INFERNO WITHOUT BORDERS

With Charlotte Epstein, Chels Marshall, Dan Morgan, Gavin & Leanne Brook, Glenn Willcox, Graham Parr, Jane Whyte, John Merson, Julie & Jo Berchu, Khloe Syllebranque, Stuart Robb, Noel Webster (aka, Uncle Nook), Tassin Barnard and Tom Butler.
Co-director: Sophie Lepowic.
Director: Sandrine Charruyer.

Screening with BLACK SUMMER as part of the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival at Cinema Nova on August 1. Check with venue for screening details.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ 

The cataclysmic devastation wrought by the bushfires that swept across Australia in the summer of 2019-2020 was a once-in-a-generation event that was foreseen and avoidable, posits Sandrine Charruyer’s understated but enraging documentary, Inferno Without Borders.

Responsible for 18 million hectares of charred landscape, 2779 destroyed homes, 1 billion stock and wildlife deaths and the taking of 34 human lives, the tragedy is revisited through the eyes of those whose futures were forever changed by the disaster. But in addition to acknowledging the human impact of those hellish weeks, Charruyer and co-director Sophie Lepowic argue that 200 years of mismanagement of our unique bushland in the hands of white colonists fuelled an inferno that led to what would become an unprecedented level of national grief and horror.

Inferno Without Borders presents evidence that accepted fire control techniques, such as ‘backburning’, employed by modern bush management officialdom, defies the millenia-old understanding that Australia’s indigenous population have regarding the co-existence of fire and country. The documentary allows extraordinary insight into the methodology and benefits of the ‘cultural burn’, a slower, surface-level reduction of the dry-leaf fuel that does not render the soil beneath devoid of moisture. 

The practice has long been a traditional part of Aboriginal lore, a skill that allows for the land to retain its life-giving properties and for the fauna to co-exist with fire, instead of succumbing to its rage. Charruyer speaks with elders, traditional bush management consultants and current land owners who have all recognised the holistic relationship between man and country that can be derived when the respect and understanding of those who have lived the land longest is embraced.

Inferno Without Borders is also deeply affecting when it addresses the current incarnation of white settler politics and colonial mismanagement. The Morrison government’s blinkered stand on global warming, ongoing coal industry reliance and misguided faith in dated bushcare policies are exposed, again. While the production pulls up just shy of laying the blame for the 2019-20 bushfires at the feet of conservative politics, it leaves no doubt as to how destructive nature will become should the Federal Government continue to defy both indigenous culture and modern science.

SIR ALEX FERGUSON: NEVER GIVE IN

Featuring: Sir Alex Ferguson, Cathy Ferguson, Jason Ferguson, Mark Ferguson, Darren Ferguson, Gordon Strachan, Archie Knox, Ryan Giggs and Eric Cantona.
Writer: Mark Monroe
Director: Jason Ferguson

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ 

Lately a wave of British sports documentaries have offered fly-on-the-wall insight into the personalities and dramas of premier league football. Some are the cinema of a club’s marketing division, notably the fan-service Liverpool FC pic, The End of The Storm, but most have been surprisingly revealing - Amazon’s All Or Nothing, about the Mourinho era at Tottenham Hotspurs, and Netflix’s Sunderland ‘Til I Die, a heartbreaking look at the inner turmoil of a great club in freefall, are two of the best.

Stemming from the UK’s life-governing passion for football but taking an altogether more personal approach is Sir Alex Ferguson: Never Give In. England’s greatest ever manager, Ferguson retired from the role at Manchester United in 2013, after a 37 year reign that oversaw the emergence of the club as a global football giant; in his wake were 38 trophies, including 13 Premier League titles, five FA Cups, and two UEFA Champions League titles.

In 2018, he collapsed at home, and was found to have five blood clots on his brain, a condition that ends the life of about 80% of sufferers. He would regain consciousness and ultimately recover, but Alex Ferguson was a changed man. He realised how much he cherished his past; not only the incredible football legacy he forged, but his working class parents, Scottish seaside upbringing and the origins of his core values.

The title sounds a bit rah-rah sporty, but Never Give In is, in fact, a very emotional story steeped in the universal themes of family, memory and destiny. Directed by son Jason, who was so moved by his father’s hospital melancholy that he initiated the production, the film is a portrait of not only the great manager’s glory days (his hatrick on debut for his local team, Rangers FC; the 1999 UEFA Champions League final against Bayern Munich, believed to be one of the greatest football wins in the sport’s history); it also about an old man taking stock of a life well lived.

Much of the footage is archival, as is to be expected; this was the United of Cantona, Beckham, Schmeichel - some of the most photographed sportsmen in history - and the change room and onfield action is seamlessly woven into the narrative. However, it is the to-camera interviews - with wife, Cathy; sons Mark and Jason; those he mentored, like Gordon Strachcan and Ryan Giggs; and, of course, the man himself - that sets it apart from other recent real-world accounts of top tier world football. 

Never Give In is less about the day-to-day anxiety of being at the pinnacle of a sport, more about the simple complexities of a man that helped him stay there for four decades.

THE END OF THE STORM

Featuring: Jürgen Klopp, Sir Kenny Dalglish, Jordan Henderson, Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino, Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker.
Writer/Director: James Erskine.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ½

In the English Premier League, you need to be able to pivot on both feet, to be able to exhibit sturdy control and razzle dazzle in equal measure. Which is as good a way as any of describing The End of the Storm, documentarian James Erskine’s part-hagiography/part-rousing sports narrative charting Liverpool Football Club’s record-breaking 2020 dominance, both athletically and commercially.

In this oh-so-authorised account of the Merseyside super-squad’s first title in 30 years, Erskine and his leading man, wünder-manager Jürgen Klopp, riff on the inherent emotion in taking on the challenge of EPL glory for a club like LFC. The German coach, who came to Liverpool after Bundesliga success and a stint at Tottenham Hotspurs, states that the club’s iconic chant ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ mirrors his own philosophies on life, stemming from a childhood steeped in family values and deep friendships. 

The ‘life mentor’ role that is a crucial part of any good manager’s duties is certainly touched upon, as in when Klopp espouses such team spirit-building mantras as, ‘You’ll only feel free in life if you feel protected’. But Erskine pulls up shy of taking the camera into the dressing rooms and boardrooms to capture real drama (as was so compellingly chronicled in the masterful Netflix docu-series, Sunderland ‘Til I Die), instead ensuring that the mood is kept buoyant and in line with the giddy thrill that only Cup winners are afforded.

There is an unsubtle subtext of ‘legacy’ in Erskine’s take on football history-making, notably of the patriarchal kind. Klopp imagines what it would have meant to him had his father been alive to see his achievements, while profiles of fans from all over the world draw clear lines between traditional father figures and the bond with their children that being a Liverpool supporter has enabled. These sequences, some shot as far afield as Kolkata, Detroit and Auckland, walk both sides of a fine line between capturing joyful fan adoration and catering to the commercial realities of a global football franchise.

Undoubtedly the most compelling passage of The End of the Storm is how the organisation confronted the unprecedented shutdown of the global football season as COVID-19 took hold. At the time of the postponement of all EPL fixtures, Liverpool were soaring clear at the top of the ladder by as much as 25 points - mathematically, still able to be run down, but in all reality very clearly champions. However, the very real possibility existed that the 2020 season would be abandoned and the three-decade wait for domestic football glory would be denied to players and fans.

The film builds to a crescendo that plays like an all-American, aspirational sports melodrama, but given the emotional (and commercial) stakes when beloved mega-brands like Liverpool Football Club are in play, and the grand achievements that Klopp and his side accomplished, such excess seems entirely appropriate.

The football action is, of course, superbly captured. Songstress Lana Del Rey contributes an appropriately production-rich reworking of 'You'll Never Walk Alone', underpinning the film's ambitions to embolden both the club mythology and brand power. 

(Ed: As a Derby County supporter, whose team is battling League One relegation as I type, The End of the Storm will be as happy an account of English football as I’ll see this year).

TALES OF THE UNCANNY

Featuring: Kier-La Janisse, David Gregory, Eli Roth, Joe Dante, Mark Hartley, Mick Garris, Ernest Dickerson, Joko Anwar, Ramsey Campbell, David DeCoteau, Kim Newman, Jovanka Vuckovic, Luigi Cozzi, Tom Savini, Jenn Wexler, Larry Fessenden, Richard Stanley, Brian Trenchard-Smith, Brian Yuzna, Gary Sherman, Rebekah McKendry and Peter Strickland.

Director: David Gregory.

AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE: Screening with NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR 35th Anniversary presentation at Monster Fest from 1:30pm on Sunday, 6th December, Cinema Nova, Carlton, Melbourne.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

Anthology films, those critically under-valued providers of thrills and chills for generations of genre fans, are afforded an appropriately passionate, often giddily infectious reappraisal in Tales of the Uncanny. Severin Films’ boss David Gregory, working with renowned horror academic Kier-La Janisse, have corralled over 60 exponents of cinema’s darkest artistry to recount and respect the greatest short-form film narratives in movie history. Refreshingly, the doco compiles two Best of... lists - for whole films and individual segments -in a gesture that will help new fans seek out the finest of the genre.  

While even the best of anthology films suffer from the inevitable saggy segment (a common trait acknowledged by the filmmakers and their interviewees), no such dip in tone or quality infects Gregory’s buoyant love letter. Tales of the Uncanny tracks the portmanteau format from its origins in Germanic puppet theatre and the collected works of Poe and Lovecraft in publications such as Grahams and Weird Tales magazines through the very earliest days of filmmaking. 

Anthologies played a key role in early European cinema, such as the German masterpieces Eerie Tales (Dir: Richard Oswald, 1919) and Waxwork (Dirs: Leo Birinsky and Paul Leni, 1924) and the great British work Dead of Night (1945), featuring director Alberto Cavalcanti’s classic segment ‘The Ventriliquist’s Dummy’ (with Michael Redgrave; pictured, below). Anthologies soon found favour within Hollywood’s star-driven studio system; director Julien Duvivier’s 1943 pic Flesh and Fantasy boasted the dream cast of Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G Robinson and Charles Boyer.

The obsessively-minded cavalcade of contributors - amongst them, filmmakers (Eli Roth, Joko Anwar, Brian Yuzna, Larry Fessenden, Jenn Wexler, Mattie Do); authors and academics (Kim Newman, Amanda Reyes, Maitland McDonagh); genre giants (Tom Savini, Roger Corman, Luigi Cozzi, Joe Dante, Greg Nicotero, David Del Valle); and, Antipodean talent (Mark Hartley, Brian Trenchard-Smith, Mark Savage) - recount seminal moments in the anthology classics of their formative film years. The coverage is exhaustive, but extra attention is paid to such landmark movies as Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath (1963); Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan (1964); and, Histoires extraordinaires (1968; aka Spirits of the Dead), featuring segments by Louis Malle, Roger Vadim and Frederico Fellini.

Even at a relatively lean 103 minutes, Gregory and Janisse are able to fully profile U.K. outfit Amicus Productions, kings of Britain’s golden age of anthology films (Dr Terror’s House of Horrors, 1965; Torture Garden, 1967; The House That Dripped Blood, 1970; Tales from the Crypt, 1972 (pictured, top; with Joan Collins); From Beyond the Grave, 1974); highlight small-screen anthology horror, from the groundbreaking work of Dan Curtis (Trilogy of Terror, 1975; Dead of Night, 1977) to the resurgent anthology TV-series boom of the ‘80s (Amazing Stories, Tales from the Crypt, Freddy’s Nightmares); and, the classics of the modern era, both adored (Creepshow, 1982; Twilight Zone The Movie, 1984; V/H/S, 2012) and ignored (Cat’s Eye, 1985; From a Whisper to a Scream, 1987; Southbound, 2015).

Tales of the Uncanny has done its job if the viewer comes away with a list of films to re/watch, and it certainly achieves that. It also succeeds in painting the portmanteau genre as a form of film storytelling that needs to be more seriously addressed by both mainstream audiences and film historians. At their very best, anthology films offer the most unique of movie-going experiences and, with credit to David Gregory and Kier-La Janisse, ought now be examined more respectfully.    

PACIFICO

Featuring: Christian Gibson, Chris Gooley, Charlie Wilmoth and Minnie Piccardo.
Directors: Andreas Geipel, Christian Gibson.

Available to rent or own worldwide from October 1 on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Prime Video, Vimeo on Demand.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

An experiential odyssey through the land, culture and humanity of Latin America, Pacifico chronicles the impact upon two young Australian men seeking meaningful connection beyond our desk-bound, web-dependent society. Cloaked under the aesthetics of a surfing doco, kindred spirits Christian Gibson and Chris Gooley front a remarkably poignant, visually gorgeous travelogue that captures true beauty, both natural and emotional.

Welcomed by the voice of 20th century philosopher Alan Watts reciting his new-age anthem, The Secret of Life (“Let's have a dream which isn't under control, where something is gonna happen to me that I don't know what it's gonna be... And finally, you would dream where you are now”), we meet the Melbourne-based Gibson bemoaning the sale of his stalled internet start-up. The upside is that the 26 year-old is now cash healthy and determined to break down barriers to a wider world that he has unwittingly erected around his cloistered western life.

Gibson meets up with Gooley and is soon swept up in their journey of shared enlightenment, carried by their trustee steed - a decked-out van they call ‘Ulysses’. The pair cover thousands of miles across Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Columbia and Peru, to name a few, seeking not only headland breaks and perfect barrels whipped up by the Roaring Forties, but also jungle treks, mountain trails and trout-rich rivers. While the union of man and nature is examined in earnest on their travels, so too is their own dynamic and their interactions with the villagers of the region.

Andreas Geipel, not present at all for the boy’s six month journey, earns a director credit for the skill with which he corrals hundreds of hours of footage into a singularly enriching narrative. The German filmmaker, employing introspective voiceovers from both Gibson and Gooley to help convey the life changing beauty of the land and its people, has crafted a deeply thoughtful work. 

The dual meaning of the title repping both the pulsating, life-giving ocean and the peaceful, soulful nature of the region’s population, Pacifico is a film about journeys. Gooley ponders his connection with the waves that have travelled thousands of nautical miles to carry him for a few joyous moments at a time; the young men bring a sense of discovery to two generations of local men when they hand over the control of Ulysses on a vast salt lake; and, in sweetly-captured glimpses of new love, Gibson commits to a journey of the heart when he falls hard for Argentinian beauty, Minnie.

Citing as the inspirational life force of the journey the spirit of Andean goddess Pacahmama (‘Mother Earth’), Pacifico resonates with the courage required to take that first step beyond the way of life to which one becomes accustomed. It is a call to arms for adventurers, those seeking profound discovery of both body and soul.

SUPERHUMAN

Featuring: Caroline Cory, Rachele Brooke Smith, Naomi Grossman, Major Paul H. Smith, Dr. Mike Weliky, Dr. Jim Gimzewski, Dr. Tom Campbell, Dr. Rudy Schild, Ben Hansen, Dr. Glen Rein and Corey Feldman.
Writer/Director: Caroline Cory.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

Caroline Cory sets herself a lofty goal by opening her third directorial effort with the existential poser, “What makes us truly fulfilled?” But for the next two hours, the scientific researcher, filmmaker and alternative science advocate presents a thrilling case for the power of the mind as a unifying social force in Superhuman, her epic thinkpiece  documentary. If some of the otherworldly imagery she utilises will be fuel for the old world naysayers, Cory counters with academic detail and rigorous scientific methodology that she wields like the crusader for expanded consciousness she clearly is.

Taking as its central premise the notion that the properties of every living cell create a ‘unification’ that binds all things, Superhuman posits the human mind and its innate consciousness as the ultimate conductor, the ‘constant communicator’, of all energies. Cory mixes old-school showmanship (actress Rachele Brooke Smith ‘reads the thoughts’ of Cory as she wanders outdoors) with a think-tank of astrophysicists, quantum biologists, neuroscientists and parapsychologists, each of whom present compelling evidence the mind’s ability to dominate matter.

Yes, Cory and her psycho-posse come down heavily for the existence of psychokinesis, a subset of ‘non-physical phenomena’, offering footage of projected energy moving inanimate objects. Equally compelling are the first-person accounts of the U.S. and Russian governments ‘remote viewing’ experiments, in which covert operatives were trained in the art of tapping the global collective consciousness to steal state secrets, and remarkable footage of masked children using projected energy to run obstacle courses, play table tennis and read books.

The depth of the detail means that Superhuman blows out to 115 minutes, filled with a lot of potentially head-spinning science for the uninitiated. Cory provides some balance with cute celebrity asides; in addition to the like-minded Smith, the production employs dancer Karina Smirnoff, actor Corey Feldman (his attire alone lightening the mood; pictured, above) and actress Naomi Grossman (the unforgettable ‘Pepper’ from American Horror Story) to partake in practical experiments that bolster the theorising. Star Trek franchise regulars Robert Picardo and Michael Dorn also weigh in, somewhat randomly.

Superhuman may not ultimately represent the turning point in modern society’s long overdue realignment of energies, but Cory’s fascinating film will strengthen the resolve of those willing it to happen.

THE PICKUP GAME

Featuring: Robert Beck, Maximilian Berger, Minnie Lane, Paul Janka, Ross Jefferies, Jennifer Li, Marcus Nero and Erik Von Markovik.
Writers: James De'Val , Barnaby O'Connor, Matthew O'Connor and Mike Willoughby.
Directors: Barnaby O'Connor, Matthew O'Connor.

Premieres on Australian streaming platform iwonder, September 2020 (date tbc).

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

Predatory alpha-male entrepreneurs and the vulnerable marks that they exploit are put on trial in The Pickup Game, a searing, exciting exposé of the ‘seduction coaching’ industry and the sexual snake-oil salesmen bleeding millions of dollars from desperately lonely sadsacks who equate meaningless conquest with manlihood. Directing brothers Barnaby and Matthew O'Connor’s skewering of toxic masculinity and coldhearted capitalism could not be better timed or more scalpel-like in its incisiveness.

Since self-styled seduction guru Ross Jefferies published the misogyny-laden bestseller ‘How to Get the Women you Desire into Bed’ in the mid-80s, the application of such pseudo-scientific concepts as Neuro-Linguistic Programming to bed women has boomed (mostly online, of course) yet has somehow managed to maintain a ‘Fight Club’-like secrecy. Entirely aware of the reprehensibility of their undertaking, pickup preachers like Robert ‘Beckster’ Beck and Marcus ‘Justin Wayne’ Nero hide behind terminology like ‘Higher Self Learning’ and ‘Confidence Enhancement’ to sell lengthy courses in what are essentially hunting techniques; manipulation methodology designed to identify potential victims, isolate the vulnerable and ‘close the deal’.

The O’Connors pinpoint the 2005 publication of writer Neil Strauss’ The Game as the kicker for the new wave of male self-entitlement. Strauss lived undercover with pioneers like Erik von Markovik, aka ‘Mystery’, at the height of the ‘Project Hollywood’ movement, when a group of men defined the predation process through night after night of Sunset Strip partying. Breakaways from Project Hollywood would go on the establish the insidious Real Social Dynamics (RSD), an online society that grew into a cesspool of abuse advocacy, provided the platform for misogynist/racist Julien Blanc and, ultimately, became the focus of a highly-publicised San Diego rape prosecution.

The Pickup Game presents the key tenents of seduction coaching, ensuring that its audience fully understands the principles being taught. It also offers a broad spectrum of views - MRA hero and tightly man-bunned industry leader Maximilian Berger, aka 'RSDMax', has plenty to say (much of it in defense of Blanc and the reception afforded him by Melbourne demonstrators in 2014); veteran pickup-artist Paul Janka recalls the emotional void and exhausting pointlessness of committing to a PUA’s life; and, dating coach Minnie Lane presents the women’s perspective and how learning to overcome ‘approach anxiety’ need not utilise manipulation and predation.

The film ultimately returns to where the pickup industry began - Ross Jefferies’ decision to alter the course of his life. Some time 40 years ago, it inspired an angry young man to turn his insecurities regarding women into rage-filled sex and shitty writing. In 2019, believe it or not, the reality of the life of an ageing PUA - the very life awaiting those dire modern disciples of Jefferies' drivel - is even sadder.

MY YEAR OF LIVING MINDFULLY

Featuring: Shannon Harvey, Neil Bailey, Amit Bernstein, Judson Brewer, Willoughby Britton, Vidyamala Burch, Nicholas Cherbuin, Richard Davidson, Gaelle Desbordes, Elissa Epel, Anna Finniss, Timothea Goddard, Daniel Goleman, Dan Harris, Craig Hassed, Amishi Jha, Willem Kuyken, Marc Longster, Kimina Lyall, Kristen Neff, Hilda Pickett, Matthieu Ricard, Mogoas Kidane Tewelde, Nicholas Van Dam, Marc Wilkins and Jon Kabat-Zinn.
Writers/Directors: Shannon Harvey and Julian Harvey.

Available to watch FREE at the My Year of Living Mindfully website until June 3. Also available for pre-order on digital and DVD.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

“[Mindfulness is] the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.” - Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD; Professor Emeritus at University of Massachusetts. 

Undertaking a kind of Super Size Me for the psyche, journalist/filmmaker Shannon Harvey puts her body and mind on the line in the name of mental health science in My Year of Living Mindfully. Diving deep into the layered application of meditative practices as a healing tool, the award-winning health sector scribe chronicles just how effective centering her consciousness to combat physiological and psychological ailments can be.

A sequel-of-sorts to her 2014 mind-and-body doc The Connection, Harvey opens up about the growing toll that a combination of modern living (stress, insomnia) and ages-old afflictions (lupus) is having on her dangerously imbalanced inner-self. From that starting point, she begins her investigation of and complete immersion within the use of meditative mindfulness, seeking out the professors, practitioners and proven beneficiaries for whom the determined restructuring of one’s focus through concentration has been life-changing.

As a front-person for this journey of self-discovery, Harvey is an engaging protagonist, owning personal doubt in her ability to apply herself to the yearlong commitment and not hiding her own insecurities as her treatment demands introspection (husband and co-director Julian Harvey remains mostly off-screen, but admirably supportive). She also exhibits her award-winning skills as a journalist, with increasingly complex academic theorising from the many leaders in the field at her disposal presented with clarity.

The most profoundly human of the on-screen stories are those Harvey uncovers within her ‘case study’ subplots (of which she is the final subject). After many years as a warzone reporter and dealing with subsequent mental scars by self-medication, TV news presenter Dan Harris had an on-air breakdown in 2004; with her whole life ahead of her, Vidyamala Burch became a paraplegic after a car accident, aged just 24. Both relate the stark horrors their lives presented to them and the recovery process that eastern philosophies and meditative mindfulness inspired.

After 70-odd minutes of pristine hospital rooms, university halls and leafy Sydney surrounds (at one point, we accompany Harvey on a 10-day bush retreat), my nagging skepticism that ‘mindfulness’ was another wealthy white-person privilege grew louder. Almost on cue, Harvey addresses just such concerns with the production wisely shifting the third act to a Middle East refugee camp to gauge the impact of meditation on some of the most emotionally damaged humans on the planet. 

It is a decision that speaks to the deeply existential endeavour at the core of the mindfulness movement. While the science-based medical/sociological studies presented are fascinating and crucial to understanding meditative consciousness, My Year of Living Mindfully is ultimately about how effectively it has and can, with increasing knowledge of its benefits, serve all mankind in the face of the mental illness epidemic gripping the planet.

CRACKED UP

Featuring: Darrell Hammond.
Director: Michelle Esrick

DARRELL HAMMOND, director MICHELLE ESRICK and BESSEL VAN DER KOLK, author of the book 'The Body Keeps the Score' will be present for a live ZOOM Webinar on Monday May 4th at 4.00pm PST/7.00pm EDT, hosted by ACES CONNECTION founder Jane Stevens.
For further details and free registration, CLICK HERE. 

Available on:

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

For 14 years, Saturday Night Live star Darrell Hammond was the chameleon of late night comedy, the toast of political satire. His array of on-air impersonations, 118 in all by his own reckoning, mimicking the likes of Bill Clinton, Sean Connery and Al Gore, made him Lorne Michael’s go-to guy for big laughs and one of the series’ most celebrated cast members. 

As with many of the great comedic talents, Hammond’s talent was borne of hardship, as the comic himself chronicled in his 2011 memoir, ‘God, If You're Not Up There, I'm F*cked’. Director Michelle Esrick takes Hammond’s heartbreakingly open account of life as a survivor of child abuse and crafts a profile of an artist that goes far beyond what is expected of the ‘What makes comics tick?’ genre. Cracked Up is an artful, insightful, deeply thoughtful documentary that reveals not just how Hammond came to terms with his past but how it has helped him forge a new, meaningful direction that serves to heal fellow mental injury sufferers.

Framed by the ongoing evolution of his own creative process (the comic is rehearsing a one-man show with director Chris Ashley), Esrick’s camera follows Hammond as he returns to his childhood home in Wisteria Lane, Florida. In small increments, we learn of the extent to which the pre-teen Hammond was assaulted by his mother in a home he shared with a PTSD-suffering father. His first-person recollections of the abuse and his piecemeal memories of the attacks prove gruelling for both Hammond (who occasionally breaks down) and the audience, who should take heed that some of the details are particularly horrendous.

Cracked Up is a work that delicately balances the most profound aspects of Hammond’s suffering with the journey he underwent to recover from it. At the height of his fame on SNL, he was in the grip of self-medicating with dangerous levels of alcohol; his pain was so internalised, he would function as a performer even while cutting his own flesh, as many as 49 times. His suffering became so pronounced, friends such as SNL producers Lorne Michaels and Steve Higgins stepped in, leading to Hammond’s year-long stint in a mental health facility.

Esrick’s most compelling directorial ploy, aside from the forthright honesty she elicits from Hammond, is the plotting she employs based on the comic’s own colour-based impersonation methods (Porky Pig is yellow; Popeye is blue). Of the hundreds of voices in his head, none are represented by the colour red; the life-changing meaning behind this development and the healing moment it allows Hammond spins the film from the tragic trajectory of childhood trauma into the first steps of healing and acceptance.

For a man renowned for capturing the essence of other men, Darrell Hammond bares his scarred but healing soul like few ever have for the camera. He rarely falls back on his remarkable talent to paint over his pain and when he does, it is such a sadly bittersweet experience that it gives a fresh depth to the relationship he has with his gift. Cracked Up sheds Hammond of the barrier of celebrity he built up and hid behind for all of his adult life. 

Addressing a roomful of fellow mental health sufferers and trauma survivors, he is adored not for doing his ‘Bill Clinton’ but for revealing his ‘Darrell Hammond’. As the final frames of Michelle Esrick’s superb film reinforce, children are sharing the comic’s suffering in any house on any street right now. With Cracked Up, Hammond is only doing what he hoped someone might have done when he was a child - speaking up. 

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE FIFTH KIND

Featuring: Steven M. Greer
Narrated by Jeremy Piven.
Writer/director: Michael Mazzola

AVAILABLE ON:

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ½

So you’re deep into today’s iso-skimming session on your preferred streaming platform and you happen upon Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind, the latest speculative-doco from UFO theoretician Steven Greer. You’ll have a look because...y’know, UFO stuff is pretty cool, and much of what makes ‘UFO stuff’ cool is certainly in the mix. Greer’s offsider, filmmaker Micahel Mazzola, has collated all manner of unexplainable points of light glimpsed by shaky-cam; woodlands lit by physics-defying ‘golden orbs’; and, incredulous accounts of bewildered pilots, trying to fathom the black-&-white footage from their cockpit cams.

But Greer, the movement’s opinion-dividing frontman (is he this generation’s Carl Sagan or a new-age P.T. Barnum?), claims to be at such an advanced communicative juncture with beings from beyond that his third feature documentary assumes that they not only walk among us but, if we invite them nicely, they’ll join us around a campfire. This head-first plunge into the maybe-world of extraterrestrial co-existence occasionally hurtles mesmerically into next-level conspiracy theorising, but there is undeniably plenty to mutter “Damn, I knew it!” about for those who want to believe.

The ‘Fifth Kind’ of close encounter (or ‘CE5’) involves the most spiritually enlightened amongst us reaching out with pure thoughts and kindly hearts to the occupants of interplanetary/transdimensional craft and beckoning them to our realm. A combination of Greer’s skill with the anecdote, a bevy of highly-credentialed talking heads and footage of CE5 disciples across the world staring longingly skywards build to a crescendo (and website/app plug) that feels legitimate. Single frames of ‘light beings’ walking amongst remote gatherings of believers and conjecture that these entities travel through portals to appear in our skies instantaneously is fascinating, but non-believers are likely to dig in over such claims.

It is on this point that Greer spins some of the uglier theorising inherent to his point of view. Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind posits that Joe Public has been sold a deceptive narrative by a covert government/mainstream news media/entertainment industry cooperative for the last 60 years. Mazzola uses clips from Mars Attacks, Predator, Men in Black and the Twilight Zone episode ‘To Serve Man’, to drill home the notion that the images fed to us are meant inspire fear in alien contact. Blame is placed at society’s feet for its blind subjugation to the 'lies' spun to us; an accusatory stance that states, ‘If you believe the establishment, you are part of the problem’. The hard-sell meanness of such an approach will turn the inquisitive away far quicker than harmless pseudo-science and new-agey spiritualism.

Whether he is a channeller of profound consciousness or a pitchman par excellence (most likely, a bit of both), Greer knows how to produce a speculative documentary that takes hold of the viewer and refuses to let go (for a whopping two hours, no less). The craft he and Mazzola employ to keep hearts and minds engaged even while eyeballs are heading backwards is often remarkable. Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind won’t make you believe any more than you do, nor will it spin too many sceptics 180°, but it will help us understand the complexity of a different set of beliefs.