As summer heats up so does the documentary scene. Currently there are two must-see docs on the horizon:
‘Welcome to Chechnya’ is David France’s disturbing expose of the Russian Republic’s now 4-year drive to hunt, torture and kill gays and lesbians. After being screened to raves at Sundance in January it streams on HBO beginning Tuesday.
‘I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,’ another HBO presentation, screening now for six consecutive Sundays, is Liz Garbus’s revelatory look at the late Michelle McNamara, the true crime blogger and podcaster, who led renewed interest in capturing the rapist and murderer known variously as the East Area Rapist (EAR) or Golden State Killer (GSK).
But ‘Gone in the Dark,’ the title is from a declaration the killer left at the scene, is perhaps more importantly the story of the GSK’s survivors, victims and, when he is discovered, arrested and brought to trial, his family. Garbus reminds us what little agency women had back in the 1970s. Rape victims were routinely given lie detector tests and asked if through their dress or behavior they had ‘asked’ for it. Their attackers were often never pursued. There was very little collecting of evidence. GSK had 50 rapes and 12 homicides when he was charged. Garbus lets us meet and know the survivors, the detectives who had pursued the case for up to 40 years, as well as McNamara’s widower Patton Oswalt who helped insure that her book would be completed and published two years after her death and just months before GSK was caught.
I spoke with David France for a HERALD feature. Here are additional excerpts from that interview:
Q: Your film begins with an intense rescue of a young lesbian in immediate danger. Her father is a high-level official and we are told many young women are murdered in their homes by their families and simply ‘disappear.’ But I couldn’t help wonder – how do they know when they get an emergency call for help like this that they aren’t being set up? How do they know they can trust these people?
DAVID FRANCE: They use instinct really. They have told stories about meeting people they agreed to help and suddenly feeling something was not right and their due diligence protected them. Luckily they have not been caught by any of the traps and are as careful as you can imagine.
Q: There’s something almost medieval about this, ignorance and torture and a mob mentality. Chechen’s ruler we see being interviewed for American television. With his bright red beard and diminutive stature and manic replies he resembles an insane court jester.
DF: It is a campaign of ethnic cleansing from within as it were which he openly discusses and admits. It’s the first top down government-controlled effort to exterminate the LGBTQ community since Hitler.
Q: David, you include footage, bootleg video, of gays and lesbians being horribly tortured, sexually assaulted, murdered. How did you get that video?
DF: Those were trophy videos taken by the perpetrators themselves and shared among themselves. They’re evidence of the pride they had in torturing and killing people because of their presumed sexual orientation. The activists whose stories I tell were able to intercept those videos of those crimes.
Q: How does ‘Chechnya’ differ from your Oscar-nominated 2012 feature ‘How to Survive a Plague’?
DF: That film ‘Plague’ was an almost entirely archival-based project and my first film after a long career in print journalism as investigative reporter. This was my first film as a verité documentary, so it was a new challenge to stretch my abilities as a filmmaker.
Q: There are many shocking moments but a really disturbing incident is the young man who arrives at the safe house and attempts suicide when he’s left alone.
DF: The reason I included the suicide attempt — that story in the film showed what was very clear to me: There is no escaping the emotional wounds of having survived this campaign. These atrocities carry deeply in the souls of the people who are trying to make their way to freedom. As you see, many of them are very young. When that young man slit his wrists, everyone in the shelter that night knew he was only expressing what he felt: A hopelessness about being exiled from your homeland, not knowing what country you’ll eventually wind up in as refugees. It’s an unbearable moment. But we do see him asleep soon after [with his wrists bandaged].
Q: What do you want this film to accomplish?
DF: The main effect I hope it has is to empower the activism that’s still ongoing in Russia and their partners around the world. To continue to do this work, they need funding and the support of the international community. They need the world to know what they’re doing and be witness to this ongoing humanitarian crisis in the south of Russia that’s been repeatedly denied by Putin citing lack of evidence — what this film has done is present the evidence.
NEW DVDs:
GLORIOUS LOACH The gig economy — where all the advantages are with the owners while workers are without any kind of social safety net — is piteously portrayed in Ken Loach’s magnificent heartbreaker ‘Sorry We Missed You’ (Blu-ray, Kino Lorber, Not Rated). Loach, now 84, has been making his stinging, beautifully crafted socially conscious films since the ‘60s and he’s never slacked.
Here Loach tells of Ricky who signs on as an Amazon-style delivery worker in England. Only he must purchase his own van and be responsible for the tech equipment that is crucial for his daily route. Oh, if he ever misses work there are stiff penalties. We know from the start Ricky doesn’t have a chance as Loach makes it all up close and extremely personal, a portrait of a family destroyed and a hard-working man’s descent into a living Hell. Bonus: an audio commentary by Loach and longtime collaborating screenwriter Paul Laverty. Deleted scenes and a Making of.
BEAUTIFULLY BITTER BENING Great actresses aren’t great because they take unsympathetic parts, they’re great because when they do take on an unsympathetic role, as Annette Bening so brilliantly does in the English-set ‘Hope Gap’ (DVD, Screen Media, PG-13), she lets us see not just the nasty, controlling aspects of housewife Grace but why she’s so impossible.
She lets us see clearly why her meek brow-beaten husband (equally excellent Bill Nighy) walks out after 29 years of less than wedded bliss. Completing this triangle is their adult son (Josh O’Connor, ‘God’s Country,’ Prince Charles in ‘The Crown’), who is caught in the middle of his warring parents while dad’s new lover cannily keeps her distance.
CLASSY CLASSIC COMIC DUO Their heyday may have been 70 years ago but as ‘Laurel & Hardy: The Definitive Restorations’ (Blu-ray, 4 discs, MVDvisual, Not Rated) proves, this team is timeless, now abetted by 2K and 4K digital restorations from original 35 mm resources.
This truly is ‘Definitive Restorations’ of the many now-classic film collaborations between the English Stan Laurel and America’s portly Oliver Hardy, including ‘Sons of the Desert,’ ‘The Music Box’ and ‘Way Out West.’ Each disc has commentaries and special features. The many Bonus Extras range from interviews with the team’s co-workers, 2,500 rare photos, posters and studio files and alternate sound and music tracks.
SHADES OF NOIR ‘Kiss the Blood Off My Hands’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, Not Rated) is a powerful 1948 film noir with a dynamic, youthful Burt Lancaster as a traumatized WWII veteran in postwar London who after accidentally killing a man in a pub fight hooks up with an equally war-damaged survivor (Joan Fontaine). Together these would-be lovers find they are continually confronting Fate in the disreputable guise of Robert Newton’s enticing crook. ‘Blood’ is notable for its art direction, swirling sets of brick-laid London streets, Lancaster’s sadistic whipping as he’s tied to a rack and given 18 strokes of a cat o’ nine tails (who knew Britain had physical punishment alongside prison sentences!) and the tender affair of the heart between two luminous stars.
More noir is here in the latest box set in the ‘Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema IV’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, Not Rated) series with 3 titles. Easily the best is the 1946 ‘Calcutta’ which the audio commentary notes was actually made in ’44 but held up for release. It reunites Alan Ladd, then at the peak of his ‘40s popularity, with director John Farrow (yes, Mia’s dad and a noir master with ‘The Big Clock,’ ‘Alias Nick Beal’) in a film with echoes of ‘Casablanca’ and ‘The Maltese Falcon.’ The other standout here has a charmingly confident Tony Curtis in the Boston-set ‘Six Bridges to Cross’ (’55), a decades spanning story of a kid (Sal Mineo) whose environment contributes to his lawlessness as an adult (Curtis). George Nader is the cop who tries and fails to interest the kid in a life away from crime. The climax was inspired by Boston’s notorious 1950 Brink’s robbery where thieves got $2.5 million. What’s really strange here? A bonus feature unlike any you’ve ever seen. Back in the Fifties, local TV stations would have an ‘interview’ with a star. Their newsperson would be alone on camera and ask questions of Tony Curtis — and viewers would see Curtis thoughtfully respond from his expansive dressing room on the lot (where he would also make jokes about his movie star wife Janet Leigh). What we see as a Special Feature is just Curtis. There is silence as Curtis looks at the camera where presumably cue cards tell him what question is being asked. Then he answers. This continues for a half hour and becomes quite surreal, as if the Invisible Man is asking questions only Curtis can here.
DANCE LIKE IT WAS 1964 The Dance Party Edition of ‘Trolls World Tour’ (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital, DreamWorks, PG) seems ideal for anyone quarantining with kids. With this Blu-ray tots and even teens can learn dance moves, sing along, enjoy plenty of surprises. There’s also a short ‘Tiny Diamond Goes Back to School.’ Deleted scenes.
Back are your fave trolls, Anna Kendrick’s Queen Poppy and Justin Timberlake’s Branch, as they discover their kingdom is but one of six musical realms. So off they go! Why, you might ask, this world tour? To reunite the realms of Funk, Country, Techno, Classic and Pop and not let Rock dominate is why. There’s a very different take on music making for anyone with a desire to take a big, 56 year step back to 1964 with the splendid rock artifact known initially as ‘Pop Gear’ and now as ‘Go Go Mania’ (Blu-ray, Kino Lorber, Not Rated). This is rock history as a TV special with a dozen acts filmed on a mostly empty soundstage with a creamy wraparound background and slightly stylized accents. Among the non-stop musical parade are Herman’s Hermits, The Animals (before Eric Burdon got solo billing), Peter and Gordon and The Honeycombs who are unique in having a female – a drummer – as part of their group in this decidedly male-dominated lineup. The acts are quickly introduced by the now-notorious alleged sexual predator Jimmy Savile. For years Savile was the beloved, popular host of the BBC’s Top of the Pops weekly show. Savile, a weirdly comical presence with his platinum wavy hair and comic book features, is dead. Posthumously he’s been accused of over 400 sexual assaults, many on little boys and girls.
‘Go Go Mania’ is book-ended by the biggest group in the world in 1964, the Beatles who open the proceedings with concert footage of the Fab Four blasting out ‘She Loves You’ in a concert hall filled with screaming hysterical mostly female fans and ends with them offering a brief ‘Twist and Shout.’ Let’s not forget the mod dancers. What’s evident in the suits and ties nearly every group wears — how pervasive the Beatles’ sartorial influence already was.
DO DEMONS EXIST? A hit that’s been renewed for a second season ‘Evil: Season One’ (DVD, 3 discs, 13 episodes CBS, Not Rated) is the newest entry from ‘The Good Wife’-‘The Good Fight’ married writing-producing team of Michelle King and Robert King. The set-up has Kristen Couchard (Dutch actress Katja Herbers of ‘Westworld’), a lapsed Catholic and single mother of 4 young girls, as a court psychologist who is hired by Mike Colter’s David Acosta, a Catholic paranormal investigator. He plans on becoming a priest and examines demon-possessed claims made by killers.
The two find they have a sexual attraction but what to do when priests must be celibate? Also, perhaps more importantly, what happens at home when the demon of the incarcerated killer on trial comes to visit your dreams at home? And then terrorizes your youngest daughter as well? With Michael Emerson who should have by now patented his creepier than ever presence. Bonus: 2 featurettes and 7 deleted/extended scenes.
PRIDE TIMES ‘Mädchen in Uniform’ (Blu-ray, Kino Classics, Not Rated) was a controversial hit when first released in Germany in 1931 and later in the US. A double whammy of political protest, ‘Mädchen in Uniform’ is both anti-Fascist and among the first films to sympathetically portray lesbian love. Set in a strict Prussian girls’ school, Manuela, our 14 year old heroine, rebels against the strict regimental running of the institute while embarking on an affair with every girls’ favorite teacher at the school. Today, ‘Mädchen in Uniform’ is seen as a prescient warning of Hitler’s authoritarian rise just 2 years later. Audio commentary by film historian Jenni Olson. In German with optional English subtitles.
A WALK IN THE WOODS Tom Berenger is reason enough to see the northern Maine-set ‘Blood and Money’ (Blu-ray, Screen Media, Not Rated).
Berenger is the war veteran whose discovery of a woman ‘s corpse in the woods is complicated by the bag of money she carried. Familiar elements – a gone-kaput casino robbery, a hoped-for Canadian escape route — are given a spin as Berenger’s dying, mostly silent hunter becomes the hunted. Bonus: Behind the Scenes interviews with Berenger and filmmakers.
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