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The Five Obstructions

The Five Obstructions In 1967 Danish filmmaker Jørgen Leth made the short film, Det Perfekte Menneske (The Perfect Human), which is a sparse short film that shows people doing things, presented in a slightly abstract sense in black and white. 34 years later Lars von Trier proposes a set of challenges where Leth will remake the film five times and we see it all in The Five Obstructions (De Fem Benspænd.)
While remaking the film with different sets of challenges, it’s really about Leth, von Trier and their filmmaking philosophies. The glue that links the film together are the documentary segments where von Trier lays out the obstructions and Leth listens and writes them down. It’s a great way to see how a filmmaker works and thinks and they respond to the challenges that they face. Von Trier constantly tries to trip up Leth with various challenges and the film surprised me several times. It’s beautifully constructed and moves along quickly as we watch the battle between the two filmmakers, who once were student and teacher. The roles are reversed and there is a degree of perversity that is introduced as we wonder what the point is. They laugh about destroying the original film as they set off on the first obstruction. The various films are different and have varying levels of success, but overall the two oddly distant filmmakers manage to create a film that seems to transcend them both. Filmmaking can be a magical experience and this film is a singular and fascinating look at a game that reveals the players as we examine what a film can mean and how the process can shape the product.
Afterwards I thought about the obstructions and how it was similar to some of the things on “reality” tv. The arbitrary contests and obsessive attention to “the game” and how it is played. But while the obstructions were arbitrary at times, it wasn’t about the obstructions, but about people and the creativity. Both filmmakers are not only trying to battle each other, but to understand their work and themselves. Ironically they seem to understand each other better than they understand themselves. It would be fascinating to see how other filmmakers would battle each other in remaking films, but I suspect that the unique combination and chemistry of von Trier and Leth would be very difficult to achieve.

August 21, 2005 documentary, dvd, film, review

The Agronomist

Whether he’s making a thriller, a comedy, a drama, a music documentary or a documentary, Jonathan Demme is able to bring together the elements to create something interesting that also makes a statement. Demme tells the story of Jean Dominique in The Agronomist. It’s a great documentary that carefully introduces the charismatic radio owner, broadcaster, and journalist as well as establishing the context of the situation in Haiti. In watching the film I found out about a man as well as a country with politics much more complicated than I thought. Jean Dominique is fascinating to watch in the film in archival footage and in several interviews. He had a great sense of how to be a journalist who could take a stand and speak (as well as listen) to people. The film also weaves in the story of Michele Montas, who was Dominique’s partner in life as well as in running and reporting as part of Radio Haiti. It is a moving story about passion and the courage to do what is right in the face of danger.
tags: film, review, documentary, theagronomist

August 12, 2005 documentary, dvd, film, review

Go Further

Go Further In 2001 Woody Harrelson went on a tour to promote environmentally-friendly alternatives to our destructive lifestyle. Travelling in a bio-fueled bus and on bicycles, they went down the Pacific coast of California and Ron Mann made a film about that tour. Go Further skillfully combines a road movie with personal stories about how you can change your lifestyle and change the world. The ideas within the film are more fully explained and explored at Woody Harrelson and Laura Louie’s Voice Yourself site about sustainable living and reducing your environmental footprint. A film about doing the right thing can be didactic or boring, but Mann wisely builds the story of Go Further around people and their relationships. Instead of having the focus on Harrelson, it is on Steve Clark, who joins the tour and tries to give up his fast-food lifestyle. It’s a fun and entertaining documentary that educates along the way. I had a lot of fun and it gave me a few ideas as well.

July 26, 2005 documentary, dvd, film, gofurther, review, ronmann

Breakfast With Hunter

The recent death of Hunter S. Thompson has probably prompted many people to watch the films connected with the good doctor that founded and practiced Gonzo journalism. I went looking for Where the Buffalo Roam and Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas, but they were all out, but they did have the documentary Breakfast With Hunter, directed by Wayne Ewing, so I rented that. At another video store I was able to get Where the Buffalo Roam, which I watched before the 2003 documentary about Hunter S. Thompson, so I was able to see Bill Murray’s interpretation and then the man himself in a documentary that I didn’t know much about. I was pleasantly surprised and saw a side of Thompson that I heard about, but hadn’t seen. The documentary follows Thompson through a drunk driving charge and the days before and during the shooting of the adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The most fascinating scene was a visit by writer Tod Davies and Alex Cox who was slated to direct Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas where you see why he didn’t end up directing the film.
Overall Breakfast With Hunter is an entertaining documentary that gives you a glimpse at a rare writer who had fun while telling his stories.
technorati tags: film, review, breakfastwithhunter, documentary, huntersthompson

March 2, 2005 breakfastwithhunter, documentary, dvd, film, huntersthompson, review

Snarky Comments Loosely Joined

A couple of nights ago I sat down to watch the U.S. Presidential Debate and decided to join in the second IRC chat that David Weinberger set up. I hadn’t used IRC in years and I was surprised at how much I forgot… I had to get a client and get connected, but then it was a lot of fun. I sat down on the couch with the debate on the tv and made snide remarks as the debate went on. At the peak there were something like 50 people there. What was neat was that it wasn’t that big a room and while there were some big name bloggers there, it was refreshingly flat. It made me nostalgic for the old days of the WWW where you could know most of the people there.
Then when I saw Weinberger’s entry Annotated Debate, where he points to how Kevin Marks took Dave Winer‘s MP3 of the debate and combined it with the transcript to make a QuickTime that he calls “audioblogging with comments“. I opened up the johodebate movie and saw that I got the first comment, which was about Kerry’s tie. In David Weinberger’s post he’s a bit nervous about the “semiprivateness of chat being exposed in the full public of the Web” and I was wondering the same thing. Then I saw my (rather literal) nickname show up and felt a strange, internal, “yikes” as I quickly tried to remember what I said. Would I have said anything different if I knew where it would end up? Probably not, but it was interesting to go through the thought process of semiprivate and public speech.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how people speak and look when they are being recorded. The record changes the way you respond. With chat there is a text record, with video and film there is an additional dimension. Documentary filmmaking makes you (or should make you) think about what you see, what you say, what you show and how you establish context with editing. It’s fascinating and demanding and it’s why people get sucked in to making documentaries as you see how you can change the life of someone or cause them to act by just showing them something.
What started off as something that was fun and snarky has turned in to something that is more dynamic, but also managed to tie in to other stuff that I’ve been thinking about too. Thanks, Kevin for the value-added and thanks David for setting up the chat!

October 15, 2004 chat, davewiner, davidweinberger, debate, documentary, irc, joho, kevinmarks, politics, quicktime

Tarnation

Tarnation probably isn’t the type of film you’d think that someone would make out of home movies over a couple of decades using iMovie. But then again, Jonathan Caouette doesn’t seem to be a typical person. Tarnation is a very personal documentary that is utterly compelling and amazing to watch. Every now and then while watching I thought that I was part of an elaborate cinematic joke. The film just seemed to be too perfect, too well-constructed to be a documentary. But it wasn’t fiction, as you could see the people in the footage growing up and growing old. There are lots of stories around about how much the film cost, but in some ways it’s beside the point. It’s an amazing film no matter what it cost to make. Intensely personal, the film is the story of Jonathan Caouette and his mother, Renee all told through the prism of video, music and family photos. It’s a wonderful, harrowing and heartbreaking cinematic experience that is probably best viewed in a theatre if you have a chance. After pouring so much out I wonder what Caouette will do next. But maybe that’s a good thing, now that he’s put it all out there he can start fresh.

October 12, 2004 aff2004, documentary, film, jonathancaouette, review, tarnation

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