The best documentaries and miniseries(es?) of 2003
Sep 23 '07 (Updated Nov 23 '07)
The Bottom Line Some great documentaries and miniseries(es).
There were many visually striking 2003 films and many showcasing outstanding performances, but IMHO no really great fiction feature films. There were three television mini-series (in as many languages) that I thought particularly outstanding:
HBO's "Angels in America (directed by Mike Nichols from Tony Kushner's adaptation of his award-winning play, with riveting performances by Richard Wright, Al Pacino, Emma Thompson, Meryl Streep et al.)
"La Meglio gioventu" (The Best of Youth, directed by Marco Tullio Giordana) is a soap opera made for Italian television (and running 6 hours) that is focused on two very different Baby Boom brothers Nicola and Matteo Carati (played by Luigi Lo Cascio and Alessio Boni), over the span of four decades, beginning in 1966, when both are in college. They don't look related (differing considerably in head size, also in temperament) but their very different trajectories touch on major events in Italian history of the last 40 years. I was curious as much about what contrivance would connect with what political event next as much as I was curious about what would happen to the characters (though I was also interested in that). For a tv miniseries, BY is quite scenic, though almost all of the long shots are travelogue footage. Not slack, but unhurried, and with nothing particularly cinematic, BY is a visual analog of a page-turner, leaving a warm glow upon turning the last page.
Cidade des Homens (City of Men, directed by Katia Lund and Fernando Meirelles with compelling performances by two favela (slum) youth, Acerola, played by Douglas Silva, and Laranjinha, played by Darlan Cunha). There were two more sets of jump-cut growing up amidst gang violence, color prejudice, and lack of jobs, all available on Palm DVD on three discs.
(plus Helen Mirren in "Prime Suspect 6" and Angela Lansbury in the adaptation of Colm Toibin's "Blackwater Lightship"; I haven't seen "The Reagans," which was censored by CBS).
There were also some exceptional feature-length documentaries, including the Rashomonesque Capturing the Friedmans, made by Andrew Jarecki, an exploration of documenting as much as of the accusations of child abuse.
Erroll Morris's Fog of War is mostly one talking head, but in addition to the Philip Glass soundtrack, what makes the movie riveting is that the head talking and taking responsibility for war crimes (if not fully grasping what was wrong with the technical aspects of warring in Viet Nam) that of former Defense Secretary Robert MacNamara. He also expresses doubts about the morality (but, again, not the efficacy) of fire-bombing Japanese cities during World War II.
Nathaniel Kahn's documentary My Architect, about trying to find out who the father (architect Estonian-born Philadelphia Jewish brutalist architect Louis Kahn), was mostly eschews talking heads. It shows buildings (only one of which, the government enter of Bangladesh, I really like) and mixes archival footage, building documentation, and interviews, including a get-together of the three children Louis Kahn sired with three different mothers. Before dropping dead in a Penn Station lavatory, the workaholic architect (who drove off many clients) neglected not one, not two, but three families!
Tibet The Cry of the Snow Lion (2003, directed by Tom Piozet) is a heartbreaking movie about Chinese cruelty that is all too real. It tells the story of the brutal repression of Tibetan culture/religion since the 1949 invasion by the nascent PRC. It gives time to PRC spokesmen, who are considerably less convincing than the testimony of those tortured in PRC prisons. I was interested to hear Jeanne Kirkpatrick label what the Chinese communists are doing in Tibet as "genocide." I don't recall her saying anything similar when she was Ronald Reagan's ambassador to the UN, but since Henry Kissinger sold out Tibet (and Taiwan) to Zhou Enlai in the first minute of US government fawning to the regime that has killed more of its people than any in history, subsequent Democratic and Republican administrations have ignored the massive human rights violations in the conquered nation of Tibet.
Werner Herzog's "Wheel of Time" is the most conventional of any of the Herzog documentaries I have seen, but as breathtakingly beautiful and with as fluid camerawork as his other masterpieces. The primary focus of this one is Kalachakra initiation for Tibetan Buddhist monks in Bodh Gaya, India, the site of the Buddha's enlightenment (with the fifth-generation descendant of the bodhi tree under which Prince Siddartha attained enlightenment and became the Buddha) two and a half-plus millennia ago. Half a million pilgrims flowed in, including many who prostrated themselves every step of the way (up to 3000-mile journeys), with wooden clogs on their hands. That is not extreme enough for Herzog, so he also includes dazzling footage of a ritual high-altitude trek of 32 miles (52 km) around the sacred mountain Kailash in Tibet, on which some people die each year. (The peak of the mountain is nearly four miles in elevation). Those managing to make the three-day (or longer) circumambulation believe that doing so wipes clean the sins of a lifetime.
"Die Geschichte vom weinenden Kamel (The Story of the Weeping Camel, filmed by Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni) is a documentary in the tradition of "Nanook of the North," which is to say, partly staged, but showing nomadic life in Mongolia. (Byambasuren Davaa went on to make "The Story of the Yellow Dog" which is even more of a document of a nomad family in summer camp in western Mongolia.
Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (directed by Judy Irving) is a little too charming a documentary about parrots that are established (reproducing) on San Francisco's Telegraph Hill and a squatter who became enraptured by them, observed them closely, and wrote a book as well as appearing in the movie—and marrying the film-maker. I am less charmed by him that she was. And, for that matter, less charmed by the non-native birds than either of them is. Still, it is memorable (not to mention close to home!)
(And there are more much-lauded 2003 documentaries I haven't yet seen:
Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary
Born into Brothels
Tupac: Resurrection.)
In Part Two, I take up the best fiction feature films of 2003. There are many excellent performances and great visual compositions, though I don't think there is a Great 2003 nondocumentary film.
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