Dolphin Boy (2011)

Recommended

Israel/France/UK

Feature Documentary

Original Title: דולפין

Writer/Directors: Dani Menkin, Yonatan Nir

Cinematographers: Uri Ackerman, Yoav Kleinman, Yaron Levison, Yonatan Nir

Composer: Issar Shulman

Despite an occasionally intrusive and manipulative score and the rather hackneyed sight of a doctor sat at his computer typing away (superimpositions and all) as he explains the case to us, Menkin and Nir’s film proves to be an affecting and uplifting one, capturing a father’s intense love for his son, as it follows (over the course of four years) the progress of Morad, a teenaged boy left in a dissociative state after a severe beating, as he gradually learns to live again thanks to the healing powers of dolphin therapy. Iain.Stott

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Village of the Dolls (2010)

Recommended

USA

Feature Documentary

Original Title: Marwencol

Director: Jeff Malmberg

Cinematographers: Jeff Malmberg, Tom Putnam, Matt Radecki, Kevin Walsh

Composers: Ash Black Bufflo

Featuring: Mark Hogancamp

Jeff Malmberg’s fascinating and insightful yet warm and witty documentary paints a portrait of Mark Hogancamp, a man in his mid-40s who, in order to deal with the trauma of being beaten (literally) senseless by five youths in a pub car park in the year 2000, retreats into a doll-populated fantasy world of Second World War heroes and villains, where he therapeutically works through his hopes and fears, photographing the action as he goes along. Iain.Stott

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The Arbor (2010)

Highly Recommended

UK

Feature Documentary

Director: Clio Barnard

Cinematographer: Ole Bratt Birkeland

Composers: Harry Escott & Molly Nyman

Cast: Christine Bottomley, Neil Dudgeon, Robert Emms, Natalie Gavin, Manjinder Virk, George Costigan, Jimi Mistry, Monica Dolan, Neil Dudgeon

Strikingly photographed and disquietingly scored, Clio Barnard’s deliberate and innovative yet devastatingly moving documentary, filmed with actors lip-synching to recorded interviews and dramatized scenes from its subject’s eponymous play, gradually builds up a picture of the life of Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar and her legacy, with particular attention paid to the drug-fuelled plight of her eldest daughter, Lorraine, a young woman of mixed race who has known nothing but pain and suffering. Iain.Stott

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Shed Your Tears and Walk Away (2009)

Recommended

UK

Feature Documentary

Director/Cinematographer: Jez Lewis

Over a period of 18 months, documentarian Jez Lewis returns to his seemingly idyllic hometown, the beautifully situated Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire, catching up with his old friends – those that are still alive, that is, as many have been lost to drink, drugs, and suicide – shedding light on the self-destructive culture that has built up there, in this depressingly enlightening documentary, which proves that despair is certainly not limited to urban deprivation. Iain.Stott

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Modern Life (2008)

Highly Recommended

France

Feature Documentary

Original Title: La vie modern

Director/Cinematographer: Raymond Depardon

Featuring: Raymond Privat, Marcel Privat, Alain Rouvière, Cécile Rouvière, Marcel Challaye, Germaine Challaye, Paul Argaud

Depardon’s strikingly photographed, gently revealing, and achingly sad portrait of rural life – the third part of a trilogy, the first two parts of which remain unseen in the UK – explores the lives of a number of ageing, expressively inexpressive farmers in France’s Massif Central region, poignantly capturing their way of life as it enters its final death throes, having finally (just about) admitted defeat to the forces of industrialisation. Iain.Stott

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Tarnation (2003)

Recommended

USA

Feature Documentary

Writer/Director/Cinematographer: Jonathan Caouette

Composers: John Califra, Max Avery Lichtenstein

Featuring: Jonathan Caouette, Renee Leblanc, Rosemary Davis, Adolph Davis

Jonathan Caouette's film presents a dazzling, visceral, and painfully honest piece of self-portraiture (albeit, one told in the third person), which chronicles his life – through a wealth of archive, self-shot footage – from his troubled beginnings in Houston to his escape to New York, detailing his mother’s mental health problems, his abuse in foster homes, his uneasy relationship with his maternal grandparents, and his own emotional troubles. Iain.Stott

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In Comparison (2009)

Recommended

Germany/Austria

Feature Documentary

Original Title: Zum Vergleich

Director: Harun Farocki

Writers: Harun Farocki, Matthias Rajmann

Cinematographer: Ingo Kratisch

Starting in Burkina Faso, before moving on to India, and then Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and composed of a number of a long, static shots, Farocki’s fascinating, understated documentary examines the making, carrying, and laying of bricks across the world, which, as it moves north, illuminates the increasingly safer and more efficient nature of industrialisation, whilst noting the gradual disappearance of chatter, laughter, women, children, and eventually men, as it does so. Iain.Stott

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Road to Las Vegas (2010)

Recommended

UK

Feature Documentary

Director/Cinematographer: Jason Massot

Composer: Glenn Jones

At sporadic intervals over a period of four years, in a decidedly unpredictable and ultimately rather affecting if somewhat discordantly and distancingly structured film, film-maker Massot follows a not-so-average working class family (visions from God, age inappropriate dress, ten children) as they try to build a new life in Las Vegas, detailing periods of homelessness and joblessness, drug addiction and marital strife, and death and loss. Iain.Stott

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I Was Bin Laden's Bodyguard (2010)

Recommended

USA

Feature Documentary

Original Title: The Oath

Director: Laura Poitras

Cinematographers: Kirsten Johnson, Laura Poitras

Composer: Osvaldo Golijov

Cast: Mostofa Ali

Featuring: Abu Jandal, Habeeb Al-Bahri

Poitras’s thoughtfully shot, distinctively scored, and disarmingly enlightening documentary – despite its horrible retitling for UK television – gently paints a portrait of Abu Jandal (aka Naseer Al-Bahri) a reformed jihadist who was one of Osama Bin Laden’s bodyguards for a number of years in the ‘90s, depicting his tender tutelage of his young son in the ways of Allah, and following him as he attempts to eke a living as a taxi driver in Yemen, all the while teasing out his blunted philosophy on the fight against the infidels, as well as following the trial of his borther-in-law, Salim Hamdan, at Guantanamo Bay. Iain.Stott

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The Battle for Barking (2010)

Recommended

UK

Feature Documentary

Director/Cinematographer: Laura Fairrie

Composers: Harry Escott, Molly Nyman

Featuring: Margaret Hodge, Nick Griffin, Bob Bailey, Richard Barnbrook, Andy Kinggett, Lawrence Rustem, Robert Taylor: William Dunn, Michelle Hill, Saima Ashraf, Pastor James Gitau, Jackie Griffin, Rev Robert West, John Prescott, Giuseppe De Santis, Martin Reynolds

Despite one or two strangely sentimental moments, Fairrie’s remarkably even-handed documentary – a commentary-free account of the battle between Labour’s Margaret Hodge and the BNP’s leader Nick Griffin for the parliamentary seat for Barking in the May 2010 general election (as well as the campaign for the borough’s various council seats) – is a thoroughly enlightening and, against all the odds, decidedly human work. Iain.Stott

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My Father, Pablo Escobar (2009)

Cautiously Recommended

Argentina/Columbia

Feature Documentary

Original Title: Pecados de mi padre

Director: Nicolas Entel

Cinematographers: Mariano Monti, Patricio Suarez

Composers: Didi Gutman, David Majzlin

Narrator: Laurence Fox

Featuring: Sebastián Marroquín, Rodrigo Lara, Carlos Galán, Juan Manuel Galán, Claudio Galán, Maria Isabel Santos

Entel builds a thoroughly compelling portrait of Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria – doting father, philanthropist, wannabe politician, drug dealer, murderer, terrorist – making the most of a wealth of archive material and candid interviews with his exiled son; less successful, however, is the horribly awkward and irredeemably contrived-feeling bringing together of said son and the sons of a pair of politicians that he had had assassinated. Iain.Stott

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All Tomorrow's Parties (2009)

Recommended

UK

Feature Documentary

Director/Cinematographers: Jonathan Caouette, All Tomorrow's People

Featuring: Belle And Sebastian, Grizzly Bear, Sonic Youth, Battles, Portishead, Daniel Johnston, Grinderman, David Cross, Animal Collective, The Boredoms, Les Savy Fav, Mogwai, Octopus Project, Slint, The Dirty Three, The Yeah

Made-up of footage shot by countless professionals and amateurs alike, and featuring a raft of indie talent, Jonathan Caouette’s celebration of the titular alternative music festival, a decidedly uncommercial venture taking place annually in various ageing holiday camps across Britain, remarkably manages to feel like the work of a single voice, and a life-affirmingly vibrant one at that. Iain.Stott

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Pripyat (1999)

Highly Recommended

Austria

Feature Documentary

Director/Cinematographer: Nikolaus Geyrhalter

Writers: Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Wolfgang Widerhofer

Documentarian Nikolaus Geyrhalter travels to Pripyat, the town in which the workers of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant lived prior to the disaster of 1986, examining with striking black and white photography the decaying remnants of the abandoned environment, meeting with those who make their living in the area and the few stubborn, elderly residents who still refuse to leave their homes, in this restrained yet very powerful documentary. Iain.Stott

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La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet (2009)

Recommended

France/USA

Feature Documentary

Original Title: La danse: Le ballet de l'Opéra de Paris

Director: Frederick Wiseman

Cinematographers: John Davey, Dick Pope

Veteran documentarian Wiseman’s fascinating leisurely-paced observational documentary compellingly paints a portrait of the Ballet de l'Opéra National de Paris, documenting rehearsals, management meetings, costuming, and even building maintenance, as it slowly builds up a picture of life behind the curtain. Iain.Stott

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Jazz on a Summer's Day (1960)

Essential Viewing

USA/UK

Feature Documentary

Director: Bert Stern

Writers: Albert D'Annibale, Arnold Perl

Cinematographers: Mike Cuesta, Courtney Hafela, Ray Phealon, Jack Schatz, Bert Stern

Featuring: Thelonious Monk, Anita O'Day, Dinah Washington, Chuck Berry, Chico Hamilton, Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson

Photographer Bert Stern’s sole directing effort is perhaps the definitive concert film; it chronicles the 1958 Newport Jazz festival, mixing footage of acts as diverse and wonderful as Dinah Washington, Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, and (bizarrely) Chuck Berry with delightful shots of the appreciative audience and a (presumably) staged house party. Iain.Stott

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Two Years Later (2002)

Recommended

France

Feature Documentary

Original Title: Deux ans après (2002)

Writer/Director/Narrator: Agnès Varda

Cinematographers: Stéphane Krausz, Agnès Varda

Composers: Joanna Bruzdowicz, Isabelle Olivier, François Wertheimer

Two years after The Gleaners & I (2000), veteran film-maker Varda examines its aftermath, revisiting some of the people we encountered in the earlier film, most notably the homeless volunteer French teacher with a masters degree, Alain, who we see here running a marathon (his tenth), as well as examining the public’s enthusiastic response to the film. Iain.Stott

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The Gleaners & I (2000)

Highly Recommended

France

Feature Documentary

Original Title: Les glaneurs et la glaneuse

Writer/Director/Narrator: Agnès Varda

Cinematographers: Didier Doussin, Stéphane Krausz, Didier Rouget, Pascal Sautelet, Agnès Varda

Composers: Joanna Bruzdowicz, Isabelle Olivier

Varda’s eye-opening and thoughtful yet (pleasingly) whimsical and personal documentary examines the hidden world of modern day gleaning, taking in both the traditional post-harvest rural kind and the newer phenomenon of urban gleaning, meeting numerous interesting people along the way – both the ethically minded anti-consumerists and those who are merely down on their luck. Iain.Stott

Followed by Two Years Later (2002).

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Double Take (2009)

Recommended

Belgium/Germany/The Netherlands

Feature Documentary

Director: Johan Grimonprez

Writers: Johan Grimonprez, Tom McCarthy

Cinematographer: Martin Testar

Composer: Christian Halten

Narrator: Mark Perry

Featuring: Ron Burrage

Made up primarily of archive footage, Grimonprez’s unusual, satirical curio takes a entertaining look at the cold war, the politics of fear, insidious advertising, and cinema’s losing battle with television, all filtered through a meeting between a 62-year-old Alfred Hitchcock and his 80-year-old future self, a meeting that can only possibly end one way. Iain.Stott

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