FILM REVIEWS:
LEAD AND COPPER (USA 2024) ***
Directed by William Hart
The documentary LEAD AND COPPER is about the Flint water crisis - a public health crisis that started in 2014 after the drinking water for the city of Flint, Michigan, was contaminated with lead and possibly Legionella bacteria. In April 2014, during a financial crisis, state-appointed emergency manager Darnell Earley changed Flint's water source from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (sourced from Lake Huron and the Detroit River) to the Flint River. Residents complained about the taste, smell, and appearance of the water. Officials failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water, which resulted in lead from aging pipes leaching into the water supply, exposing around 100,000 residents to elevated lead levels. A pair of scientific studies confirmed that lead contamination was present in the water supply. It is all-out saving money at the expense of human beings, least of all minority black people.
How did we not see this coming? How could we let this happen? Two questions were asked in the voiceover at the start of the doc when the voiceover says that the company deliberately falsified documents and polluted the waters. The answer is quite clear as the two questions are also asked in many docs whistleblowing bad companies that are run by guilty and conscienceless executives. The culprits here are different and do not include the CEO and top management but the government and governing bodies. This a prime example that no one can be trusted least of all the Government. Flint isn't America's first major lead crisis, and it will not be the last. The closing credits indicate all the counties that face the lead poisoning problem.
The Flint water crisis has a lot of grounds to cover, and director Hart has to decide what information to keep and what to omit. Hart concentrates on personal cases, especially the one involving a Flint resident who took up upon herself to collect water samples and raise a stink about the lead poisoning,
On April 24th, 2014, Flint, Michigan switched water sources to the Flint River, a cost-saving measure enacted by former Governor Rick Snyder and his appointed Emergency Manager. This decision poisoned a city that had already been neglected for decades.
Over 8 years, through interviews of members of Congress, local officials, environmental and engineering scientists, former EPA employees, and the families affected by lead poisoning, LEAD & COPPER investigates how city, state, and federal policies contributed to environmental crises like those experienced in Flint, Newark, and Washington, D.C.
State and city officials lie to the population of Flint, Michigan about the safety of their water, leading to thousands of people being diagnosed with lead poisoning. Lead & Copper exposes the dominoes that fell that led to one of America's worst public health disasters.
The film contains interviews by important sources that lend their hand in making the doc real. The interviewed include Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley, Former Flint Mayor Dayne Walling, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Congressman Elijah Cummings, Dr. Marc Edwards, Dr. Riché Barnes, and Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff.
LEAD AND COPPER belongs to the category of documentary that will enrage its audience. And with reason!
LEAD AND COPPER is available on Digital/VOD from Tuesday, November 19th, 2024.
Trailer:
THE LOST CHILDREN (Colombia 2024) ***½
Directed by Jorge DuranLali with co-directors Houghton and Orlando von Einsiedel
THE LOST CHILDREN are four Indigenous Colombian children aged 11, 9 and 5 months and an 11-month baby, lost in the Amazon in Colombia after their small plane crashed.
The film is directed by Jorge DuranLali, Houghton and Orlando von Einsiedel
and one can detect their no-nonsense attitude toward making this truthful compelling true story transition to the screen. The words at the start of the film inform that the footage seen is all taken by volunteer rescuers or the military or archive newsreel that certain names had to be changed for military security and that a few re-enactments were created. This is a good sign as one naturally dislikes docs where reenactments are done to fool the audience that what is seen on screen is the real thing. Here, the audience is told beforehand of the reenactments,
The doc then goes to show a swarm of termites, a hissing snake, spiders, other bugs and nasty insects of the jungle to emphasize the unwelcomeness of the Amazon. The jungle is not a friendly place.
On 9 June 2023, four children were rescued from the Amazon rainforest, in Colombia after they survived a plane crash on 1 May. The Cessna 206 plane was carrying seven people which included a woman and her four children. All three adults were killed, leaving the children to fend for themselves in the forest. The children's mother and two pilots were killed when their light aircraft crashed in the jungle on 1 May. It seems that what has happened in real life is a perfect story to be filmed and to be told. However, all four children—aged 13, 9, 4 and an 11-month-old toddler— survived in the jungle for nearly 40 days. 40 days is a long time, more than a month, It is good to remember that these are children and not adults. According to the rescuers, the children were malnourished and had many insect bites, but no major health issues. According to the media, the children belong to an indigenous community, living in or near the jungle. The 13-year-old also seems to have been used to guarding the other children, when their mother was at work. The film ends with her account of how they survived.
The plane crashed in a region of the rainforest that is difficult to access. When it was discovered there were survivors, a large-scale rescue operation was ordered by the authorities.
The doc also examines the difficulties arising from the rescue.
President Gustavo Petro said finding the group was a "magical day", adding: "They were alone, they themselves achieved an example of total survival which will remain in history."
A moving moment includes a video shared by Colombia's Ministry of Defence showing the children being lifted into a helicopter in the dark above the tall trees of the jungle. They have been flown to the nation's capital Bogota, where ambulances have taken them to hospital for further medical treatment.
THE LOST CHILDREN is one of two original Netflix documentaries to open for streaming this week, the other one is called RETURN OF THE KING, a biopic of Elvis Presley. These two docs are worthy of mention and provide compelling viewing and insight into their subject matter.
Trailer:
MEMOIR OF A SNAIL (Australia 2024) ***** Top 10
Directed by Adam Elliot
MEMOIR OF A SNAIL is done in the painstaking lengthy stop-motion animation process. The film was developed over eight years. Don’t let the animation category discourage you, as this is an adult film with adult themes and a tale told in a rare and beautiful medium. (In the US, the film was rated R "for sexual content, nudity and some violent content" by the Motion Picture Association.) Among the voices are those of well-known stars like Kodi Smit-McPhee, Eric Bana, Dominique Pinon, Tony Armstrong, Nick Cave, and Jacki Weaver. The film's plot, which is loosely inspired by Elliot's own life, follows the trials and tribulations in the life of lonely misfit Grace Pudel (Sarah Snook), from childhood to adulthood.
The snail in the title comes from Grace’s obsession with the mollusk. She collects and keeps everything that bears a resemblance to a snail. Grace sinks into loneliness, becoming a hoarder, collecting snails (real and otherwise), even wearing a “snail” hat that her father had knit. One of her favourite pet snails was Sylvia, named after author Sylvia Plath. But a lesson can be learned from this quaint creature. Though it moves slowly, it always moves forward and never retracts its path.
MEMOIR OF A SNAIL has the feel of Charles Dickens classics like OLIVER TWIST and GREAT EXPECTATIONS with the protagonist surviving as a poor orphan and with young children meeting up with old folks who determine their future lives. Like Dickens's stories, there is a happy ending for the long-suffering. The director’s love for stop-motion animation is also evident in the film’s protagonist, Grace finally living a stable life, while pursuing her dream of being a stop-motion animator.
MEMOIR OF A SNAIL has quite a few best moments. The best of these is the wisp of mist disappearing in the sky before forming the curled-up shape of the shell of an escargot.
The film is also charming in its presentation of sympathy for old people and gay relationships. It is the classic fable of hope triumphing over life's despair with humanity. There is the surprise kiss of the two step-brothers, their love that almost causes the death of one of them. The old man in the park is treated with respect like many other old characters in the story.
MEMOIR OF A SNAIL premiered at the Annecy Animation Film Festival this year (it won the Cristal Award for Best Feature Film) which I covered remotely. I requested a screener for MEMOIR OF A SNAIL but could not get one. Thankfully, this excellent piece of animation got picked up and is being released in North America. This film should have no problem receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature and is on my list for Best Animated Feature this year.
MEMOIR OF SNAIL opens November 15 in Toronto (TIFF Lightbox) and Montreal!
The film opens on November 22 in Vancouver and throughout the fall in other cities.
Trailer:
LA PALISIADA (Ukraine 2023) ***½
Directed by Philip Sotnychenko
LA PALISIADA is as strange and intriguing as any film that has opened this year. Nothing much is explained and the film requires much intense concentration to comprehend and appreciate, and needless to say, the effort is worth the rewards. LA PALISIADA (which perhaps means Police Story, not explained) is a neo-noir policier complete with criminals targeted in a corrupt police environment. Two murders in fact, both with gunshots, with the common thread of the investigator.
The film is a tale of two gunshots and several deaths – literal and metaphorical – told in a unique Eastern European neo-noir style, LA PALISIADA examines the wide-ranging ramifications of the murder of a police officer in Ukraine in 1996. Not only was this a few months before the country signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights banning the death penalty, but having become independent in 1991 ( a suspect is in the film interrogated as to when Ukraine gained independence) Ukraine was at that time still languishing in a kind of stagnant post-Soviet continuum; a state of affairs that casts a long shadow throughout the film, and beyond.
The plot revolves around forensic psychiatrist Oleksandr and his friend, detective Ilhar Sabitov, who battle their own complex relationships with one another and with the widow of the murdered police officer, as well as post-Soviet bureaucracy, politics, and demons from the past. In so doing, they unwittingly sow the seeds of new problems for the future – our present.
What makes this film stand out too is the film’s unique visual style was created using a range of celluloid and digital techniques, including a retro video camera, the last surviving cassettes for which were ordered from various places around the world. Its non-linear narrative structure pulls us into the murky, complex world of post-Soviet Ukraine – a world that now has renewed urgency and relevance.
Director Sotnychenko demonstrates his sense of humour too, in one deadpan hilarious scene in which musical wares are sold flea market style in a stall set up on a railway track. The stall has to be moved when a train comes along. The salesman’s sales pitch is also nothing short of hilarious, showing a slice of Ukraine life.
LA PALISIADA is Ukraine’s entry for the upcoming Academy Award for Best International Feature. The submission is shortlisted and then shortened to the 5 nominees. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited the film industries of various countries to submit their best film for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film since 1956. The Foreign Language Film Award Committee oversees the process and reviews all the submitted films. Ukraine has submitted films for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film since 1997. Of all the films submitted, only last year’s 20 DAYS IN MARIUPOL made the shortlist. The question is whether LA PALISIADA will be able to achieve the same, as difficult and strange as this film may seem.
LA PALISIADA makes its North American I(including Canadian) premiere on the SVOD platform FILM MOVEMENT PLUS on November 15, 2024. Worth a look, for sure! The film is in Ukrainian with English Subtitles.
Trailer:
RETURN OF THE KING: THE FALL AND RISE OF ELVIS PRESLEY (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Jason Hehir
Elvis Presley aka The King aka Elvis the Pelvis has an an extensive career with many ups and downs, so it is understandably difficult to tie viewers a comprehensive lot and the rock and roll date. RETURN OF THE KING: THE FALL AND RISE OF ELVIS PRESLEY arrives just 2 years after the non-documentary ELVIS in 2022 directed by Australian Baz Luhrmann, who also serves as one of the talking heads giving his two cents worth about Presley.
RETURN OF THE KING: THE FALL AND RISE OF ELVIS PRESLEY charts Presley's life from his childhood poverty to his 1968 Comeback TV special, in which he had one chance to show the world he was still the King of Rock 'n' Roll and to discover the story behind Elvis Presley's triumphant '68 comeback special.
Many Elvis experts lend their hand to talk about him. Among them are Bruce Springsteen, Billy Corgan, Elvis’s first wife Priscilla Presley, Conan O’Brian and the before-mentioned Lurhman. They offer much insight into the material of the doc.
Lurhmann’s ELVIS dramatizes most of what is seen in this doc. In ELVIS, what is emphasized is the influence of Elvis’s manager Colonel Tom Parker over Elvi’s show-business career, putting Elins in what might be termed a personal prison to the relationship between Elvis and Priscilla. The doc, on the other hand, de-glamourizes the material and provides the same material in more documents in a more moderate one. The doc shows Elvis’s performances, particularly the comeback shoe, but keeps the other earlier performances to a minimum. There is more material on Elvis’s movies, including one embarrassing segment of him singing “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” in one of his movies. The influence of Colonel Tom Parker (played by Tom Hanks in the Luhrmann film) is mentioned in both films but highlighted a little less in the doc.
The doc omitted the period of Elvis’s life after the Comeback Special, especially the notable years from 1973 to 1977 when Elvis died. 1973–1977 are the years of his health deterioration and death. To quote journalist Tony Scherman wrote that, by early 1977, "Presley had become a grotesque caricature of his sleek, energetic former self. Grossly overweight, his mind dulled by the pharmacopeia he daily ingested, he was barely able to pull himself through his abbreviated concerts.”
The doc can hardly be faulted for omitting the awful last years of Elvis because as the title of the doc indicates, the purpose is to show his fall and rise and not his fall again. The doc therefore ends Elvis’s biopic on a high note, during his rise back to fame with his 68 comeback special. Many fans would remember Elvis the King this way.
` RETURN OF THE KING: THE FALL AND RISE OF ELVIS PRESLEY and THE LOST CHILDREN are two must-watch original Netflix documentaries that should be seen for their relevant content. Both films open for streaming on Netflix this week.
Trailer:
