Hot Docs 2011 - We Were Here

We Were Here
By David Weissman, 2011


Weissman’s feature documents the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco from its uncovering in the late 1970s and early 1980s to its slowdown, yet still much alive state, today. We Were Here is a “talking heads” documentary, which can leave the viewer, such as myself, hungry for more visual and creative flair. But the interviews presented here are just so heartbreaking and involving, really making this film something to cherish. Interviewing various subjects who lived through the era: a florist, a nurse, a hospital volunteer, Weissman intercuts their words with haunting visuals of lives lost and of citizens in political and social unrest. Without said visual flair and a concrete ending (but could there really be an ending with such a subject?), the film risks alienating audiences, but the director has compiled such fantastic interviewees that I wonder if there was a dry eye in the entire theatre last night. A wonderful film and a great history lesson.

4 ½ out of 5

Hot Docs 2011 - Zelal

Zelal
By Marianne Khoury & Mustapha Hasnaoui, 2011

Directors Khoury and Hasnaouri confine themselves inside the walls of a Cairo mental institution in their film Zelal, their camera rarely leaving the hard and worn faces of the resident patients. It can be a difficult film to watch as we learn many patients (I want to write inmates) have been abandoned by their spouses and families, with some showing signs of possible sanity but no freedom of choice. The direct cinema style displays haunting portraits of people forgotten by the outside world, but also creates a sort of redundant showcase: the ramblings of the insane become almost synonymous. The film should be seen for its unnerving view inside a world that is rarely observed, a world that should be opened up and renovated in its infrastructure and healthcare. But be prepared for possible boredom.

3 out of 5

Hot Docs 2011 - The Casle

The Castle
By Massimo D’Anolfi & Martina Parenti, 2011


The Castle is a cinema verite-style documentary focusing on various characters working, arriving, departing and living in the Malpensa Airport in Milan. Whether it’s a young man being questioned for smuggling drugs, people’s bags and phones being extensively searched or a hilarious bomb specialist investigating an abandoned suitcase, D’Anolfi and Parenti are allowed incredible access. The film asks no questions, but just observes with a wonderfully steady (although sometimes too steady) hand. A great piece of direct cinema.

4 out of 5

Hot Docs 2011 - The Hollywood Complex

The Hollywood Complex
By Dan Sturman and Dylan Nelson, 2011




Set in the Oakwood Hotel in Los Angeles, California, The Hollywood Complex focuses on the families of child actors who stay there during the annual Hollywood television pilot season. While some families leave after the season is over, many stay year after year, their children taking classes and going to auditions. The film is pretty wonderful overall, displaying shocking and hilarious portraits of money-hungry parents and agents, and children wanting fame before anything else. The subject is one that needs to be uncovered and presented to the public, as much of the casting process for these children is startling. But as one of the directors stated during the Q&A, many classic films could not have been made without children, so there is a troubling conflict of sorts. If I have one complaint, it is with the same director trying to cover up his tracks during the Q&A by saying that he was worried by some of the audience’s laughter during scenes and that he hoped they presented not only the bad and the ugly, but also the good. I believe that much of the reaction to the film, with such subject matter, is unavoidable, and that the “good” really wasn’t much on display here. It did come off as an indictment of an institution, which is nothing to be ashamed of. And as a personal conflict: as much as I enjoyed the documentary and participated in the laughter, I just hope the film’s children never see it.

4 out of 5

Hot Docs 2011 - Maids and Bosses (with Three Walls)

Three Walls
By Zaheed Mawani, 2011

Screening before the mid-length feature Maids and Bosses, Three Walls is a terrific short about the history, design and society’s current feelings towards the modern-day cubicle. Director Mawani intercuts wonderful shots of factory workers building cubicle walls with the testimonies of several office workers and architectural designers. The film is a hilarious and poignant look at not just the physical structure, but office life in general.
4 1/2 out of 5



Maids and Bosses
By Abner Benaim, 2011




This year Hot Docs has a series entitled Workers of the World, a category that holds three of the films I will be seeing during the festival. Maids and Bosses is one of these films, which presents the dichotomy of servant and master in modern-day Panama. The film showcases both maid and house-owner, allowing each to tell their stories of either strife or success, with most of the sentiment belying the maids who have to undergo less than desirable treatment from their bosses. Many of these maids tell compellingly startling stories of absurd treatment, yet the film trivializes them with sometimes-unfitting music and strange and long cinematic diversions, such as a child making a mess in a toy room in slow-motion. I feel if the film followed two or three maids’ stories and used a more cinema verite approach, the film could have been more successful.
3 out of 5

Hot Docs 2011 - Wisconsin Death Trip

Wisconsin Death Trip
By James Marsh, 1999

Part of the Ripping Reality series at this year’s Hot Docs Festival, which screens “looked-over” gems from the past ten or so years, Wisconsin Death Trip is Man on Wire director James Marsh’s look at the strange events that occurred in one small Wisconsin town between 1890 and 1900. Edited as almost a photo essay, the film uses articles from the town’s newspaper to list off what happened and incorporates wonderfully filmed reenactments to go along with the narration. Although the almost unbelievable occurrences make the film very engrossing, the ‘compilation’ feel of the editing (event after event after event) creates an expected tiresomeness.

3 1/2 out of 5

Hot Docs 2011

Tomorrow I start my annual venture into Toronto’s beloved annual Hot Docs Film Festival. I have 11 films I plan to see, so it’ll be another exhausting, but worthwhile run. I start with a late night screening of James Marsh’s Wisconsin Death Trip, a documentary from 1999 about one small town’s crazy occurrence of disasters in the 19th century.





My list of films to see also includes:

Maids and Bosses by Abner Benaim
The Hollywood Complex by Dan Sturman, Dylan Nelson
The Castle by Massimo D'Anolfi, Martina Parenti
Zelal by Marianne Khoury, Mustapha Hasnaoui
We Were Here by David Weissman
Living Skin by Fawzi Saleh – screening with Guanape Sur by János Richter
At The Edge of Russia by Michal Marczak
The Interrupters by Steve James
The Forgotten Space by Allan Sekula, Noël Burch
Buck by Cindy Meehl


I will be writing capsule reviews of these films as I did last year.