Doc Corner: Melbourne International Film Festival shows documentary’s many different forms
Thursday, August 11, 2022 at 6:00PM By Glenn Dunks
Two years ago (!) I mourned the absence of my local film festival. After another year off in 2021 due to Melbourne’s pandemic lockdowns, the Melbourne International Film Festival has finally returned to theatres this month. It has been such a wonderful feeling to sit down and watch films with other movielovers that we will quite likely never have another opportunity to see projected so big.
The festival runs for another week and a half yet, but let's talk about a few of the documentary titles screened so far. They are all extremely different and formally bold takes on the medium that deserve celebrating. From an experimental tour of America to an equally experimental tour of the human body, these have all been films I can't imagine having missed in the cinema. They won't get a sniff of Oscar buzz, but who cares?
The United States of America
Those familiar with Texas-born experimentalist James Benning will likely know what to expect from a film with a name like The United States of America. Like many of his works, this 98-minute film uses static shots—52 of them, all roughly one-and-a-half to two minutes in length. A Mississippi cotton farm here, a Californian street underpass there; horses in a field, snow falling on trees, a palm tree plantation. Each scene captures a state (plus District of Colombia and Puerto Rico) and in a way that only Benning really can, illuminates something honest and even political. If you’re unfamiliar with his works, then it might sound unlikely or even preposterous that such a thing could come from what some might inelegantly label as just landscape postcards. But when placed side by side by side, it is impossible to ignore.
Benning borrows from himself, of course. He’s done this type of film before numerous times and it’s not unfair to say a viewer’s mileage with vary depending on their appetite for something this uninterested in traditional narrative storytelling (even documentaries have narratives). Perhaps most interestingly, he has borrowed from himself in the film’s title as well, poaching from a 1975 cross-country exploration he co-directed with Bette Gordon (before she made the landmark Variety). Doing so opens up a whole new way of looking at The United States of America as one filmmaker’s near five-decades-later revisionist look at his homeland. A lot has changed but the end product is still incredible.
De Humani Corporis Fabrica (which will also be screening at NYFF)
I joked as I sat waiting for this movie to start about how this film was playing in a local multiplex on the extra-large “extremescreen” that would normally be home to Hollywood blockbusters a franchises with colons and numbers and superhero characters in their title. And yet here I was, watching a Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab documentary shot largely on microscopic cameras that came with a warning label for containing “graphic scenes of medical procedures and some scenes that may cause viewers distress.” You don’t get that very often at the movies! Tom Cruise, eat your heart out.
Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel are the filmmaking duo behind Leviathan, Sweetgrass and Caniba. They are directors who attempt to capture the truly extraordinary with techniques that are often confronting, radical and intimate. De Humani Corporis Fabrica takes us deep inside the human body, plunging us into human cavities with microscopic detail all while enveloping us in a sound mix that truly comes from the inside out. The movie is often awe-inspiring in its detail when it isn’t being stomach-churning, brutally sad or just a bit boring. It's occasionally even all of those things in one scene. They could have easily carved off 20 minutes and if they had stuck with the extraordinary medical scenes it could potentially be their best work yet.
Even so, it’s a memorable and potent piece of cinema. But maybe Castaing-Taylor and Paravel could make something a bit lighter next time. Sweetgrass 2: Return of the Sheep coming soon to an extremescreen near you (hopefully).
A Night of Knowing Nothing
A last-minute ticket purchase for me and, gosh—I don’t think I could have been more thankful for any such decision. When we speak of directorial visions, documentaries too often get ignored. But a screening of something like this, Payal Kapadia’s vision of youthful activism and romance, should change that immediately. A Night of Knowing Nothing has such a singular tone, like watching somebody’s haunted dream plucked directly out of their brain. It is a sensory experience, almost impossible dark shot as it is with persistent inky blacks and charcoal textures.
Also, another documentary in this line-up with a truly god-tier sound mix, which when coupled with its deep, ghostly score, sounds like something David Lynch would truly appreciate. The story here is interesting, with Kapadia shuffling between ideas. But for me it was the achievement of image and sound that made it a must see.
Despite winning the Cannes Film Festival’s Camera d’Or in 2021, it’s unlikely Kapadia’s film will garner the same sort of mainstream attention as other Indian documentaries of late. It’s too dark and too inwardly tough for that; too easy for tired-eyed viewers watching on a screener to turn off. But just like the Oscar-nominated Writing with Fire and 2022’s Camera d’Or winner (and definite Oscar contender) All That Breathes have put a spotlight on the industry, hopefully for singular artistic statements like A Night of Knowing Nothing can also emerge to the sort of reception that one was received.
El Nature
Lastly, Artavazd Pelechian returns after nearly three decades with Nature. A black and white archival doc made almost entirely out of amateur footage taken from the midst of natural disasters. There are tsunamis and floods, earthquakes, volcanoes and tornadoes, which come crashing through cities and towns to offer the realest example of our miniscule insignificance to this planet. Yet again, ferocious sound design surrounds the viewer as video (often of varying quality) unfolds in sometimes uncomfortably long, harrowing takes. It’s a curious film to have come out of directing retirement for for a variety of reasons, but it’s an ambitiously produced one. And a bold statement of directorial intent to craft something so deliberately unadorned (it’s only 63-minutes).
Reader Comments (2)
<div class="first-sentence-half">You must have a firm grasp of the subject to write an effective essay. It is preferable to make a decision in advance. When writing is about someone else's interests, it is simple. Pick a topic that makes people curious (if there is a choice). Additionally, pick a certain topic as early as you can so that you have opportunity to change it. Use our service for assistance. You can obtain assistance just click here with creating argumentative essays. Create your own viewpoint about the topic to begin with. It will be simpler for you to organize your work if you reduce your focus.</div>
<div class="first-sentence-half">You must have a firm grasp of the subject to write an effective essay. It is preferable to make a decision in advance. When writing is about someone else's interests, it is simple. Pick a topic that makes people curious (if there is a choice). Additionally, pick a certain topic as early as you can so that you have opportunity to change it. Use our service for assistance. You can obtain assistance just click here with creating argumentative essays. Create your own viewpoint about the topic to begin with. It will be simpler for you to organize your work if you reduce your focus.</div>