Documentary – Page 47 – LFM: Libertas Film Magazine

LFM Reviews Red Obsession @ The 2013 Tribeca Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Evidently, “red” now has happier connotations in today’s go-go China. As home to the most billionaires in the world, it is hardly surprising that China has become an important market for the elite wines of the Bordeaux region. However, the voraciousness of Chinese demand is drastically reshaping the international market. The business of the world’s most expensive wines is analyzed with a special emphasis on the Chinese market in Warwick Ross & David Roach’s highly entertaining documentary, Red Obsession, which screens during the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival.

The “First Growth” vineyards of Bordeaux have a formal status dating back to the era of the Second French Empire. Roughly once in a lifetime, natural conditions produce a perfect harvest, resulting in an exceptional vintage, even by the First Growths’ lofty standards. As Obsession opens, it appears lightning might just strike twice in back-to-back years. Yet, some wine critics have mixed feelings about this good fortune. They worry that the anticipated premium prices might further destabilize the market, essentially excluding many traditional customers. Of course, there will always be those willing to buy.

After giving viewers a lucid thumbnail sketch of the Bordeaux micro-economy and soaking up the ambiance of the picturesque region, Obsession makes a dramatic pivot. The scene changes to Shanghai, where viewers meet the nouveau riche entrepreneurs buying up Bordeaux at an unprecedented pace. For many, it is a mark of status. For them, nothing beats Latour.

Although its ostensive topic is wine, Obsession offers more insight into the contemporary Chinese capitalist class than any recent documentary. As several commentators explain, many of China’s boldest venture capitalists were once on the business end of the Cultural Revolution. They are now absolutely fearless in their business dealings because the prospect of financial ruin means nothing to them compared to what they have already endured.

Ross & Warwick introduce viewers to many of the billionaires (with a “b”) who have priced America and Britain out of the market, giving them a human face. We meet collectors like Peter Tseng, who made his fortune manufacturing items we cannot discuss on a family website. Some of them, like cosmetic mogul and TV presenter Yue Sai Kan are quite charismatic. What emerges is a portrait of conspicuous consumption and a near complete lack of risk aversion that provides tremendous context on China’s economic surge.

Of course, Obsession is still all about adult beverages. The co-directors display good ears for soundbites, including several slyly amusing comments from their interview subjects on the pleasures of partaking. They even scored an on-camera with vintner Francis Ford Coppola.

It all looks great thanks to cinematographers Lee Pulbrook and Steven Arnold, who fully capitalize on the sweeping splendor of the Bordeaux vineyards and Shanghai’s brightly lit skyline. Russell Crowe is also in fine voice providing the film’s narration (I don’t care what people say, he wasn’t that bad in Les Mis). Smart, stylish, and sometimes rather witty, Red Obsession is a completely engaging documentary. Highly recommended, it screens tomorrow (4/20), Monday (4/22), Thursday (4/25), and next Saturday (4/27) as part of the World Documentary Competition at this year’s Tribeca.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on April 19th, 2013 at 11:29am.

An Od(d)yssey of Post-Communist Bulgaria: LFM Reviews The Boy Who was a King

By Joe Bendel. It is impossible to imagine Pu Yi, China last boy emperor, successfully standing for election as the country’s head of state. Yet, that is exactly what happened in post-Communist Bulgaria. Andrey Paounov kind of-sort of tells the remarkable story of Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, a.k.a. Simeon II, in The Boy Who was a King, which screens this Thursday as part of Disappearing Act V.

Born in 1936, Simeon II reigned from 1943 to 1946. It was a short but eventful period. Deposed by a dubious Communist backed referendum, Simeon II went into exile. A successful businessman who married a member of the Spanish aristocracy, the King (or Tsar) continued to speak out against Communist oppression during the Captive Nation years. When the Soviet system collapsed, he did not immediately return to Bulgaria, but he accepted a Bulgarian passport.

Much to the King’s own surprise, many Bulgarians placed their hopes for a better government in the former monarch. Eventually, he reluctantly assumed the position of Prime Minister when his vaguely Ross Perotish center-left party was overwhelmingly swept into power. Simeon promised to restore public integrity in 800 days. What happened during his administration? Politics.

Paounov gives viewers a thumbnail recap of Simeon’s life, but his approach is more impressionistic than authoritative. More often he turns his camera on eccentric or marginalized Bulgarians, some of whom still harbor monarchist sentiments. Others are deeply disillusioned by the former PM, including one who was inspired to get a rather crude, painful looking crown tattoo in Simeon’s honor. There’s a good argument for the separation of tattoos and state.

At times, Paounov’s approach is downright weird, as when he follows a coyote donated by Simeon’s sister from the taxidermist through the streets of Sofia to the Natural History Museum. Other times, there is method in his stylistic madness, as when he observes a meeting of the Bulgarian Communist Party held in a crummy state constructed flat. Consisting of six or seven bitter old prunes whose claims about Simeon appear patently false based on everything Paounov has previously shown the audience, it seems unlikely the hammer-and-sickle will rise again in Bulgaria anytime soon.

Frustratingly, Boy never gives viewers enough information to pass judgment on Simeon as an elected statesman. He certainly has a regal bearing, though. Indeed, the film’s most intriguing episodes explore the way Simeon’s roles as republican and royal complimented each other. Sometimes fascinating and other times bemusing, The Boy Who was a King is recommended for viewers with a taste for idiosyncratic documentaries when it screens (free of charge) this coming Saturday (4/20) as Disappearing Act V continues at Bohemia National Hall on Manhattan’s Upper Eastside.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on April 16th, 2013 at 8:22am.

LFM Reviews Erroll Garner: No One Can Hear You Read, Now on DVD

By Joe Bendel. It is easy to do the jazz dichotomy thing for Erroll Garner. He was nicknamed “The Elf,” but he had a giant sound on the piano. During his lifetime, he was one of the most visible jazz artists on television and in concert halls, yet he has been largely overlooked by recent filmmakers attempting to tell the jazz story (do the initials K.B. ring a bell?). For a documentarian, the latter point is a golden opportunity. Atticus Brady capitalizes on the wealth of archival footage and the admiration of friends and colleagues the pianist-composer left as his legacy in the documentary-profile Erroll Garner: No One Can Hear You Read, which releases on DVD today from First Run Features.

In the latter half of the Twentieth Century, if you had only one jazz LP in your collection, it was probably Brubeck’s Time Out, Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, or Garner’s Concert by the Sea (all released by Columbia, by the way). He was enormously popular, playing venues like Carnegie Hall, paving the way for Wynton Marsalis and the rise of curated jazz programming in the 1980’s.

Read nicely establishes Garner’s remarkable success and his roots in the Pittsburgh jazz scene that also produced Ahmad Jamal, Mary Lou Williams, and Stanley Turrentine. However, with his very title, Brady emphasizes Garner’s status as perhaps the last great ear-trained, non-music reading jazz greats. It is true, but it hardly seems like the fundamental essence of the man. Indeed, Steve Allen argues Garner had a remarkable harmonic sense and was woefully underappreciated as a composer. Of course, just about everyone knows at least one Garner standard: “Misty,” the inspiration for countless romances and Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut, Play Misty for Me (which happens to be screening this Friday and Saturday at the IFC Center).

Brady talks to a number of colleagues and experts with both musical credibility and name recognition, including Jamal, Allen, the other Allen (Woody), former Garner sideman Ernest McCarty, and Dick Hyman. More importantly, Brady has confidence in his subject, letting clips of Garner in action play for considerable lengths of time. That is the good stuff, after all.

Granted, Read never reinvents the jazz documentary, but who really wants that anyway? Brisk and entertaining, the hour-long Erroll Garner: No One Can Hear You Read is recommended for jazz lovers and general audiences as an introduction to the man and his music. It is now available for home viewing from First Run Features.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on April 10th, 2013 at 12:35pm.

Skate or Die in East Germany: LFM Reviews This Ain’t California

By Joe Bendel. The architecture of East Berlin was a crime against art. Yet, for skateboarders, all that monstrous concrete was practically a workers’ paradise. The East German skater subculture gets the full documentary treatment and then some in Marten Persiel’s This Ain’t California, which opens this Friday in New York.

Athletics were a big deal in the GDR, but a scruffy skateboarder like Denis “Panik” Paraceck was nobody’s idea of a Katarina Witt. He was supposed to be an Olympic swimmer, but his rebellious nature and flair for daredevil stunts drew him to the skater scene. Although the Stasi constantly spied on Paraceck and his cronies, the East German sports bureaucracy eventually tried to co-opt the movement when they discovered the burgeoning sport had its own circuit of international competitions. It seems Paraceck initially tried to play ball, but he quickly chafed under their authority. However, there is also a strong likelihood he never existed in the first place.

While TAC is structured as an elegy to Paraceck, a little digging raised serious questions about the film’s cross-its-heart-and-swear-to-die veracity. Evidently, Persiel now uses the term “documentary tale” and speaks of the broadening meaning for the genre. This is not an isolated case. After garnering considerable festival attention, Michal Marczak admitted At the Edge of Russia was kind of, you know, staged. (Considering I noted how surprising it was Russia granted a Polish filmmaker access to a remote military base as well as the cinematic look of his subjects, I would argue my review holds up pretty well in retrospect).

Regardless, the underground East German skater community is an established fact. It seems safe to assume they were on the business end of Stasi surveillance and the PR conscious Party probably did try to recruit them for propaganda purposes. As for the rest of TAC, you tell me.

In fact, some of the animated interludes are obviously intended to instill a fable-like vibe. Had Paraceck really burned down the GDR’s skater training facilities, it is doubtful he would have lived to see unification. Rather, Paraceck functions as a scapegoat-like creation myth of unification. Supposedly locked in a Stasi prison cell when the wall came down, he missed all the festivities. By the time he was released, Persiel and their cohorts had already moved on with their unified lives, leaving him behind.

There is definitely a measure of truth to TAC, but it is a fair question to ask how much. If nothing else, Persiel captures the milieu of the GDR era. Paraceck or those for whom he serves as a composite did not want to become political activists. Nonetheless, they became de-facto dissidents simply by careening about atop a small board with wheels. Visually striking, TAC combines talking head reminiscences, stark animated sequences, and some impressive archival skating footage (that may well have been recreated by Persiel and a cast of contemporary skaters). Recommended for those fascinated by the failed Communist experience (but as what I have no idea), This Ain’t California opens this Friday (4/12) in New York at the Maysles Institute Cinema.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on April 8th, 2013 at 9:11am.

LFM’s Jason Apuzzo & Govindini Murty at The Huffington Post: Voices Raised in Resistance: Powerful Defiant Requiem Premieres on PBS Sunday, April 7

[Editor’s Note: the post below appears today on the front page of The Huffington Post.]

By Jason Apuzzo & Govindini Murty. If a hallmark of great art is its ability to transcend the limited circumstances of its creation, then there is no more heartbreaking realization of this than the 1944 performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Catholic Requiem by Jewish prisoners at the Nazi concentration camp Terezín. The story of Terezín and of the Requiem is told eloquently in director Doug Shultz’s powerful new documentary Defiant Requiem, which premieres this Sunday, April 7, on PBS at 10 p.m. ET/PT (check listings for additional screenings on local PBS stations).

It was at Terezín in 1944 that imprisoned Czech conductor Rafael Schächter led a chorus of his fellow Jewish prisoners — most of them doomed to the gas chambers at Auschwitz — in brazenly performing Verdi’s Requiem before the very Nazis who had condemned them to death. One of the most complex and demanding of chorale works, Verdi’s 1874 Requiem was originally intended as a musical rendition of the Catholic funeral mass. Rafael Schächter took Verdi’s music and transformed it into a universal statement, one proclaiming the prisoners’ unbroken spirit and warning of God’s coming wrath against their Nazi captors.

Defiant Requiem tells two parallel stories: the first takes place during World War II, when Jews throughout Europe were rounded up by the Nazis and sent to Terezín as part of an elaborate deception to convince the world that Germany treated its prisoners humanely. Among those arrested and dragged to Terezín in 1941 was the young Rafael Schächter, a courageous and steadfast Czech opera-choral conductor.

Distinguished American conductor Murry Sidlin, who discovered the history of Schächter and the Terezín performers in the ’90s, and who went on to found and conduct the Defiant Requiem concerts, notes in the film that “Schächter would have emerged as a great conductor” had his life not been cut short by the Nazis.

Within the confines of Terezín, Schächter lifted the spirits of his fellow inmates by creating a musical program for them to perform — a program that inspired an astonishing outburst of cultural activity, which would eventually include almost a thousand different performances of chamber music and operas, oratorios and jazz music, theatrical plays, and some 2,300 different lectures and literary readings. Included in this were 16 performances of Verdi’s emotional and musically challenging Requiem. As Terezín survivor Zdenka Fantlova explains in the film: “Doing a performance was not entertainment. It was a fight for life.” She later adds, “If people are robbed of freedom, they want to be creative.”

This flurry of activity within the walls of the prison camp — achieved under the most trying possible circumstances of starvation, disease, and abject cruelty — would culminate in a performance on June 23, 1944, of the Requiem in front of the camp’s Nazi brass, visiting high-ranking SS officers from Berlin, and gullible Red Cross inspectors brought in to verify that the prisoners were being well treated.

It was at this point that Verdi’s Requiem, with its dark, apocalyptic Dies Irae (“Day of Wrath”) choral passage — evoking the Last Judgement — and equally harrowing Libera me (“Deliver me”) passage took on connotations that Verdi could hardly have imagined. Serving as both a spiritual catharsis for the prisoners, and as a prophecy of the Nazis’ ultimate fate, the Requiem was immediately transformed by Schächter and his fellow prisoners into an anthem of divine supplication and retribution. Indeed, shortly after this final performance, both Schächter and most of his choir would be sent to Auschwitz.

Defiant Requiem‘s second, parallel story takes place in 2006, as Murry Sidlin brings a full orchestra and the Catholic University of America’s chorale ensemble — along with surviving members of Schächter’s chorus — back to Terezin to perform the Requiem once more, this time in tribute. (Sidlin continues to conduct such tribute performances of the Requiem, with concerts scheduled for The Lincoln Center on April 29 and Prague’s St. Vitus Cathedral on June 6.)

The journey to Terezín is clearly a spiritual quest for Sidlin (who has since founded The Defiant Requiem Foundation), who views the modern performance of the Requiem at Terezín as the completion of something begun seventy years before. As Sidlin says at one point in the film: “I brought the Verdi here because I want to assure these people [Schächter and the deceased prisoners] that we’ve heard them.” Sidlin’s staging of the Requiem in the now unassuming confines of Terezín is powerful and gripping — and serves, one senses, as the perfect tribute to Schächter and his fellow performers.

Highlighting the role that individuals can play in keeping important cultural history alive, it was Sidlin’s discovery of the book Music at Terezín in the late ’90s, and his subsequent championing of the concert series, that has brought the otherwise forgotten history of Rafael Schächter and the Terezín Requiem performances back to life. It is a culmination both of Sidlin’s passion for music and of his own personal history; Sidlin’s grandmother and many of her closest relatives were murdered outside Riga, Latvia by Nazi SS assassination squads during World War II.

This June, Sidlin will be awarded the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Medal of Valor for his efforts to commemorate Rafael Schächter and the Terezín prisoners. Continue reading LFM’s Jason Apuzzo & Govindini Murty at The Huffington Post: Voices Raised in Resistance: Powerful Defiant Requiem Premieres on PBS Sunday, April 7

Going Underground in the Ukraine: LFM Reviews No Place on Earth

By Joe Bendel. Most think of caving as the stuff of National Geographic, but for thirty-eight Jewish Ukrainians, it was rather more serious. It was a matter of life, not death. For eighteen months they evaded the German National Socialists by hiding deep in two narrow, naturally-formed caverns. Decades later, the survivors tell their story in Janet Tobias’s documentary, No Place on Earth, which opens this Friday in New York.

As it often happens, it was a New Yorker who brought this story to light. British-born Bronx resident Chris Nicola is an experienced caver who originally traveled to the post-Soviet Ukrainian in search of his roots. While exploring a cave, he discovered a series of artifacts clearly suggesting families had once lived there. Not surprisingly, the locals were not forthcoming with information. Nonetheless, after years of sleuthing, he finally tracked down the Stermers and the Dodyks. They all credit their initial survival to the iron-will of matriarch Esther Stermer as well as the resourceful foraging of the elder Stermer brothers, Nissel and Saul.

When Tobias read about Nicola’s expeditions and investigation (in Nat Geo, of course), she recognized the makings of a good documentary. Fortunately, the production fell into place in time to record the elderly Stermer and Dodyk survivors returning to the caves that once sheltered them, bringing along their children and grandchildren, with Nicola to serve as their guide.

Tobias blends dramatic re-enactments, talking head interviews, and her on-the-scene footage of the families’ underground homecoming (not completely seamlessly, but functionally enough). At times, it has the feel of a cable special (perhaps with good reason, considering it is a co-production of History Films), but there is no denying the power of their story. At one point during their subterranean reunion they cut the lights to fully recreate the experience of living there. Coincidentally, at this point the video went out at the screening I attended, yet it took a roomful of jaded film critics several minutes to realize it was supposed to be dark, but not that dark. One could certainly say we were caught up in the moment. (Eventually the problem was fixed and the film rewound to the point in question).

The Stermer and Dodyk family members are still very sharp interview subjects and Nicola is a particularly charismatic screen presence. As a result, Tobias captures a vivid sense of her subjects’ personalities and their lives in the caves, the quality of which was quite high they repeatedly emphasize, because it was free.

Indeed, this is not the usual survival story often depicted on-film, chronicling the efforts of a good Christian protector. The Stermers and Dodyk’s relied almost entirely on themselves. There is a lot to learn from their inspiring stories. Respectfully recommended for family and student viewing, No Place on Earth opens this Friday (4/5) in New York, at the Angelika Film Center downtown and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center uptown.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on April 1st, 2013 at 11:14am.