at a strange and alien job, full of people you will never understand.

8. There are lots of shots of dead and dying fish.

9. This is not meant for everyone. But it’s an extraordinary, non-linear way to tell a story. It’s one of the more memorable movies of 2013, and one of the more memorable documentaries I've ever seen.