APOLLO 13: SURVIVAL*****

Documentarian Peter Middleton has form. His prior films, THE REAL CHARLIE CHAPLIN and NOTES ON BLINDNESS are exceptional. And this new film, documenting the famous salvaging of the 1970 Apollo 13 lunar mission, is no exception.  Over 96 minutes, he gives us a minute by minute immersion into the mission, from successful take-off to miraculous re-entry. We know the beats from the iconic Hollywood movie.  The explosion two days into the flight, the venting of the oxygen, the transfer to the lunar module designed for only 2 people for 2 days, the manual transfer of data, the manual adjustment of the module's trajectory... Every moment filled with peril and terrifying odds. 

The film beautifully edits together NASA video and audio footage and contemporary interviews with many of the key players, from astronauts to family members to the iconic Gene Krantz at Mission Control. The resulting film is thrilling, even though we know the outcome, because we feel as never before the intimacy of being trapped in a tiny lunar module hundreds of thousands of miles from earth. And while the astronauts are preternaturally cool thanks to years of training and a rigorous selection process, we see the fear and concern on the face of wife Marilyn Lovell in still photographs and in her voice. 

I felt viscerally the relief when communications were re-established with the capsule as it came through the earth's atmosphere. Like the gathered crowds cheering in Grand Central Station, I felt catharsis and joy.  And then we see the men who got them back - the scientists and engineers back at Mission Control, four days into a crisis, still with their ties tied and their shirts tucked in.  It feels like another time and another way of being. There's no whooping or hollering. It's so contained. And all the more impressive for that. 

APOLLO 13: SURVIVAL has a running time of 96 minutes and was released on Netflix on Friday.

THE REAL CHARLIE CHAPLIN**** - BFI London Film Festival 2021 - Day 8

Peter Middleton and James Spinney (NOTES ON BLINDNESS) return to our screens with a superb documentary on the life and work of Charlie Chaplin. Narrated by Pearl Mackie, the film brilliantly combines archive footage, interviews and recreations to explore this most complicated genius.  Most importantly, the doc contains extracts of an audio interview Chaplin gave to Life magazine in 1966, which gives texture and insight to cinephiles who feel they already know everything about Chaplin.

The picture that emerges is one of a highly driven, hard-working perfectionist who had a real love of working class people, born of his own experience of poverty in South London. Even when he became the most famous and richest entertainer in the world, he refused to give up his socialist beliefs in moving beyond nationalism to build a better world of equality and justice.  Of course, this went down like a shit sandwich in an America hysterical about communism, and despite Chaplin taking a stand to condemn fascism in THE GREAT DICTATOR, rather than seeing him as an asset, Hoover's FBI and his lackey Hedda Hopper hounded Chaplin out of the country and into exile in Switzerland. It was a brutal end to a brilliant career.

Of course, in doing so, Hoover was helped by Chaplin's shady personal life, and this film covers that with great delicacy and an absence of labels. The teenage lovers, apparent coercion to abortions, the slandering of a wife who sued for divorce, if not by Chaplin then by his admirers. And yet, and yet, I always wonder at the apparently happy and enduring final marriage to Oona Chaplin, also with a large age gap. Although as their daughter Geraldine points out, she wrote and documented so much, but not a single interview survives. The women in Chaplin's life are therefore largely silent or traduced.

THE REAL CHARLIE CHAPLIN has a running time of 112 minutes. The film played Telluride and the BFI London Film Festival and does not yet have a commercial release date. 

NOTES ON BLINDNESS

NOTES ON BLINDNESS is a truly extraordinary film that sits some way between documentary and fiction. At surface level this is a film that tells you about a man losing his sight and how it affects his relationships, sense of self and sense of purpose.  On another level, it's the story of a loving and supportive marriage.  When we meet John Hull he's looks like the caricature of the bearded woolly professor, and so it's not surprising to see him meticulously document his loss of sight - first blurriness at the edges, then just shapes, and finally nothing at all. At first he clings on to wearing his glasses despite the fact that they serve no purpose other than being reassuringly familiar.   And he continues to dream lucid vivid visual dreams.  He and his wife has children. There are moments of despair and helplessness but also wonderful normal family life.  Ultimately, when we see him shed his glasses it's a moment of graduation and acceptance.