| by Lou | 9.15pm UK time |
Favourite documentary
Shit man, I really don't know! So many documentaries BLOW MY MIND, but so few are repeat-viewers in that put-it-on-on-a-rainy-Friday-night kind of way that it's hard to think of them in terms of favourite.
Here are three that randomly come to mind as having both BLOWN MY MIND and been greatly enjoyed by me over the past few years:
Trouble the Water
This film in and of itself entirely demonstrates the importance of the democratisation of film-making via the availability of digital film cameras. No news bulletins, feature articles, photo essays, not even our beloved Zeitoun, can so ably communicate how FUCKED UP the whole Hurrican Katrina thing was as this film does.
The footage from within the storm is horrific, but not as horrific as the disgusting way that the citizens of New Orleans were treated by those supposedly sent in to help.
Capturing the Friedmans
A documentary about a clown turns into a documentary about a fuuuucked up family. Weaving in home movie footage shot by the clown, the filmmaker captures with awkward intimacy the descent of middle American family life into something much more sinister when the father and a brother are convicted of sex crimes against children.
I saw this in the 2004 film fest, and while there are now a plethora of films that - again - utilise the digital era to tell intimate family stories, this one seemed so fresh.
Grizzly Man
You know I couldn't get through a documentary list without mention our favourite German. When this film came out I had Bel and another of our colleagues and then a guy at a party tell me in depth about what happens in this, but it still BLEW MY MIND.
Truly, truly bizarre. I had to stop halfway through and google it as I really genuinely thought that it must be taking the piss. In fact, I'm going to go google it again now just in case the passage of time has revealed it to be a hoax. (As if Werner would lie to us!) An incredible example of you're-fucking-shitting-me-this-can't-be-real documentary-making.
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