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.
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.
In the wake of activist filmmaker Rob Stewart’s 2006 film Sharkwater, affective and discernible change to the global trade in shark fin meat and industrial fishing practices was implemented; it became one of the most high-profile and impactful advocacy documentaries of the decade. That a sequel is even necessary a mere 13 years later is shameful, testament that capitalistic greed can resurrect itself with as much determination to survive as the great predators of the ocean. And given it also chronicles Stewart’s heartbreaking ascent to martyrdom makes Sharkwater Extinction a profound film-going experience.
The Canadian-born filmmaker takes a travelogue approach to exposing the perpetrators of illegal and/or immoral commercial shark culls. His return to Costa Rica exposes the 180° shift in the protection policies implemented a decade ago, revealing that 10,000s of Hammerhead Sharks are slaughtered in the species’ primary breeding grounds every year; in Cape Verde, West Africa, he accesses the industrial freezing vessels containing tonnes of rare Blue Shark carcasses; and, just off the wealthy real estate of Los Angeles’ coastline, he captures the dying breaths of sharks caught in outlawed longnet fishing traps.
Stewart is an understated screen presence, allowing his facts, figures and fearless footage to drill home the brutality of an industry bent on wiping out the very resource that sustains it. With fellow ocean conservation warriors by his side (including Australia’s ‘shark girl’, Madison Stewart, no relation), Stewart comes at the illicit industry from all angles. When not in the water, he is having fast food, pet meat and even cosmetics analysed to reveal shark meat levels; with the aid of the scientific community, he reveals the massive amount of pollutants and toxins that shark meat retains.
While the sequel certainly drills home a similar agenda to Sharkwater, Extinction unfolds in a manner that tonally feels like a traditional ‘ticking clock’ narrative. This perfectly suits the ‘countdown to oblivion’ theme, but also serves to slowly shift the focus of the film to the fate of Stewart himself; by the time the caption ‘The Last Dive’ appears on screen, the audience’s emotional involvement in both the plight of shark and the penultimate moments of their closest land ally are inexorably linked. Extinction opens with Stewart recollecting that first moment when death at sea first confronted him ("The number of times I've almost died, then ended up being okay," he says), and how it imbued in him the "Don't give up" ethos that drove him to fight for right.
Although Rob Stewart is credited as director, Sharkwater Extinction is most definitely not some self-aggrandizing farewell; friends and colleagues who had journeyed with him for much of his crusade completed the film in his absence. The final scenes serve as exactly the passionate call-to-action that the man himself was so skilful at crafting. Footage of him being at one with the creatures and seascapes he lived and fought for are as a profoundly inspiring as anything he had ever shot for the cause of shark conservation. They capture and honour a spirit that will live on in others.
Achingly bittersweet and fitfully anxiety inducing, Tom Donahue’s compelling Davi’s Way tracks the great character actor Robert Davi as he undertakes an ambitious restaging of Frank Sinatra’s iconic 1974 ‘Main Event’ concert. Capturing a vision that begins to unravel despite everyone’s best intentions, this deeply personal work also serves as a long overdue insight into a man whose entire career has painted a not-entirely truthful representation of what drives him as an artist.
Davi’s remarkable filmography posits him somewhere between “Oh, it’s that guy!” status and anti-hero cult icon. Of the 156 credits on his IMDb page, it might be ’Jake Fratelli’ in The Goonies (1985) or ‘Agent Johnson’ in Die Hard (1988) or ‘Franz Sanchez’ in License to Kill (1989) that register for most; probably Maniac Cop 2, The Expendables 3, Showgirls for the next tier of fandom. For every studio gig, Davi’s pockmarked cheeks and sunken sockets have upped the impact of ‘bad guy’ roles in dozens of B-crime thrillers and video-bound actioners.
The very first of those gigs was in a 1977 TV movie called Contract on Cherry Street, which featured a late-career tough-cop role for Davi’s idol, Frank Sinatra. Robert Davi has taken that adulation (and his early-life training as an opera singer) and forged a new career path as a crooner of The Chairman’s classic song list.
Donahue’s documentary joins Davi as he begins to set in motion his plan to celebrate the centenary of Sinatra’s birthday by securing the original venue, Madison Square Garden; acquiring talent like Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake and Adele for duet duties; and, re-enacting such details as the boxing-ring set, pizza for the crowd and a sell-out auditorium. Davi is the pivot upon which this odyssey of obsession spins; as the planned date of the event nears, the actor reacts with far less grace in the face of an increasing degree of compromise and adversity, all the while exuding an endearing desperation.
Where Donahue’s slyly insightful film works best is as a profile of a working actor struggling with the legacy he will leave behind. The planned concert is as much about the actor creating a work of which he can be proud as it is to honour the late singer. Davi ponders why his career didn’t soar into the A-list after his Bond villain turn; he is repeatedly captured berating the documentary crew for the lighting of his ‘money maker’, the craggy visage that is as much a part of his fame as his undeniably potent screen presence. Moments spent with his family (including three daughters and one overly exalted son) paint him as a traditional Italian-American patriarch, fiercely protective of but none-to-gentle with his children’s own egos. There is a melancholy to the film that stems from the rarely glimpsed fragility of one of cinema’s great tough guys.
The ‘dreams of an actor’ subtext is skilfully reinforced by Donahue’s lens also focussing on struggling bit player Stevie Guttman, who steps into the crosshairs as Davi’s out-of-his-depth P.A. Villain of the narrative falls to self-proclaimed producer and sycophantic ‘yes man’ Danny A. Abeckaser, who nods a lot and promises influential contacts, but buck passes like a pro. Other notables that drift in and out of Davi’s journey include director Richard Donner and fellow NYC thesps Chazz Palminteri and Joe Mantegna.
2019 MELBOURNE DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL: The opening scene of the documentary Pariah Dog is one of heartbreaking poignancy; a beautiful young adult male pariah (or desi) dog, the native canine breed of South East Asia, sits alone in an empty street in Kolkata, the tips of his golden coat covered in the city’s dirt, his yearning howl a cry in the night for other members of his long-dissolved pack. The life he cries for – the wilderness existence with which every one of his instincts is primed to interact - has long been consumed by man’s industrial expansion. He is native to a land that he no longer recognises, and one whose society has wilfully neglected to recognise him.
Director Jesse Alk takes the outsider’s plight of the urbanized native dog as the starting point for a lyrical examination of four humans for whom modern Indian society is equally unforgiving. Pinku is an artist, his wooden carvings things of rare beauty but unsellable in a modern metropolis; Subrata is ageing into irrelevance, his memories of a game show win and a fading dream of stardom all he has left; Milly was a once a woman of means with generational land rightfully hers being taken by squatters and corrupt local government; alongside Milly, her faithful assistant Kajal endures their complex love/hate relationship as her own life narrows in scope.
United only by the documentarian’s lens, these four Calcuttans share a passionate love for the street dogs of their city, dedicating hours and most of their meagre earnings towards their care. A great deal of bitter existential irony courses through the frames of Alk’s deeply humanistic film; as the population that surrounds them seems oblivious to the torment of their lives, these four remarkable people commit to providing shelter, food and affection to the similarly displaced dogs (as well as cats, a monkey and a parrot, if dogs aren’t your thing).
To the production’s credit, Alk and co-writer Koustav Sinha refuse to present their subjects as the antidote to the street dog’s harsh life. Scenes that convey the physical hardship and ultimate demise of some beautiful animals will be too much for some, as will the emotional toll that an animal’s passing takes upon the carer. The director also refuses to employ traditional narration, a decision that skilfully adds to an overall defiance of any prejudicial context; fittingly, Pariah Dogs will live a long, timeless life as a statement against selfish modern living.
The film is not without humour, of course; in one left-field moment that serves to both relieve tension and utterly bewilder, Alk helps Subrata realise his Desi-pop ambitions by crafting a music video for his self-penned, lower-caste anthem. The potential that factual filmmaking has for capturing fateful moments is realised when the elderly gentleman literally crosses paths with an anti-animal cruelty demonstration, which he soon joins in chorus.
The final frames, in which two of the protagonists reconnect on the traditional life-giving waterways far from the decay of the city, are a hopeful response to the call of that lonely, howling street dog. His India still exists, or at least the spirit of the land from which he came.
Even-handedness, compassion and deep insight are the broad brushstroke qualities that festival audiences have come to expect from the films of Barbara Kopple. In a career spanning almost five decades, the two-time Oscar winner (Harlan County USA, 1976; American Dream, 1990) has proven to be arguably America’s finest factual filmmaking mind, with her camera confronting pressing socio-political boiling points with an empathetic, profoundly humanistic lens. New Homeland, her take on refugee assimilation set against the backdrop of a Canadian summer camp, is amongst the very best of her work; it is verite documentary making of the highest calibre.
The government from Canada has welcomed thousands of Iraqi and Syrian refugees into their large cities in the wake of the brutal wars in their native countries. After an opening salvo of news footage that puts in perspective the horrors they are fleeing, Kopple joins two families who have relocated to Toronto and been taken under the wing of private sponsorship groups. With these Canadian residents offering financial and social aid for the first twelve months in their new country, the families can begin building new lives and dealing with the emotional scars that warzone living has left.
The focus of the documentary becomes five boys in their early-teens and the newfound sense of self they experience when they live amongst the stunning Canadian wilderness at Camp Pathfinder, in the Algonquin Park forest. The boys - brothers Hameed and Omer Majeed from Baghdad, Iraq; brothers Mohammad and Kasem Zin from Amuda, Syria; and Mohammad Darewish from Aleppo, Syria – have led sheltered lives since coming to their new country, due largely to parents who are themselves suffering various forms of PTSD and cling to the family structure as a stabilizing influence.
Kopple and her bare bones crew go bush with the boys, as they integrate with Canadian and US teens attending the idyllic 104-year old lakeside, log cabin campsite. This ‘all-American’ rite-of-passage experience, overseen by director Mike Sladden (in his 34th summer attending Pathfinder), has adapted to act as a spiritual extension of the sponsorship program, not only welcoming in boys who have survived life in conflict zones but also respecting their religious and social traditions.
There are many stirring, uplifting moments as you’d expect from Kopple’s work; the Syrian boys emerge from themselves with strength and confidence, while Hameed learns to cope with life away from his family (and phone) with varying degrees of success. The realities are that not all children who have lived through the horror of war will be able to compartmentalize the experience and move on; Omer’s inability to socialize with the group and insistence on carrying knives and disobeying camp rules leads to some heartbreaking moments, which expose just how debilitating to a young man’s growth the grip of life in a war can truly be.
Barbara Kopple has captured pivotal moments in young lives with astonishing warmth and clarity, while slyly pointing a condemning finger at elements of Western society that seek to distance themselves from the refugee experience. New Homeland would not exist as a film in a world where compassion and acceptance were the norm, but that world seems further away than ever. One can envision Kopple’s film playing an understated but crucial role in the fight that people hoping to right social wrongs have undertaken.
Featuring: Jan Broberg, Mary Ann Broberg, Bob Broberg, Pete Welsh, Karen Campbell, Joe Berchtold, Susan Broberg, Cor Hoffman, Sinclair DuMont and Devin Ordoyne. Director: Skye Borgman
As profoundly insightful as any bigscreen rendering of the psychology and methodology of the sociopathic paedophile, Abducted in Plain Sight sits alongside current standard-bearers Evil Genius, The Keepers and How to Make a Murderer in that top tier of contemporary true-crime factual films. Stripping her narrative back to bare facts and raw emotions, director Skye Borgman has crafted a gripping work of intrigue, horror and sadness that fully reveals one of America’s most extraordinary abduction and abuse cases.
Robert Berchtold was a husband and father when he and his family moved into the middle-class Idaho suburb of Pocatello in the early 1970s. An attractive, charming man, he immediately ingratiated himself with his new neighbours, good churchgoin' folk The Brobergs; shopkeeper dad Bob, housewife Mary Ann, and their three daughters Susan, Karen and the eldest, Jan. Affectionately called ‘B’ by his newly acquired prey, Robert Berchtold set in motion a meticulously planned, cold-blooded series of events that would compromise Bob and Mary Ann and, more insidiously, allow him to kidnap, psychologically manipulate and sexually abuse Jan.
Afforded an extraordinary level of intimacy by her on-camera subjects, Borgman paints a non-judgemental portrait of a family shrouded in the false warmth of their LDS faith and naïve to the manipulative skill of Berchtold. The parent’s own actions and the subsequent handling of their daughter’s ordeal is, frankly, beyond comprehension, yet in recounting one tragic mistake after another, Mary Ann and Bob Broberg emerge more as collateral victims of Berchtold’s predatory prowess. His psychopathology was of a medieval bluntness and cunning, at a time when suburban America was in the early soporific stages of a new comfortable, modern existence.
Steadfastly central to her own story is adult survivor Jan Broberg, who recounts with bracing frankness the psychological and subsequent sexual abuse inflicted by ‘B’ upon her between the ages of 12 and 15. Sisters Susan and Karen are given camera time to recall the shifting dynamic of the family from their own young perspectives, and Bob and Mary Ann are as open as any documentary subjects can be, but it is Jan’s spirit that soars above the putrid evil inherent to any retelling of Berchtold’s actions. Scenes in which she confronts an aging Berchtold in court exemplify her towering strength in understanding and defying the legacy of his actions.
Convincingly played by Devin Ordoyne in flashback sequences (each expertly shot on Super 8 film by Borgman to capture period mood and detail), Berchtold proves a compelling, utterly chilling figure. Borne of a twisted psyche traced back to his own childhood, he is afforded a few frames of expository backstory by Borgman, but not so much that his vile actions are lessened by why he is what he is and does what he does. The film utilises his brother Joe to provide insight into their family’s dark past; although central to the events, Berchtold’s wife and children are not featured. Former FBI agent Pete Welsh recounts the investigation and frustrated legal process that allowed Berchtold to manipulate the law and justice as efficiently as he did everyone and everything else that he targeted.
The immense courage and spiritual will it takes to truly ‘forgive’ beams from the screen in director Dawn Mikkelson’s Risking Light, a triptych of heartbreaking, soul-enriching narratives that combine to present a study in scarred but soaring humanity. Largely foregoing the mawkish sentimentality that such tales of redemption may present, the filmmaker instead favours stark honesty and frank storytelling, resulting in a film of rare integrity and profound emotional involvement.
The production focuses on three individuals who have struggled to overcome the burden of grief and anger in the wake of a grave injustice. In Minneapolis, Mary Johnson relates directly to camera the depths of her despair after her teenage son Laramiun Byrd was killed in a shattering instance of gun violence in 1993; from the coast of Tasmania, Debra Hocking recounts the forced separation from her family as a toddler as part of Australia’s shameful ‘stolen generation’ period, and the subsequent decade of abuse in foster care; and, from the streets of Phnom Penh, Kilong Ung shares details with his young Cambodian-American family of his horrific existence navigating the infamous ‘killing fields’ under Khmer Rouge reign.
Seamlessly intercutting each story so as to find a through-line in their pained existence, Mikkelson then poses the question, ‘How strong must we be to truly create a compassionate society?’ Faced with lives of all-consuming psychological torment, existential angst and an urge for (often violent) retribution, the three sufferers instead forge a path of personal responsibility that refuses to perpetuate society’s heart of darkness. From lives that threatened to decay into insignificance emerge beacons of forgiveness that find personal salvation, while inspiring others to walk a similarly righteous, enlightened path.
An Emmy-award winner for Late Life, the 2014 PBS series on terminal and aged care practices, Mikkelson’s feature work (under her Emergence Pictures banner) has determinedly examined the strength of the human spirit to confront and reconcile with the unfair, often tragic direction modern life can take. Her 2003 debut This Obedience profiled a gay Lutheran pastor’s struggle for the acceptance in the face of conservatism, both in her church and the wider community; in 2007, she traced her supposedly ethical ‘green energy’ source back to its impact on indigenous Manitoba society in Green Green Water; her 2014 small-screen project Planting Creativity examined the revitalisation of struggling townships via the injection of collaborative arts-based initiatives.
Frankly, western society needs more filmmakers like Dawn Mikkelson, and more people like Mary Johnson, Debra Hocking and Kilong Ung. As the world grows darker under leaders determined to segregate and marginalise, the unifying actions of these everyday people as they undertake remarkable journeys of wilful forgiveness should make Risking Light required viewing in our halls of power.
MELBOURNE DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL: Festival Director Lyndon Stone and his programming team have collated a catalogue of factual films that have wowed audiences at the planet’s most prestigious 2017 documentary showcases. SCREEN-SPACE got a peek at this year’s line-up and offers our opinion of five films that deserve attention, discussion and sold-out auditoriums. Each is a unique vision, certain to engage, infuriate, inspire and enlighten, as all good documentaries should…
MISS KIET’S CHILDREN (Dirs. Peter Lataster, Petra Lataster-Czish; The Netherlands, 115 mins; pictured, above) A Dutch school marm exhibits a warrior’s spirit, a saint’s heart and...well, a great teacher's patience in this understated yet soaring study of what the term ‘assimilation’ means to a classroom in Holland. Refugee children, each displaying resilience and depth of character beyond their years, are captured with an extraordinary intimacy by the lens of husband/wife filmmakers Peter Lataster and Petra Lataster-Czish. The politics of age and gender are glimpsed in the kids’ behaviour; most profoundly, the impact of the conflict they have fled is slowly expos ed by the filmmaker’s sublime technique. When awkward pre-teen Jorg reveals why he might be less studious than is expected of him, have the tissues ready. Rating: 4/5 MDFF Screening: July 13 @ 6.30pm.
PLAY YOUR GENDER (Dir: Stephanie Clattenburg; U.S.A.; 80 mins.) While the gender divide within the American film industry has made headlines of late, little mention has been made of the fact that only 5% of the producers working the panels in the music industry are women, or that only 20% of published songs are by women lyricists. Canadian singer-songwriter Kinnie Starr and first-time director Stephanie Clattenberg pair up to pile revelation upon revelation in this blood-boiling expose of the music sector’s traditional gender bias and ‘glass ceiling’ mindset. That such a film needs to exist in this day and age is outrage enough; that it runs rich with passionate, talented, intelligent woman who have seen their careers hindered by sexism and misogyny demands action. Features such groundbreaking artists as ‘Hole’ bassist Melissa Auf der Maur and drummer Patty Schemel; Sara Quin of ‘Tegan and Sara’; and, ‘The Stolen Minks’ frontwoman Stephanie Johns. Rating: 4/5 MDFF Screening: July 9 @ 1.45pm.
THE ROAD MOVIE (Dir: Dmitrii Kalishnikov; Belarus; 67mins) The dashcam phenomena has swept Russia and its territories; insurance scams, police misbehaviour and road rage incidents has led to almost every car being fitted with a windscreen lens. So director Dmitrii Kalishnikov had a lot of footage to work with when he conceptualised a vision of modern Russian life as captured by the population itself. Of course, he indulges in the extraordinary – truck crashes, speedsters on snowy roads, cows being hit (they walk away, incredibly) and the ‘comet footage’ that went viral. But The Road Movie is at its most compelling when it focuses on the voices of the unseen within the vehicle. Waves of emotion emerge in an instant; moments of terror, exhilaration, hilarity, even first love unite in a flowing cinematic essay. In the hands of a skilled filmmaker, Russia’s favourite dashboard gadget has delivered a forceful social experience. Rating: 4.5/5 MDFF Screening: July 9 @ 9.30pm.
ELLA BRENNAN: COMMANDING THE TABLE (Dir: Leslie Iwerks; U.S.A.; 96 mins.) She is La grande dame of the American restaurant landscape, the matriarch of a New Orleans culinary clan that has shaped the nation’s cuisine for a century. Ella Brennan makes for a mighty cinematic figure, her iron-willed charisma ideally suited for Leslie Iwerks’ boisterous celebration of spirit, showmanship and determination. Occasionally it teeters on hagiography; viewers aren’t left wondering what a wonderful time is to be had at Brennan’s legendary Big Easy establishment, Commander’s Palace. It’s a minor complaint; one can’t begrudge the party atmosphere Commanding The Table captures and the extraordinary legacy Ella and her clan have forged. Rating: 3.5/5 MDFF Screening: July 12 @ 6.00pm.
DOGS OF DEMOCRACY (Dir. Mary Zournazi; Australia/Greece; 58 mins.) They have become the spiritual symbol of modern Athens, guardians of the streets who exist with dignity intact and the acceptance of the population. First-time director Mary Zournazi captures the stray dogs of the Greek capital with a deeply respectful and compassionate lens, acknowledging the hope they represent to a people who themselves are often portrayed as the ‘stray dogs of the EU’. Most affectionately, Zournazi relates the legend of Loukanikos, a magnificent beast who would fearlessly lead those protesting the government’s austerity measures against riot squad heavy-handedness. Rating: 3.5/5 MDFF Screening: July 16 @ 9.30am.
(SCREEN-SPACE Managing Editor Simon Foster is a judge at the 2017 MDFF and will be a guest of the festival)
The 2017 MELBOURNE DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL screens from July 9-16. Session, venue and ticketing information can be found at the events official website.
From Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse to Crumb to American Movie; from Burden of Dreams to The Devil and Daniel Johnston to this years’ Oscar winner, Amy. Arguably, the most compelling sub-genre in the documentary field are the works that examine the complexities of the creative process and the fragile, brilliant psyches from which it emerges. Commencing its vast 2016 program on July 9, the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival features four factual films that delve deep inside the artist’s mindset, probing the passion, ego and talent needed to leave a lasting impression…
MAD TIGER (Dirs: Michael Haertlein, Jonathan Yi / USA; 82 mins)
Proclaiming themselves the ‘Japanese Action Comic Punk band hailing from the Z area of Planet Peelander’, Peelander Z are a colourful cult oddity who spruik their punk-stunt brand of raucous J-music to loyal if dwindling numbers across the US. Led by charismatic, dictatorial frontman Kengo Hioki (pictured, above), aka Peelander Yellow, the band have been pushing their trademark Jackass-style stage show and Power Rangers-inspired aesthetic for nearly two decades, their alternative musical stylings enlivened by a not entirely self-aware parody element. Co-directors Michael Haertlein and Jonathan Yi capture Peelander Z as the band faces a crucial juncture – guitar hero Peelander Red (Kotara Tsukada) is leaving the band; Hioki is taking the departure with a mix of philosophical resignation and bullying petulance. Let’s face it, the music is awful, but the inter-personal drama and backstage dynamics ensure Mad Tiger is a tense, at times sad peek inside the ego and ambition that motivates the artist. A welcome reprieve from the band’s inner and outer turmoil is a softly-spoken interlude that follows Hioki back to his roots and the warmth of his religious family home (although it raises the question, ‘Why have they not sought fame in Japan?’)
RATING: 3.5/5
YOU BETTER TAKE COVER (Dirs: Harry Hayes, Lee Simeone / Australia; 29 mins)
When a music-quiz show innocently revealed that one of the most famous pop riffs in Australian music history was very similar to an Aussie bush ditty of yore, the monster that is litigious law was awakened. Men at Work’s iconic hit Down Under is filled with homage after homage to this great southern land, from Vegemite to combi-vans to ‘chunder’. But when composer, the late Greg Ham and the band’s production team settled on a flute interlude that referenced ‘Kookaburra Sits In the Old Gum Tree’, they had no idea that Larrikin Music owned the rights to what many assumed was a public domain property. Harry Hayes and Lee Simeone’s brisk, melancholy doc You Better Take Cover traces the origins of the song, the creative forces and fateful turn-of-events that propelled it to global recognition and, most winningly, the recollections of those that were there. Emotions run the gamut in this comprehensive account; local audiences will puff their chests with national pride during scenes of America’s Cup and Commonwealth Game jubilation, but expect teeth to grind when the details of the copyright law court case engineered by Larrikin are brought into cold, greedy focus. Chunder, indeed.
RATING: 3.5/5
ROOM FULL OF SPOONS (Dir: Rick Harper / USA; 113 mins; trailer, above)
That one of the worse films ever made should be the subject of one of the most comprehensive and insightful making-of docs in recent memories just adds to the myriad of ironies that have come to be associated with The Room and the enigmatic creative force behind it, Tommy Wiseau. Canadian alpha-fan Rick Harper knows the ‘Best Worse Movie Ever’ inside out; fans will appreciate that he gets into the minutiae of the wretched melodrama, referencing such crowd favourite moments as ‘the neck lump’, ‘the moving box’, ‘tuxedo football’ and ‘the crooked boyfriend’. Cast members prove open and endearing; key behind-the-scenes contributors (including Sandy Schklair, the script supervisor who argues that, in fact, it was he who directed The Room, not Wiseau) reinforce the tales of legendary, often hilarious ineptitude during the shoot. But Room Full of Spoons goes beyond fan-fact fun when it digs deep into such mysteries as the film’s funding and, above all else, the force of twisted nature that is Wiseau. His origins, inspirations and eccentricities are respectfully but determinedly dissected by Harper, who inserts himself into his narrative with appropriate succinctness.
The term ‘hagiography’ is too often used pejoratively, suggesting sycophantic bias. But what if the primary focus of a biography is to be wondrously, majestically hagiographic? With co-director Ian Abercromby pulling focus (literally and figuratively), Gavin Bond deifies low-key music industry visionary Todd Rundgren in his rousing, roughhewn love letter, Todd Who? Rundgren found fame in the mid 70s with his sweetly melodic yacht-pop hits Hello It’s Me and Can We Still Be Friends, before embarking a producing career that was filled with innovation and experimentation alongside the likes of Cheap Trick, The Tubes, The Psychedelics Furs and iconic Australian band, Dragon. Not that anyone knows it, except the likes of Paul Schaffer, Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum, Daryl Braithwaite and Jim Steinman, all of whom put their hands up to sing the praises of Rundgren (now in his 60’s, living in Hawaii and still touring). Bond’s larrikin charm sets the tone for the doco, before a stream of toe-tapping classics and fun, vital facts are employed to chart Rundgren’s influence and personality. Despite some tech shortcomings (mic placement and audio post is not the productions’ strong suit), this is a heartfelt, feel-good ode to a unique talent. If Todd Who? achieves its aim, and it deserves to, that title will become ironically redundant.
RATING: 4/5
The Melbourne Documentary Film Festival is held from 9th – 11th July at Howler Art Space in Brunswick. Session and ticketing information can be found at the event’s official website.
Tuesday, July 27, 2021 at 5:30PM 
