STREAMING DOCS: A-list Documentaries, April Edition

Where will you find the best in new documentaries? In the brave new world of digital streaming.

By Neil Giordano

Strong Island At key moments in this 2017 Oscar-nominee (and my pick for the best documentary of last year ), filmmaker Yance Ford stares straight at the camera in an extreme close-up, forcing you to reckon with the subject matter as if he were inviting you into his head. A memoir as much as it is a documentary film, Ford looks back at his youth in Long Island where his family tried to live the American dream as one of the few black families in an overwhelmingly white — and often times unaccepting –town. His investigation of the tragic murder of his brother when they were teenagers forms the heart of the story. The brother, a convivial, larger-than-life teddy bear of a young man (a portrait drawn through memories and photographs), was killed by the gunshot fired by a white man who claimed self-defense. Featuring interviews with family members as well as the sympathetic police detective who worked the case, the story serves up an unflinching and powerful emotional landscape, a story of power and race and family that provides a new perspective on the Black Lives Matter movement. NETFLIX

A scene from “The Departure.”

The Departure — Meditative and beautifully rendered, this is the story of the Japanese activist Ittesu Nemoto, a former punk rocker turned Buddhist priest, who specializes in counseling people who’ve attempted or are contemplating suicide. His method, self-described as “the departure,” encourages people to ‘inhabit’ death, to imagine what dying means through a variety of experiential and intellectual methods. Fascinating and complex, this narrative is also surprisingly humorous, though it also gradually gives way to the unseen effects Nemoto’s work has on the man himself, his struggles with mortality, as well as the impact of his mission on his wife and young daughter. AMAZON

Cameraperson — The accomplished documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson (CitizenFour, Fahrenheit 9/11) has assembled an arresting film autobiography of her professional life of 25 years behind the camera.  It is also an exploration of the documentary form itself. Unnarrated footage from her various movies — from Bosnia to Nigeria to her hometown in America — is interwoven into a montage that, at first, seems like a crazy quilt. But the narrative jells into a subtle, vital commentary on the moral choices made by documentary filmmakers. A recurring sequence of a dying child in Nigeria presented the moral challenge: Do you keep filming? Can you keep the cameras rolling without flinching? Are you who is behind the camera required to do anything else? FILMSTRUCK/CRITERION

A scene from “The Work.”

The Work — Filmmakers Jairus McLeary and Gethin Aldous built trust with the subjects of this documentary for years before filming this extraordinary portrait of a group therapy session in Folsom State Prison in northern California. The narrative offers a powerful deconstruction of toxic masculinity, looking at these men at their most vulnerable. The inmates — all violent offenders — confront long-repressed demons, not only domestic sadness and rage, but self-loathing, fear of showing weakness, and a sense of meaninglessness. Parts were filmed via the extraordinary use of a close-up handheld camera, shoulder to shoulder with the participants. AMAZON

Tower It’s a rare film (documentary or not) that stands out not only for its subject matter but for its distinctive style. Tower revisits the 1966 mass shooting at the University of Texas, Austin: it does so through a combination of live-action interviews, archival footage,and, most compellingly, Rotoscope animation. The film approaches history in a way that generates puzzlement, suspense, and horror.  We meet the cast of characters who were present that day, some of whom don’t survive the first reel, so to speak. Most eerily, perhaps, the movie evokes nostalgia for a seemingly idyllic era of American life, its optimism offering dulcet refrains of the Mamas and Papas as its soundtrack, of a time before “mass shooting” was a commonplace phrase in America. NETFLIX

Heroine  — This Oscar-nominated short takes on America’s latest social catastrophe, the spiraling out-of-control world of opioid addiction and overdoses. Director Elaine McMillion Sheldon returns to her native West Virginia to a town where the overdose rate is 10 times the national average, relating the narrative through the perspectives of three women on the front lines––the fire chief, a judge, and a street missionary––all of whom thoughtfully navigate the complex history of the region. NETFLIX

78/52 — Cinephiles will be more familiar with the title’s numbers than the average moviegoer — 78 camera set-ups and 52 edits — but the latter will be fascinated nonetheless. This feature about Hitchcock’s infamous Psycho shower scene succeeds as both a film history and a reflection on the moviemaking craft itself. The gory scene, which lasts only 45 seconds on screen, involved seven days of filming. It has become a movie archetype, hailed as a triumph of psychological suggestion and cinematic technique. The film includes talking-head commentary from such film luminaries as director/scholar Peter Bogdanovich and editor Walter Murch, as well as lesser known players like Janet Leigh’s body double, and even Leigh’s daughter, actress Jamie Lee Curtis, who went on to establish her own career in the slasher genre. AMAZON

A scene from “Pickle.”

Pickle — If you feel the above documentaries are too earnest, enjoy this altogether wacky and joyous short film about two committed pet owners who lovingly care for their various and odd charges, including an obese chicken and their ill-fated fish, Pickle. Comes with delightfully goofy narration and whimsical line-drawing animation. FILMSTRUCK

Short Takes

Casting JonBenet — An ingenious and original approach to the documentary genre. The filmmakers reconstruct the familial ambivalence and resulting media frenzy generated by the unsolved JonBenet Ramsey murder by setting up a contrived casting session. We hear from the different actors who might play the various individuals involved in the case. Tim Jackson’s Arts Fuse review here. NETFLIX

The Witness The Kitty Genovese murder is given a compelling reexamination by Genovese’s brother in this highly personal film, which questions the enduring myths of the case and plumbs the many intricacies often ignored in the victim’s life. My Arts Fuse review here. NETFLIX


Neil Giordano teaches film and creative writing in Newton. His work as an editor, writer, and photographer has appeared in Harper’s, Newsday, Literal Mind, and other publications. Giordano previously was on the original editorial staff of DoubleTake magazine and taught at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.

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