MANHUNT - LFF 2013 - Day Ten

MANHUNT is a must-see documentary for anyone who has an interest in the rise of Al Qaeda, 9-11, and the USA's response to that.  Which, let's face it, should be everyone who cares about the world in which we live. It's a scrupulously fair, brilliantly compiled documentary that has somehow gained access to the very people who analysed and researched Al Qaeda, and some of the military who had to deal with the situation on the ground.  War correspondent and film-maker Greg Barker manages to get access to everyone you'd want to hear from - directors of the CIA, Stan McChrystal, the actual analysts who were hunting down Bin Laden from back in 1995, the FBI Jordan chief who conducted interrogations, the CIA men in charge of Black Sites.  And what's more, Bergen gets them to talk - candidly - about what they did, and the morality of it. He doesn't edit to a politicised angle but let's the stories conflict where necessary.  We have seemingly mild-mannered women talking about how they make peace with the fact that their analysis will lead to drone strikes.  We have CIA men arguing that extreme interrogation techniques yielded results, and FBI men arguing the opposite. Bergen let's us decide. 

The picture that emerges is of, by and large, good men and actually, largely women.  People who aren't evil power-crazed spooks but genuinely care about their country and doing a good job. People who's lives have been spent in service to bringing Al Qaeda down. They aren't the lone rogues of Homeland or ZERO DARK THIRTY.  They are committed team players.  They aren't the evil violent power-hungry men in black. They are conscious of the moral quandary they're in - some more than others, admittedly. You come out of it with a respect for their work, but also a sense that whatever that work has become - how frightening and futile the increase in drone strikes - it wasn't a deliberate power grab but something that happened organically and perhaps without the people who were at the centre of the chaos of the manhunt truly realising until it was fully manifest.  But that's all the more reason for us to sit back and watch a documentary like this and think about where we've come and whether we're okay with that - essentially the plea of Stan McChrystal.  This documentary is the first step in that process of self-reflection and is absolutely essential viewing. 

MANHUNT has a running time of 90 minutes. 

MANHUNT won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Sepcial.  It played Sundance 2013 and was shown earlier this year in the USA.  

THE IMPOSTER

THE IMPOSTER is a superb documentary by a British TV documentarian, Bart Layton, with a good pedigree in true crime stories. It tells the true story of a young man in Spain who adopted the identity of an American missing person to stay one step ahead of Spanish social services and keep his place in a childrens' home.  However, this appropriation set of a chain of events that led him to the USA and the family he supposedly belonged to.  The first shock of the film is that the family fell for the imposter, despite the differing eye colour, the bleached blonde hair and the European accent.  The second shock is that this credulity might have stemmed not from the desperate desire to believe that a loved one is still alive, but in order to have an alibi to the alleged murder of the real missing boy years before.  The third shock, for me at least, is that despite the fact that Interpol had a long line of similar con tricks committed by the imposter, his crime was treated as a criminal matter rather than as a psychological disorder.

Bart Layton crafts a film that is blessed by full access to the imposter and to the real missing child's sister, brother-in-law and mother.  We therefore see and understand his motivations. He speaks with utter conviction and disarmingly credible even when we know he is lying. So when he accuses the family of murdering the real child - the only reason they could be willingly taken in by him - how far should be believe a man who has a scary grip on reality and others' feelings?  As for the family, they realise that to protest their innocence, even though there is zero evidence against them, is to fight a losing battle against prurient gossip.  

The documentary is scrupulously fair.  It allows the imposter, Frederic Bourdin, to display himself as intelligent, perceptive but also dangerously delusional at best. It allows the mother of the boy to show herself as distraught but also highlights the drug abuse and petty crime in the family. Who can we believe? This is left open. But the telling of the tale is suspenseful and the vehicle of the telling, polished.

THE IMPOSTER played Sundance 2012. It opened in New York in July and is currently on release in the UK and Ireland. It opens in Canada on October 12th, in Denmark on October 18th, in Sweden on October 22nd, in Russia on November 22nd, in New Zealand on January 10th 2013, in Australia and the Netherlands on February 28th, and in France on April 17th.

THE IMPOSTER was improbably rated R in the USA and has a running time of 99 minutes. 

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN is an interesting story but a bad documentary.  Indeed, it's less a documentary than an anecdote. In the early 1970s, a Mexican-American folk singer called Sixto Rodriguez made two wonderful albums but achieved no commercial success in the USA. This mournful, self-effacing man then went back to hard manual labour and a hand-to-mouth existence.  Meanwhile, the album, with its anti-establishment lyrics, became super successful in apartheid riven South Africa, but the royalties and the recognition never found there way back to Rodriguez.  Finally, in the mid 1990s, some South African music lovers tracked Rodriguez down using the internet and staged a comeback concert tour.  Still, nothing much changed for "Sugar Man".  He remains, as he was, a modest, quiet, working man.

The documentary is a nonsense. It opens with urban legends about Rodriguez' supposedly outlandish suicide - rumours that it never tracks down to their source, and which Rodriguez seems reluctant to discuss. The doc also drops the ball on where all the royalties went - interviewing an irascible record exec and then just refusing to dig any deeper.  What we get instead is filler.  An investigative journalist doing not much investigating but looking things up on a map.  And concert footage filmed from 1998. It rather begs the question, "why now?" for this doc.  All in all, be aware of the anecdote and spend your  money on his albums rather than a ticket to this film, which doesn't even tell us if he's receiving royalties now.

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN played Sundance 2012 and is currently on release in the UK, Ireland, and the USA.  It opens in Sweden on August 24th, in Denmark and Australia on October 4th, in New Zealand on October 11th, in the Netherlands on December 20th, in Norway, France and Germany on December 27th, in Poland on February 22nd, and in Japan on March 16th. 

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN is rated PG 13 in the USA and the running time is 86 minutes.

London Film Fest 2010 Day 9 - THE TILLMAN STORY

Pat Tillman was a pro-footballer who gave up a million dollar contract to serve in the US Army in Iraq and then Afghanistan. He was an interesting guy - seems to have had a lot of integrity and charisma - but he wasn't some bible-thumping, pure of heart, All-American hero. He was a normal kid, very talented at sport, who joined the army. When Pat Tillman was killed, the US Army were keen to lionise him as a Patriot, a Hero and a poster-boy for the war. The story was depersonalised and publicised - Tillman wasn't Tillman, warts and all, but an Archetype. They covered up the fact that his death was the result of friendly fire, and arguably with no extenuating circumstances. And even when his mother and father pushed for the truth, a Congressional hearing only resulted in equivocation from the upper reaches of the chain of command.

This documentary allows the Tillman family to reclaim the Tillman Story from the US Army and to come to some closer approximation of an objective truth. But the project is itself fraught. Because, in using the Tillman Story to expose the PR machine within the US Army, director Amir Bar-Lev is also spinning his own version of the Tillman Story - now to excoriate the forces who originally exploited it. To its credit, I think the documentary is highly aware of this problem and exposes the ambiguity at the heart of the project. As much as the parents have exposed the crimes at the heart of the case, the myth of Tillman is already out there - the statues have been carved, the iconic images imprinted - and you can't put that back in the box. Moreover, as much as they want the US Army to respect Tillman's request for privacy, in agreeing to participate in this doc - by writing a book - in using his name for charitable causes - they are also part of that machine, albeit with earnest and good intentions.

THE TILLMAN STORY is then, a story about a story. It's about authors fighting over a narrative for their own purposes. But, let's be honest, government manipulation of the facts to support government policy is not new in life, and it's certainty not new in film. This shit has been happening since Homer, and in the movies you can watch Preston Sturges' superb HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO. Call me cynical, but there isn't enough new in the US Army using Pat Tillman to be interesting in and of itself. I wanted to see a rougher interrogative technique to make the story grip more. I wanted to see more interrogation of the US Army participants - particularly General Kensinger who was in charge of Tillman's unit. And I needed to be taken through the chain of command in more detail - I wanted to get into the case - other just seeing an org chart thrown up on screen and vague accusations being thrown.

If this story - the story of fighting over the story - is as old as the Greeks - what's new in the Iraqi/Afghani wars is the co-option of the media. That's because this is the first war with a) many competing 24 hour news channels b) embedded reporters and c) unprofitable editorial. In other words, this war happened at a moment of juncture with the commercial death of the old high quality foreign news stringers and the rise of content hungry 24 hours news channels. So, I think Amir Bar-Lev would have been better employed examining the complicity of the media in becoming the mouthpiece of the army in this matter. Sure, he hints at the media's complicity early on, but really, after that, he's going for the army not the journos.

So, often-times, I felt Amir Bar-Lev was asking the wrong questions, or not enough questions of the Army. And I felt his choice of focusing on the Army as a manipulator at the expense of the media as enablers was a misjudgement. But where he really does a great job is just letting the footage roll uneditorialised. Classic examples would include footage of the various ceremonies at which football teams decommissioned Tillman's number. The faces of the family say it all - their disgust and incomprehension. Even better the sheer crass vulgarity of having cheer-leaders cheer in front of them. It's in moments like this where the documentary becomes truly powerful and memorable. But, in not exploring the complicity of the media, this documentary looses the fresh insights of a film like IN THE LOOP, which took on the political-media nexus in all its complexity, and with a foul mouth that Pat Tillman might have appreciated.

THE TILLMAN STORY played Sundance and Toronto 2010 and was released in the US in August.

London Film Fest 2010 Day 6 - FIRE IN BABYLON

This summer I went to Lords for the England-Pakistan One Day International. Sitting high up in the Warner Stand as the England team came in to bowl, playing the match through gritted teeth, I was struck by how poisonous the atmosphere was. Three Pakistani players had been accused - are still accused - of fixing spot events in a Test Match - framed by a tabloid newspaper. In a fit of pique, the Pakistani tour manager had hurled accusations back at the England team. The result was a match played because it would have been a bureaucratic nightmare to do anything else. It was pitiful to be sitting at Lords and to feel alienated from the game I love - the game that had dominated my childhood and still forms the major part of my telephone conversations with my father.

How wonderful then to see FIRE IN BABYLON - Stevan Riley's new documentary on the golden age of West Indian cricket, under Clive Lloyd and the Vivi Richards. It was just pure delight to be sitting in the Vue 5 surrounded by people who also love cricket, nostalgic at the memories of great test matches - watching sheer skill and determination triumph over previous failure and injustice. I laughed, I cheered, I applauded, and I came out feeling good about cricket again - about what it can achieve in a wider context when its players choose nobility over cash. It was like a trip back to my childhood. Is there anything more glorious than seeing great men - Clive Lloyd, Vivi Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Roberts, Holding, Garner - tell us in their own words how they felt through defeat and victory? The racist abuse they suffered? The politics they were living through? The brickbats they faced from the press? But best of all - seeing the pride on their faces at the victory they achieved, not just for themselves but for every West Indian. Because the achievement of that team was not just to dominate - DOMINATE - test cricket for over a decade but to give their countrymen - faced with racial prejudice - something to be proud about. And for the rest of us, what they gave us, was just sheer joy at watching class players play with skill.

The documentary is basically a straightforwardly constructed retelling of the West Indies triumph, in broadly three acts. The prologue sets the context - before 1975 the West Indian team is entertaining but unsuccessful - derided as Calypso cricketers - and paid less than their white counterparts. In Act One, strategic titan and disciplinarian, captain Clive Lloyd, takes a young, focused team to Oz where they are pummelled by Thomson and Lillee's furious, aggressive pace. He decides to take off the gloves, scouring the West Indies for young fast bowlers - Roberts, Croft, Holding and later Garner. In Act Two, the West Indies shocks the world with its deadly pace, pummelling a cocky England, whose captain Tony Greig - in his South African accent - had said he'd make the WIndies grovel - and then pummelling Oz. In Act Three, we are now in the mid-80s, success continues, and the captaincy hands over to Vivi Richards, and we see names like Malcolm Marshall come to the fore.

This story is punctuated with two key political episodes. The first is the Kerry Packer World Series when several players took large amounts of money to play in a renegade series in Australia. At first the West Indian cricket board bans the players, but soon, under public pressure, brings them back. The key point is that in the interim they have become hugely fit and focused thanks to an Aussie trainer. The second episode is far more important. In the early 80s several players took money from the Apartheid regime in South Africa to play there. In doing so they were ostracised at home and had effectively sold their soul - becoming "honorary whites" on the tour. Colin Croft went. Vivi didn't - and in doing so turned down a blank cheque, stopped a run on the team, and basically cemented his status as all round great man.

The key strength of this doc is how many people the film-makers persuaded to appear, and how candid they are. Vivi features large, as you would expect, but Andy Roberts is also really impressive. One of the most poignant clips is of Colin Croft speaking about his South African tour. He starts off very defensively - saying he was just taking money as in the Kerry Packer tour - ignoring deliberately the very different political aspect. But then toward the end, he looks sad and guilty and the camera quickly cuts away. It's discrete and powerful. I also love that the documentary gives voice to the fans - the groundsmen - Bunny Wailer even! - who relive their joy and pride at the team's success.

I guess my only quibble would be what must presumably have been the editorial choice not to interview English or South African players or Umpires to give the other side of the story. Maybe it was part of the politics of this project, to let West Indians own and tell their story, coming back at the tabloid hate, setting the story straight. But the problem with that approach is that you end up with a documentary full of West Indians talking about how great they are. And let's be clear, they ARE great! But no-one wants to watch 85 minutes of uninterrupted hagiography.

Still, I have to say that FIRE IN BABYLON is about as much fun as I've had in the festival this year. It gave me back my passion for cricket and I came home and started watching clips of Vivi and Gordon Greenidge on Youtube. But it's appeal is wider than that. I am reliably informed by my bag-carrier, a Kraut who suffers from never having watched a cricket match, that the story is fascinating beyond the sporting achievement - because it's bigger than that - it's about a people finding self-confidence after years of colonial rule, and forcing the rest of the world to give them the respect they deserve.

Additional tags: Balazs Bolygo; Stuart Bentley; Stevan Riley.

FIRE IN BABYLON does not yet have a commercial release date.

London Film Fest Day 10 - MY KID COULD PAINT THAT

A couple of years ago in New York state, a four-year old girl called Marla Olmstead was painting abstract art that was being displayed in a private gallery and selling for thousands of dollars. The story was picked up by a local newspaper, then the New York Times and finally by chat shows around the country. It was the perfect story. Here we had a very photogenic family and a cute kid painting in her diapers. The pictures used lots of bold colours and were easy on the eye. Best of all, world-weary adults could read stories of child-hood innocence onto them. It intrigued a public that had always been fascinated by child prodigies. And it fascinated a public that had always been suspicious that all of modern art was basically nonsense. Marla became so famous that 60 Minutes decided to do a show about her art. They even filmed her painting. But when the show aired they insinuated that Marla’s paintings were, at the very least, being “directed” by her father, and at worst, being painted by him. Overnight, the family were perceived to be frauds, the bottom dropped out of the market and the hate-mail started pouring in.

As chance would have it, during this entire process was captured by a documentary film-maker called Amir Bar-Lev who had set out to make a film about the nature of modern art. What he actually got on film was a documentary about the nature of the media circus and the dangerous relationship between the people who sell a product and the product they are selling. One of the most intelligent people he interviews is a young mother and local journalist called Elizabeth Cohen. She is the first to pick up on the story and sees the capacity in it for the media circus, if unleashed, to be turned into a media backlash. After all, once everyone has the story of a cute kid painting they need to create a new story of fraud to feed the monster.

This brings us to the second issue of the relationship between the “handlers” and the “product”. Marla’s mother comes across as a really lovely, caring woman who never wanted her daughter to be famous and couldn’t care less about the money. But she is over-ruled time and again by Marla’s father and the art dealer who are evidently loving all the press attention, limos and art shows and, of course, the paychecks. There’s a sinister piece of footage in which the art dealer is trying to exonerate himself and distance himself from the 60 Minutes debacle. Significantly, he reveals that he never really understood how the abstract artists made so much money, but he did understand PR. And he found Marla he knew that he had a big “story” and would be able to sock it to the modern art establishment that had overlooked him as a painter.

The documentary is about a family trying to wrest a story back from the network media. I got the impression that the art gallery owner and father were trying to do so to protect their own professional integrity and capacity to earn. For the mother, it was about rescuing her family’s good reputation. The audience can judge whether or not they believe the family. (For my part, I think that certain paintings do look more “polished” than those painted under lab conditions. And in candid moments, Marla asks her father to "finish it". But then again, if the dad was committing fraud, why would he allow 60 Minutes to put cameras in the house in the first place?!)

MY KID COULD PAINT THAT played Sundance, Toronto and London 2007 and was released in the US and Australia earlier in October. It opens in the UK on December 14th 2007.