My Best Fiend

Mein liebster Feind (Anchor Bay Entertainment DVD, 2002)
Directed by Werner Herzog
Germany, 1999
In German and English with English subtitles

Although I'm a huge Herzog fan to begin with, I have a special fondness for this tremendously funny and utterly compelling 1999 documentary about his bizarre working relationship with the great actor, legendary temper tantrum thrower, and raving egomaniac Klaus Kinski. Recalling the five feature films the pair made together over the course of the years, Herzog takes the viewer along for an anecdotal wild ride to the locations where some of their stormiest collaborations were filmed: the jungles of Peru for Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, the Czech Republic for Woyzeck, etc. Kinski usually comes off as an out of control but brilliant ass, a prima donna prone to hostile fits of anger whenever he'd forgotten his lines or stopped being the center of attention, but Herzog readily admits that the two needed each other to bring out their best. Watching this portrait, it's clear that the two had mutual respect for one another and at least occasional affection as well. Ironically, My Best Fiend also sports multiple confessions from the director, ostensibly the sane one, of plots to kill his belligerent star--the first for threatening to leave Aguirre, the Wrath of God just before the movie was completed ("I told him I had a rifle and by the time he'd reach the next bend in the river, there'd be eight bullets in his head and the ninth one would be mine") and another when he became so angry with Kinski on a different film that he decided to firebomb his house ("This was prevented only by the diligence of his Alsatian shepherd"). While Kinski died of natural causes in 1991, Herzog's offbeat tribute to his cinematic partner in crime has to rank as one of their most memorable projects ever. Rating: 5/5 stars! (http://www.anchorbayentertainment.com/)

Herzog (left) and Kinski share a quiet moment on the set

Killer's Paradise

Killer's Paradise (2006 DVD)
Directed by Giselle Portenier
Canada and U.K., 2006
In English with Spanish subtitles

I don't know how easy it will be to find this outside of academic circles (my library copy came in an unmarked DVD holder with a homemade, bootleg-looking insert typed out in Spanish), but it's definitely worth tracking down if you get the chance. Apparently first aired on the BBC's This World program a few years back, Killer's Paradise (Spanish title: Paraíso de asesinos) has to do with the ongoing murder spree against women in Guatemala that claimed over two thousand lives in the five years before the movie was made--with an average of two a day in Guatemala City alone (10 times Britain's rate). Although male murder victims outnumbered female victims by a ratio of 8 to 1 at the time of the documentary's shooting, producer/director Portenier and journalist/narrator Olenka Frenkiel point out that the number of women murdered had quadrupled in just the last three years.

While these are grim statistics by anyone's standards, the filmed interviews with family members of the victims reveal the horror of the individual tragedies in a way that statistics alone simply can't. "It's the fashion here to murder women," laments the husband of one victim resigned to the knowledge that his wife's killer will never be caught. "There's no safety in this day and age." In another moment, the brother of a slain college student rails against the police for their blame the victim mentality towards girls and women: "That's how they see the victims. As nobodies. It shouldn't be like that." Fearing reprisals, the single mother of a recently-slain teenager asks a "favor" of the two police who come to make a token investigation of her daughter's death--not to investigate at all "because my other children are still alive, and so am I." Elsewhere, the father of yet another young innocent confronts the bloody clothes his daughter was wearing on the day she was kidnapped and shot and sobs, "Here in Guatemala, there is so much impunity."

Although a reporter's voiceover wearily notes that "gangs, domestic violence, and drug wars are all blamed" for many of the brutal, unsolved murders, Killer's Paradise lays out a convincing case that the root causes of the femicide are more complicated than that. Woefully inefficient police, the unleashing of ex-army "civilians" trained to torture people during Guatemala's 36-year civil war, and a macho culture that permits rapists to avoid punishment if they marry their victims all play a contributing role to the cycle of unpunished violence. To add insult to injury, government officials' response to the killing spree has been one of almost complete indifference: a point shockingly brought home when Guatemala's gutless president Oscar Berger tells journalist Frenkiel that she should be "more optimistic" about the soaring murder rates and the lack of progress in holding anybody responsible for the savage killings. This isn't an easy piece of work to watch--and you might never want to visit Guatemala again after seeing it--but I can't recommend it strongly enough for its courage and its sense of moral outrage. A real eye-opener. (www.nfb.ca/webextension/killersparadise)

Flamenco

Flamenco (2003 DVD)

Dirigida por Carlos Saura

España, 1994

En español con subtítulos en inglés

"El Flamenco aparece en Andalucía en el sur de España a mediados del siglo XIX como una consecuencia del cruce de pueblos, religiones y culturas que dan lugar a un nuevo tipo de música. Crótalos griegos, jarchas mozárabes, cantos gregorianos, romances de Castilla y lamentos judíos. El son de la negritud, y el acento del pueblo gitano que viene de la lejana India para quedarse aquí. Se entremezclan para formar la estructura musical de lo que hoy llamamos el Flamenco y que se expresa mediante el cante, el baile, y la guitarra".

Vi este gran espectáculo multimedia en un estado de euforia. Después de lo dicho arriba (las únicas palabras que no son cantadas en el curso del documental), Flamenco se abre con una maravillosa interpretación de "Bulerías" por parte de Paquera de Jerez y otros (abajo). Si no fue exactamente un aficionado al Flamenco anteriormente, sí soy ahora a causa de la combinación de "cante, baile y guitarra" tan llena de vigor que se ve en este DVD. He visto el capítulo que contiene "Bulerías" cinco o seis veces en los últimos dos días, por ejemplo, y quedo estupefacto cada vez.

Milagrosamente, las más que veinte escenas que siguen este gran principio son casi de la misma alta calidad. Con cerca de 300 personas entre su "elenco", Saura nos ofrece una visión panorámica del Flamenco que llama la atención a varios estilos regionales al mismo tiempo que su obra parece ser una especie de albúm familiar andaluz (uno de los placeres de Flamenco es lo de ver ancianos y jovenes se convierten en "estrellas" de sus propios momentos de fama). Dado que soy nuevo en el ofico, no puedo decir cuán "auténtica" es esta música; sin obstante, solo afirmo lo obvio en decir que todas estas interpretaciones--como el grito gitano a capella del cantaor Agujetas abajo--son definidas por su intensidad artística.

Saura rodó este documental a la Antigua Estación de Ferrocarriles en Sevilla con la ayuda del reconocido cinematógrafo Vittorio Storaro. Aunque la cantidad de músicos, bailadores y otros participantes es impresionante en sí misma, Saura y Storaro sutilmente nos recuerda que este grupo brillante representa una cultura inconfundiblemente andaluza por rodar varias escenas con los colores "regionales" de sol a sol como telón de fondo. Entre los extras en el DVD estadounidense, se encuentra más información sobre los artistas y los géneros de esta música. Al final del día, no hay nada mas que decir: Flamenco es una obra que me encanta.

http://www.newyorkerfilms.com/

Encounters at the End of the World

Encounters at the End of the World
Directed by Werner Herzog
USA, 2007

With Herzog's Grizzly Man, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, and the incomparable My Best Fiend already entrenched on my list of all-time documentary favorites, I needed very little persuasion to check out his new doc on the big screen last Sunday night. While seemingly more straightforward than any of those efforts, Encounters still rates high in the entertainment department, blending the director's usual questioning of man's relationship to nature with some simply spectacular footage taken aboveground and underwater in Antarctica. Herzog gets off a couple of trademark blasts at "tree-huggers," "whale-huggers" and the makers of cute penguin movies during the course of the film, but most of the time this most idiosyncratic of humanists wisely chooses to let the images and the interviewees speak for themselves. Not that this is all fun and games. Since many among the scientists and support staff on camera confide that they're resigned to man's impending doom on the planet or suggest that they wound up on the icy continent because they didn't want any part of civilization as we know it in the first place, the result is a blend of the ethereal and the apocalyptic that's much more unsettling than its humble G rating would lead you to believe.

Viewed at the Kendall Square Cinema (Cambridge, MA) on 7/6/08.

"3 películas documentales uruguayas de Virginia Martínez"

Ácratas/Por esos ojos/Memoria de mujeres (2006 DVD)
Dirigida por Virginia Martínez
Uruguay, 1998-2005
En castellano

A diferencia de las otras películas de la semana que he mencionado hasta este punto, aquí son tres "lecciones de historia" disfrazadas de documentales. Aunque yo diría que el periodismo de Martínez es más interesante que su cinematografía, todas estas obras están bien hechas y todas son dignas de atención por sus temas.

• Ácratas (2003) es un documental de 73 minutos que tiene que ver con la historia de los "anarquistas expropiadores" en la región rioplatense al principio del siglo XX. Mezclando cine de época con entrevistas con algunos historiadores modernos, hace hincapié en las actividades de hombres como Buenaventura Durutti, Simón Radowitzky ("el santo del anarquismo") y Miguel Arcángel Roscigno. Un encabezamiento antiguo, "Montevideo se ha convertido en una pequeña Chicago", dice casi todo acerca de la violencia de la época.
• Por esos ojos (1998, co-dirigida por Gonzalo Arijón) es una obra de 62 minutos que cuenta el caso Mariana Zaffaroni. Zaffaroni fue secuestrada en Buenos Aires cuando tenía 18 meses, y sus padres (exiliados de Uruguay por motivos políticos) "desaparecieron" al mismo tiempo (probablemente fueron víctimas de uno de esos "vuelos de la muerte" según el testimonio escalofriante de un testigo acá). Después de una valiosa búsqueda de 16 años, la abuela de la niña, Maria Ester Gatti de Islas, descubrió que su nieta estaba viviendo bajo el nombre de Daniela Romina Furci con el ex-agente de SIDE (Servicio de Información del Estado, un ramo de la policía secreta) responsable del secuestro y con su esposa estéril. Increíblemente, aún después de aprender la verdad sobre su pasado, Zaffaroni decidió quedarse con los criminales y rechazar a su propia abuela de sangre. Un asunto muy pero muy conmovedor.
• Aunque Memoria de Mujeres (2005, 30 minutos) versa con el Penal Punta de Rieles de Montevideo, una cárcel de presas políticas clausurada en 1985 después de 12 años de la dictadura uruguaya, es el único de los tres documentales que tiene un verdadero fin feliz. Si las memorias de las ex-presas son tristes, uno se da cuenta que su sobrevivencia es una victoria contra las fuerzas de la represión en la misma manera en la cual sus testimonios son una victoria contra el silencio. (http://www.buencine.com.uy/)

Hecho en México

Romántico (2007 DVD)
Directed by Mark Becker
USA, 2005
In Spanish with English subtitles

Superb documentary on Mexican musician Carmelo Muñiz Sánchez and his attempts to eke out a meager living playing for tips in the bars and restaurants of San Francisco's Mission District. Described as "a reverse immigration tale" by director Mark Becker, the film follows the then 57-year old Carmelo from the Bay Area back to Salvatierra, Guanajuato when he decides to return home after a three-year absence to reconnect with his dying mother. The attendant complications, both economic and emotional but often one and the same, are dealt with throughout with an understated touch; however, the manner in which many of the scenes are composed--in particular, one of Carmelo alone at the Zócalo in Mexico City and of another where he learns that visitors' visas to the U.S. are only available to those Mexicans who happen to be very wealthy--is haunting in intensity. Interspersed with wonderful music as uplifting as it melancholy. (http://www.kino.com/)


*For more on Romántico, play the trailer below*