CPH:DOX is a film industry extravaganza taking place each November in Copenhagen. The festival celebrates the top international documentaries of the year, with some art-house and experimental films mixed in. Each of the 250 or so features and shorts are presented as part of different thematic series.
The following reviews focus on feature-length films dealing with social justice concerns (all from 2011 unless otherwise noted). Most of these films were presented as part of the Free Radicals series documenting “the great social and popular upheavals of the Arab Spring” as well as the annual Amnesty Award series highlighting “various aspects of the struggle for human rights.”
Day 1.
Bette Gordon’s Variety (1983) is not actually a documentary, though it shares some formal qualities of the genre. The film was part of the art series curated by photographer Nan Goldin and takes place in early-1980s NYC, based on a feminist novella by Betty Acker. It opens with a young Catherine Deneuve look-alike swimming languidly in a indoor pool, the camera taking its time to scan her legs, and then her torso, her striped one-piece suit so close to us that it causes the image to shimmer, portending the subtle shifts in reality to come. We learn that this woman is unemployed, struggling financially, sort of single/sort of dating someone, and something of an amateur writer. As we watch her put on lipstick, she wonders aloud to her friend whether she wears it only because it happened to be a habit of her mother, whose voice we hear through an old shoebox-sized telephone answering machine, practically a character in its own right. This is a period piece of sorts, with a John Lurie-composed soundtrack overlaying lingering, saturated images of a nostalgic Manhattan (shot by Tom Dicillo, Jim Jarmusch’s early cinematographer and director of Living in Oblivion). Desperate for income, the woman takes a job working the ticket window at an X-rated Times Square movie theater called Variety. She quietly engages this world, or maybe it engages her, and she soon finds herself becoming obsessed with one of the regulars, a business type in a suit that she follows and fantasizes about. Exposed to the world of pornography and its emphasis on gaze and power relations, she becomes torn and complicated, shifting and withdrawing from her usual relationships. This film explores psychological struggles around voyeurism, sexual fantasy, and power, with traditional gender roles twisting and turning in a way that, although playfully theoretical, seems more authentic than contrived.
Inside Lara Roxx is the moving and difficult story of a 21 year-old girl from Montreal who goes to L.A. to make some money in the porn industry and, she tells us, to make her parents feel ashamed. She becomes a star, but after a short time contracts HIV. A few of her peers do too, and suddenly the scandal becomes national news. Several years later, she‘s appearing in the media warning other young “performers” not to do any scenes they don’t want to do, and she agrees to let first-time director Mia Donovan film her life as she returns to L.A. to meet with people from her past. The film is really made up of three stories: First, it’s a psychological portrait of a young woman dealing with physical and mental illness and drug and relationship problems, including interviews with her mother and conversations between Lara and her former counselors, old “father figures,” and other personalities from her past. Second, it’s a film about the developing relationship between Lara and Mia. We watch and listen to Lara but see everything through Mia’s eyes, who acknowledges at one point during her narration that she feels uncomfortable filming her subject. The difficult questions of how much she is exploiting Lara and how much she is helping her are constantly present. Third, it’s a behind-the-fucking look at the porn industry, with all the creepy characters rationalizing their behavior, along with porn doctors and porn counselors who are either helping or using the girls—who it’s clear fall at the very bottom of the power structure. Yet despite watching and listening with something of a supportive eye for Lara, who talks with others about condoms and the uselessness of testing, the film unfortunately skirts bigger issues and does not enlighten us about just how profound the systemic exploitation of girls in the industry actually is. When an emotionally fragile young woman gets manipulated by an older, more powerful man into doing a “double-anal” scene that she really doesn’t want to do, does that count as consent, or abuse, or a kind of rape? (This film does not show graphic sexual imagery; it is likely to be R-rated under the American system.) The sad fact is that industry profits are dependent on exploiting formerly abused girls like Lara, and by not illuminating the much larger problem beyond her and Mia’s travel adventures together, the film misses an opportunity to transcend the pathos of the personal and become truly outstanding.
Day 2.
Lost Land (Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd) is a slow, meditative, grainy b/w film about the plight of the Sahrawi people of the Western Sahara desert. Under the boot of the Kingdom of Morocco since Spanish decolonization and international war in the mid-1970s, the Sahrawis have been struggling to survive in a large and internationally-disputed territory of heavily-mined desert without any official government or functional economy. (On modern world maps, the stateless Western Sahara region is usually painted a neutral grey in a world full of brightly-colored countries.) Through abductions, disappearances, beatings, torture, and bombings of refugee camps, the Moroccan government has kept the Sahrawi refugees from making their yearly pilgrimage to their ancestors’ resting place, and from living in dignity and peace. An enormous 2,400 kilometer-long (1,500 mile-long) wall was completed by Morocco in 1989, and a ceasefire between the Moroccan army and the Polisario Front (claiming to defend the exiled Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) has turned into a war of attrition. We hear testimonies of women and men and watch stoic faces and hands while spending long minutes looking into the largely empty distance. The film portrays the Sahrawis as prideful, nomadic people of the desert with a deep knowledge of its winds, its distances, and its space. One man explains that it is this connection to the desert environment that will eventually allow his people to triumph over their Moroccan oppressors.
Rouge Parole (Elyes Baccar) is an important but scattered document of a wide cross-section of life during and after the 2011 Tunisian revolution. We hear hundreds of different Tunisian voices, including that of the mother of Mohamed Bouazizi, the young merchant whose self-immolation initially sparked the uprising and turned him into a martyr; she describes a bizarre meeting with Ben Ali in his final days in power, during which he falsely accuses her son of being a mentally-ill drug addict, and then tries to offer her money as she leaves. We hear from a former journalist under the regime who explains that, finding themselves in a suddenly open society, people are having to make new efforts to learn how to listen to other people’s opinions; she also explains how difficult the transition has been for her to write freely and of her own accord. We observe intense and enthusiastic debates on the street and in cafés, such as whether bread should take priority over freedom or freedom over bread. We take a tour through the recently trashed home of the former ruling family, and, in a particularly powerful moment, watch the beautifully incredulous faces of a crowd of people pushed up against a bookstore window reading previously-banned titles. We see the corrosive effects of the unknown and deadly snipers in the months after the dictator’s fall, and feel the fear of a woman who still jumps when she hears unknown noises outside. As time passes, we watch the Tunisians’ reactions to the fall of Mubarak in Egypt, and to the Libyan rebellion. We witness a non-profit organization baking 10,000 loaves of bread to feed the Libyan refugees pouring across the border. Especially impressive are the basic similarities between the grievances in Tunisia around political corruption, freedom of expression, and economic injustice and those currently being expressed by the Occupy movement in more open societies like the United States.
In My Mother’s Arms (Atia & Mohamed Al-Daradji), officially the opening film of the festival, spends most of its time in a private orphanage in Sadr City, the poorest section of Bagdhad, during the American occupation. We follow the lives of several boys, including youth diving champions and victims of abuse, child artists and survivors of bombings. We get to know a couple of these children well, including a troubled and sensitive outsider who learns to soothe himself by singing, with peculiar beauty: “I’m too young for this pain/I’m too young for this agony/I live in an orphanage/And my dreams sleep with me.” We also follow the youngish and well-meaning head of the orphanage who spends his days acting as father to the boys while also desperately trying to find the financing to keep the orphanage existing, otherwise the boys will be either out in the street or in abuse-ridden state institutions. His wife complains to him that he is neglecting his own son while he spends his time and energy trying to save orphans from danger and help them mature and develop, a warped metaphor perhaps for some of the officially stated reasons behind the U.S. invasion. And although we briefly see American soldiers patrolling the streets, this a not a war documentary per se but one about the effects of war. For anyone interested in life behind the headlines in Iraq, In My Mother’s Arms is essential viewing.
Day 3.
Revenge of the Electric Car is an optimistic follow-up to Chris Paine’s 2006 exposé Who Killed the Electric Car? In this slickly-cut sequel the director was allowed behind-the-scenes of the auto industry—to his skeptical delight—to investigate details of the renewed attempt to mass produce electric cars, a goal that was literally trashed just a few years ago in favor of gas guzzlers. To excellent music, we follow four interconnected stories of the race to profitability and sustainability including those of two industry giants, General Motors and Nissan, and their managers; a struggling silicon valley start-up, Tesla, and its young entrepreneur-CEO; and a small time mechanic and his designer wife who custom convert pet cars for plug-in capability. Each of these very different stories are compelling in their triumphs and frustrations, and the film leaves us with the impression that it’s only a matter of time before we’re all plugging in instead of filling up. Narrated by Tim Robbins.
Neither Allah Nor Master takes place in Tunisia, but unlike the revolutionary turmoil of Rouge Parole (reviewed above), we get a picture of life in the half-year before the fall of Ben Ali. Filmed largely during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, this is a film about atheism and secularism in the Islamic republic and the social pressures to conform to religious traditions. Director Nadia El-Fani and her friends question social and religio-legal doctrine, challenging each other and strangers on the need to impose Ramadan fasting on the entire society, especially if so many people are disobeying the rules anyway. We see people stocking up on alcohol for the month before all the stores close, hear an old waiter estimate that 70% of society does not fast, and boldly go into cafés that have the curtains drawn in order to hide all the men breaking fast inside (just like “the sex shops in Paris” says Nadia). The film ends abruptly after acting as participant-observer in semi-organized public debates on secularism vs. Islamism. Even with the news last week that the first open elections in Tunisia empowered the moderate Islamist party, the film feels unfinished, with the question of the appropriate role of religion in a post-revolutionary Tunisia still open.
This is Not a Film, whose director Jafar Panahi is currently a political prisoner in Iran, was smuggled out of the country in a USB key hidden in a cake. A unique film that is pointless, profound, and ironic all at once, the director’s cameraman friend describes it best when he demands that “the only important thing is that the camera stays on.” A documentary-lover’s documentary, this experimental film is about Jafar’s days awaiting his sentence by passing idle time and not making movies like this one. He is under apartment arrest taking care of a massive free-range lizard, as out of place in its surroundings as the artist must feel under the Iranian regime. We watch him not make a movie. The camera stays on. We hear unnerving activity outside in the streets. As he talks to his neighbors and slowly descends towards life outside, we begin to understand.
Day 4.
Better This World, about two young men arrested at the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis and prosecuted under domestic terrorism laws, is an absolute must-see. It shares aspects with many outstanding political docs: an important and complex subject matter, highly professional investigative journalism, compelling personalities, and masterful editing. This unbelievable story, which stars a charismatic activist reminiscent of Brad Pitt in Fight Club, revolves around questions about truth, loyalty, civil liberties, and personal responsibility. Expect no innocents here. Ultimately, however, the film is a powerful indictment of a post-9/11 criminal justice system more concerned with successful prosecution than truth or justice. The only thing Kelly Duane de la Vega and Katie Galloway‘s film is lacking is greater context about the FBI’s infiltration of peace and activist groups in recent years, because this is not the only such story. But it’s probably the most jaw-dropping.
Martin Scorcese’s George Harrison: Living in the Material World shines mainly because of its extraordinary vintage Beatles footage. It’s also very well-produced and edited, with enlightening interviews. After 3 1/2 hours, you’re left with the feeling that you really understand the man. The final third of the film focuses on his lesser known projects as an ex-Beatle, including humanitarian aid, film production, and collaboration with Monty Python.
Day 5.
Most people have probably never heard of Gene Sharp, political science professor at the University of Massachusetts and subject of Ruaridh Arrow’s How to Start a Revolution, but his concrete ideas on waging nonviolent resistance have directly inspired democratic movements and helped topple dictators around the globe in places as diverse as Burma, Serbia, Iran, Syria, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, and Egypt. Tyrants are so threatened by his short book “From Dictatorship to Democracy” that some have produced propaganda films denouncing him as a CIA agent. Yet according to Arrow’s portrayal, this 83 year-old, soft-spoken man, who calls Gandhi and Thoreau his primary influences, works with independent financing in a basement office in Boston. Through interviews conducted with admiring colleagues and pro-democracy organizers around the world, this film (funded by online donations through Kickstarter) is convincing in its description of the impressive global impact of his ideas. We also get new insights into this year’s democratic movements in Egypt and Syria. Yet the film is seriously flawed, mainly due to the expansive, “inspiring” music, which unfortunately serves to dilute ideas, testimonies, and historical imagery that that are impressive enough without any embellishment. The nature of documentaries—and this is what I love about them—means that they can be worth seeing even when technically or aesthetically mediocre; fascinating subject matter and content can overpower formal flaws and illuminate what had been previously unknown. A quick post-film Google search reveals that Sharp’s ideas on nonviolent struggle are currently being discussed on the Occupy Wall Street website.
Bombay Beach is the name of a poor community in the Southern California desert located on the edge of a large salt lake. Alma Har’el’s film begins with a sunny promotional short promising an American dream on Salton Sea before hitting us with the present-day realities. We get to know the eccentric people who struggle to survive here, a kind of Third World America: A dangerously overmedicated young boy whose parents like to have fun with guns and grenades. Children and teens dancing and experimenting with love. An athlete dreaming of professional ball. Old people struggling with health and poverty. With late Bob Dylan songs playing on the soundtrack, we find ourselves at turns amused, disgusted, and deeply moved. After it’s over, what lingers is the feeling that, despite an unforgiving environment and the occasional cruelty, these people are keeping each other alive by taking care of each other.
If Stanley Kubrick had made a documentary about nuclear power plants, it would look like Volker Sattel’s Under Control. We are taken on a frightening and beautiful trip into the unseen and technical innards of German nuclear power plants, including control stations, fuel rods, reactors, locker and laundry rooms, crisis simulators, nuclear waste depositories, and varying voices of scientists both for and against nuclear power, including one who confidently proclaims the impossibility of a technical failure. Slow tracking shots down empty corridors, underground caves resembling moonscapes, examples of man’s subservience to technology, and anxious silences that suddenly erupt in a fury of beeps, lights and alarms would make this an excellent companion piece to 2001: A Space Odyssey. The end credits ominously glow and pulsate due to deliberate exposure of the celluloid to gamma ray radiation. While this gorgeous film does not take an explicit stand on nuclear power as a source of energy, after watching I found myself even more resolute in my opinion of the danger and idiocy of nuclear energy over other smarter energy sources, though I could imagine others might react differently. The film was released in Germany not long after the Fukushima disaster in Japan and supposedly played an important role in the national debate and ultimate decision to dismantle all plants by 2022.
Day 6.
Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark was the most emotionally powerful film I saw at the festival this week. A brilliant and courageous piece of undercover journalism, this hour-long film chronicles the ongoing, secular, and peaceful democratic movement in the small Persian Gulf country from February to April 2011, and the royal family’s violent crackdown on protestors, schoolchildren, and doctors. May Ying Welsh, the Al Jazeera English journalist who covertly shot the footage, conducted the interviews, and wrote the script was the only foreign journalist in Bahrain as the violence intensified. The monarchy is shown to be extraordinary cruel and unforgiving, and the propagandistic clips from state television juxtaposed with the brutally graphic images of the injured and tortured, along with hospital interviews with doctors and activists, show the lengths the regime has been going to stay in power. Treatment of the role played by the U.S. and Europe is minimal but welcome and well done. The release of this film, available for free on the web, caused an international diplomatic row. Following the festival screening here, an enlightening post-film Q&A included a Danish journalist from the daily Politiken, the Al Jazeera English producer of the film, and a Bahraini human rights activist. Don’t miss this very important document of an ongoing tragedy for which Western governments share responsibility.
By the end of Girl Model, we’re left with more questions than answers. This jarring exposé of international fashion modeling follows Nadya, a 13 year-old Russian girl, from her discovery at a scouting cattle call in Siberia to her first work in Tokyo. But the Tokyo trip does not exactly unfold as planned. As in the porn industry presented in Inside Lara Roxx (reviewed above), naïve young girls are dehumanized and discarded by businessmen who justify themselves with deluded, self-congratulatory statements about providing support and social services for needy youth. With peculiar audacity, one young agency director explains that his company is named Noah Models because his mission is to save girls from poverty in Siberia and give them a chance to grow and develop in a healthier environment, just like the biblical Noah saved the animals. Yet filmmakers David Redmon and Ashley Sabin do not preach, or even narrate; they maintain a silent, clinical distance, and this adds to the film’s power. In the end, what makes Girl Model a must-see is its fascinating portrait of the international model scout Ashley, a thirty-ish ex-model living comfortably in Connecticut. Although superficially quite successful, she’s also suffering as a result of her exposure to the industry, perhaps even more than young Nadya. As Ashley participates in the gross objectification and active exploitation of innocent children, we watch clips of her video diaries from Tokyo ten years prior in which she appears as tormented and mistreated as Nadya. In the present day, camera flashes envelop Ashley as she sells an admiring crowd on the can’t-miss opportunities for girl models in Japan. Why does she so baldly misrepresent the reality of the situation? Is it psychological denial? Deliberate lying? Whatever may be motivating her, Ashley’s in way too deep, carelessly applying poison to the chalice she sipped from as a young girl.
DONT MISS:
Better This World
Under Control
George Harrison: Living in the Material World
Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark
Girl Model
WORTH SEEING:
Inside Lara Roxx
Rouge Parole
In My Mother’s Arms
Revenge of the Electric Car
Variety
Neither Allah, Nor Master
This is Not a Film
Bombay Beach
Bedtime Stories from the Axis of Evil
TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT:
Lost Land
How to Start a Revolution
Crayons of Ashkalon
