April 2008

Shadow of the Holy Book (Pyhän kirjan varjo)

by James McNally on April 21, 2008

in Documentaries,Film Festivals,Hot Docs

Shadow of the Holy Book (Pyhän kirjan varjo) (2007, Director: Arto Halonen): I read about this film when it played at IDFA in Amsterdam and was so intrigued by the premise, I emailed Hot Docs programmer Sean Farnel immediately to ask him to bring it to Hot Docs. He emailed me back to say that he and the director had been drinking vodka the night before and that it would likely be screening here. What had me so excited? Here’s the premise: Turkmenistan is a central Asian country with huge reserves of oil and natural gas. It’s also one of the most repressive dictatorships in the world. After ruling since 1985, dictator Saparmurat Niyazov declared himself “President for Life” in 1999 and published a book called the Ruhnama in 2001. Turkmens are overwhelmingly Muslim, but Niyazov placed the Ruhnama above the Koran as a holy book and required all citizens to study it. So far, so bizarre, right? But the really interesting thing is that the filmmaker found that foreign corporations doing business in Turkmenistan had gained favour by “sponsoring” translations of the book into their own languages and by otherwise promoting Niyazov’s strange cult of personality. At least, that’s how they portrayed themselves to Niyazov. In reality, the companies kept all of this quiet in their own countries, not wanting to be seen as bribing a dictator just to gain lucrative contracts.

Despite the fascinating concept of exposing corporate mischief in a strange and repressive country, the film frustrated me at every turn. Finnish director Halonen enlists the help of American journalist Kevin Frazier and the two make an odd couple. The dour Finn and the nebbishy American with the slight lisp set out to contact many of the corporate villains but are hopelessly inept. Much of the film’s running time is footage of the two of them in hotel rooms in various cities failing to get through to the right corporate contacts. As well, the use of several tacky sound effects (a cash register “cha-ching” each time a corporation’s profits are mentioned, a typewriter introducing every on-screen title) drove me to distraction very quickly. By the time the filmmakers arrive in America to track down executives from Caterpillar and John Deere, the film enters Michael Moore territory, except without any of Moore’s (debatable) charisma. One baffling Moore-like stunt has Frazier reading Ruhnama excerpts on the New York City subway, after referring to America’s constitutional right to freedom of speech.

Overall, the travelogue approach wears thin pretty early. More promising were interviews with some Turkmen human-rights activists and political dissidents. Unfortunately, though, far too much use is made of some crude Flash animations created by the son of one of the activists. By the end of the film, we realize that the pair have not been able to put together a single substantial interview. Though they do get to travel to Turkmenistan on two occasions, they have to film clandestinely and are really only able to show us some of the massive construction projects awarded to the foreign firms. We learn later that the numerous English-language Turkmen “newscasts” and Ruhnama “reading circles” were re-creations.

There were some important allegations uncovered by the film, and some brave and dangerous undercover work was performed by a Finnish diplomat. Hopefully, some of the material uncovered in the film will lead to changes in corporate behaviour. But as a documentary film, I think Shadow of the Holy Book is a bit of a missed opportunity.

Here is the Q&A with director Arto Halonen and writer Kevin Frazier from after the screening:

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Duration: 16:36

Official site for the film
Trailer
Freedom for Sale, established by the directors to focus attention on human rights and free speech issues in different countries, starting with Turkmenistan.

6/10 (6/10)

Tagged as: #hotdocs08, corporations, humanrights, turkmenistan

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Steypa

by Brooke Smith on April 21, 2008

in Documentaries,Film Festivals,Hot Docs

Steypa (2007, Directors: Markús Thór Andrésson and Ragnheidur Gestsdóttir): I’m not a contemporary art connoisseur by any means, but my reason for choosing Steypa was simple. It’s about Iceland. My husband and I are travelling to the island country in September this year for the Reykjavik International Film Festival, so any chance I get to see the Icelandic culture and environment, I jump.

Steypa is an enjoyable film. The film’s title has two meanings. Steypa is the word for concrete, as in the material used in construction. It also can be used to refer to something that is weird, different or unusual. And looking at the contemporary art scene in Iceland, weird, different or unusual is certainly fitting. The directors focus on seven artists, following them as they choose their materials, display their art in galleries and work on their creations. Amid the quirky pieces of art, however, I found myself more amused and charmed by the artists themselves. Or rather, at their Icelandic sense of humour (if you’ve seen films by Icelander Robert Douglas, you’ll know what I mean). One artist fills Fanta bottles with Pepsi, but admits that he is actually using Coke. “It’s cheaper,” he says. Another steals plant clippings from a seniors’ apartment, noting that no one will really notice if they’re missing.

Even though I would not actually hang any of the artists’ work in my apartment, I appreciate their focus and integrity to their art. There is no limit to their resourcefulness and creativity.

The one criticism I have is that even though each artist is always titled (through a rather snazzy bit of rainbow-coloured animation), I found it rather confusing to remember which artist was which. Barring that, Steypa really is true to a North American meaning of concrete: solid, but with a little weird thrown in.

Trailer

7/10 (7/10)

Tagged as: #hotdocs08, art, iceland

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Beyond Our Ken

by James McNally on April 20, 2008

in Documentaries,Film Festivals,Hot Docs

Beyond Our Ken (2008, Directors: Melissa Maclean and Luke Walker): I knew this was going to be an interesting screening when I started to see leaflets in the hands of some of the audience accusing the filmmakers of slander and the film of being a fraud. The subject of Beyond Our Ken is an Australian religious movement called Kenja, founded in 1982 by Ken Dyers and his wife Jan Hamilton (the name is a combination of their first names). Now, any movement that inspires intense personal loyalty to one person will often be labelled a cult, and Kenja is almost always referred to in this way in the Australian media. Over the years, the group and Ken Dyers in particular have also been the subject of investigations into allegations of child sexual abuse. Directors Maclean and Walker, fresh out of film school, wanted to show the world what Kenja was really about. Was it a cult? What do members actually believe and practice? Remarkably, they were able to gain intimate access to the group and conducted many interviews with Dyers and Hamilton. They also interviewed many former and current members to see if the allegations had any merit.

What struck me immediately while watching the film was how similar the culture, beliefs and practices of Kenja sound to Scientology (including the practice of “energy conversion” which takes place in private sessions between two people, and the use of vocabulary such as “processing,” “clear,” and “attached spirits”), and lo and behold, according to Wikipedia (granted, not authoritative), Dyers was a former Scientologist. His life and work had many parallels with the life of L. Ron Hubbard, including a spotty military service record which was later exaggerated for patriotic effect. The directors make no mention of these parallels, perhaps out of fear of stirring up another organization, but I think it would have been interesting to see what relationship exists between the two groups.

Kenja claims to teach a technique for ridding a person of negative thoughts and the body of “attached spirits” leading to a general state of well-being. But toward the end of the film, we witness a complete meltdown by Dyers in which he rages about having to defend himself against charges and allegations for more than ten years. The master seems not to have learned from his own techniques. Tragically, after a fresh series of sexual abuse allegations surfaced, Dyers took his own life in July 2007, just around the time the film was being completed.

Far from being slanderous, the film actually seems to go out of its way to give Dyers, Hamilton, and other Kenja practitioners time and space to explain themselves. Clearly, however, they were not happy with the final film, and actually flew two of their members to Toronto to not only hand out leaflets, but to conduct their own information session. It will be held Thursday April 24th at 7pm at the OISE Building, Room 2–211, 252 Bloor Street West. I’m hoping that the directors show up to that since the Kenja people were at the screening. In my recording of the Q&A, Luke Walker lets them ask their questions at the end and I wish it had been able to go on longer. It’s a bit funny, too, that all the protests from Kenja members will probably just pique people’s interest in the film and give it a wider audience.

Here is the Q&A with directors Melissa Maclean and Luke Walker from after the screening:

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Duration: 16:14

Official site for the film
Trailer

Kenja’s response to the film. The trailers for their own “mockumentary” seem particularly bizarre.

8/10 (8/10)

Tagged as: #hotdocs08, cults, religion, spirituality

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Nursery University

by James McNally on April 20, 2008

in Documentaries,Film Festivals,Hot Docs

Nursery University (2008, Directors: Marc Simon and Matt Makar): Marc Simon and Matt Makar are both single, childless lawyers who have made a film about the competitive process that parents in Manhattan face getting their children into the best nursery schools in the city. My wife and I went to see this together, and were expecting to be very annoyed with the subjects. You see, we’re also childless, but after more than a decade together, the issue is far from resolved for us, and we both have strong opinions about parenting. Though Toronto isn’t Manhattan, we do have a similar culture of older professionals having children for the first time, and the parents’ general sense of entitlement is nauseating. As well, they’re driven by both guilt and fear to try to give their children every advantage in a very competitive culture. This type of environment usually leads to overscheduled and stressed-out children and parents, and doesn’t necessarily lead to the desired results of fame and fortune for the little ones.

But Simon and Makar have a light touch, and even though the parents ranged from middle-class bohemians living in Greenwich Village to an obviously super wealthy couple living on the Upper West Side, all of them were sympathetic characters, with the possible exception of one couple who could serve as the poster children for “entitled”. All of them knew how ridiculous the process looked, but felt powerless to opt out for fear of putting their beloved child at a disadvantage. And remarkably, all of the children seemed bright and, at least in the final cut, well-behaved.

The strength of the film was that it was not just parent-focused. Administrators and teachers from all of the top schools were persuaded to take part, most at the insistence of the remarkable Gabriella Rowe from the prestigious Mandell School. The pressure on these school directors is enormous, with 15–20 applicants for each available space. The situation has been driven by what the directors refer to as a “post 9/11 baby boom” that has driven tuition rates as high as $20,000 per year and created a market for “admissions consultants” whose services can also cost a family several thousand dollars. The administrators in this film sympathize with the parents, but laughingly dismiss their worries that not getting into the right pre-school will affect their child’s chances of getting into the right college one day.

Though we were prepared to hate these people, my wife and I found ourselves wondering what we would do in their shoes. In Canada, at least, our public school system is still relatively healthy, so we don’t have to worry about which nursery is the right “feeder school” for the primary school we want our child to attend. Large cities like New York also face a tangle of regulations that make starting a new school difficult, not to mention the price of real estate. For the foreseeable future, getting a child into school in the city is bound to be a stressful and expensive proposition. Many couples end up forced to move to the suburbs, despite their desire to raise their children in the cultural richness of New York City.

The film was also careful to balance the stressful process with the reasons why parents endure it. There are many images of the riches of Manhattan, and many more of the joy and delight these children bring to their parents. In the end, these people do it because they love their children and they love their city, and they’ll do whatever they can to ensure that they can keep both. Good luck to all of them.

Here is the Q&A with directors Marc Simon and Matt Makar from after the screening:

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Duration: 13:43

Interview with director Marc Simon in the Wall Street Journal’s Law blog

8/10 (8/10)

Tagged as: #hotdocs08, children, education, manhattan, newyorkcity, nyc, parenting

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The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams’ Appalachia

by Jay Kerr on April 19, 2008

in Documentaries,Film Festivals,Hot Docs

The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams’ Appalachia (2002, Director: Jennifer Baichwal): In 2002, Jennifer Baichwal directed this fabulous film about Shelby Lee Adams’ controversial photos of the poor people in the Appalachian Mountains.

Adams was born in Kentucky and has spent 30 years documenting and photographing the poor families in the various hollers of Appalachia. He’s become very good friends with some of these families and has completely gained their trust.

Most of us would look at Adams’ photos and describe the people in them as hillbillies or “banjo people”, straight out of the film Deliverance. Is he trying to exploit them or is he merely documenting their way of life?

The subjects in Adams’ photos feel that his work is harmless and a true representation of their culture. As a viewer, you get the sense that Adams truly feels he is documenting the Appalachian way of life. Several art critics featured in the film feel otherwise. Adams stages some of his photos and uses theatrical lighting to great effect. His work is incredibly beautiful, complex, and more fine art than documentary photography.

He’s exhibited his photos around the world, sold prints and published many books about the Appalachian people. He’s become very successful and made a good living by being a photographer. Baichwal doesn’t make any judgements in the film. But at a Q&A afterward, she questioned how people at a Berlin gallery of Adams’ work would read his photographs while sipping champagne and eating smoked salmon. They’re probably going to see the stereotype instead of the friendly people that Adams has gotten to know over the years.

I haven’t mentioned the slaughter of a hog, the practice of snake handling, pipe smoking grannies, inbreeding and the high mortality rate up in the Appalachian hills. For that, you’ll have to watch the film and it’s a good one.

9/10 (9/10)