I did manage to see 33 docs this year and they run the gamut from horrible to brilliant.
It’s an exciting time to be a documentary lover that’s for sure.
Without a doubt, the worst documentary I saw this
year was How to Make Money Selling Drugs (Matthew Cooke) a glib, cynical “exploration” of the drug war, told like an infomercial explaining
how to be a drug dealer, than turns almost unbearable preachy in its final half
hour. I’ll stick with last year’s excellent The House I Live In for a better
view of the issue. The Institute (Spencer McCall) was an
extremely frustrating experience – a documentary about an “alternate reality
game”, which expresses no opinion, and simply strings the audience along for its
entire runtime. The Source Family (Maria
Demopoulos & Jodi Wille) was about the New Age religious group of the
1970s, led by Father Yod, which to me seemed be pulling it’s punches a little
bit – not really wanting to do a thorough examination of its subject. Our Nixon (Penny Lane) is a film that
many people loved, but to me it didn’t really give any new insights on Richard
Nixon or his advisers, so it felt more than a little warmed over.
Better than those films, but still not quite good
enough is Call Me Kuchu (Katherine Fairfax Wright & Malika Zouhali-Worrall) a film about an undeniably important subject matter – the proposed
anti-gay laws in Uganda, but is far too dull a movie to do its subject full
justice. Evocateur: The Morton Downey
Jr. Movie (Seth Kramer & Daniel A. Miller & Jeremy Newberger) is a
fascinating look at a nearly forgotten TV figure, but could have benefitted by
not being made by admitted fans of the man in question. Happy
People: A Year in the Taiga (Dmitry Vasyukov & Werner Herzog) is an utterly beautiful film, about hunters who spend months in the
Russian wilderness each year, but it also drags quite a bit in places. Is the Man Who is Tall Happy? (Michel
Gondry) is a fascinating animated conversation between the French director
and Noam Chomsky. The Jeffrey Dahmer
Files (Chris James Thompson) is a different look at the serial killer – and
not the place you want to start if you know nothing about the man – but never
quite grips like it should. Muscle
Shoals (Greg “Freddy” Camalier) maybe a little too in love with its subject
for its own good, but is still a fine doc about the famous small Alabama town
where a lot of great music was recorded. Which
Way is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Heatherton (Sebastian
Junger) is an emotional tribute to the fallen reporter/documentary
filmmaker by the man he co-directed the Oscar nominated Restrepo with – it’s
not close to being that good, but it is a fine film.
A step up from those films is Birth of the Living Dead (Rob Kuhns) a must see for fans of George A. Romero and his Living Dead series – and
since I’m a huge fan, I enjoyed it quite bit. Non-fans are safe to skip it. Dear Mr. Watterson (Joel Allen Schroeder) does
something similar for fans of Calvin & Hobbes – and if you’re not a fan of
those two, what the hell is wrong with you? The Last Gladiators (Alex Gibney) is a very good look at hockey
enforcer Chris Nilan, who has led a troubled life – and the wider issue of
whether the NHL needs goons anymore – a must for hockey fans like me. Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer (Mike Lerner
& Maxim Pozdorovkin) tells the story of the now infamous all girl punk
band, who protested against the church and government and went to jail for it. Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out (Marina
Zenovich) is not nearly as good as Zenovich’s first Polanski doc – Wanted
and Desired – and is a little too much of an apologia for the man who has
admitted to raping a 13 year old girl for my tastes, but it remains an
undeniably fascinating story.
In a weaker year, I would have gladly included the
following films in my top 10 docs of the year – but it’s just too crowded for
them this year. The Crash Reel (Lucy
Walker) tells the emotional story of snowboarder Kevin Pearce, who at one
point looked to challenge Shaun White until a horrific injury forever changed
him. Dirty Wars (Rick
Rowley) tells an important story
about the worldwide anti-terrorism efforts by America – and their wide ranging
implications that many do not want to talk about. Gideon’s Army (Dawn Porter) is an utterly fascinating look at overworked, underfunded Public
Defenders in America – many of whom leave shortly after they start. Informant (Jamie Meltzer) tells the
fascinating story of Brandon Darby, who starts out a radical left wing
activist, and ends a Tea Party speaker, with stops as an FBI Informant along
the way. Sound City (Dave Grohl) is
a nostalgic look back at a now closed recording studio, where some of the
greatest rock albums of all time were recorded. Valentine Road (Marta Cunningham) was a heartbreaking, but
surprisingly clear eyed account of a tragic murder of a gay teenager by a
classmate. We Steal Secrets: The Story
of WikiLeaks (Alex Gibney) probably does not contain any new information
about Julian Assange and his once uber-powerful website, but it’s a fascinating
portrait nonetheless.
One more note before I get to the top 10 – two films that got quite a
bit of praise this year that I DID see are not included. Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell would easily have
ranked very high on my list, but I didn’t include it because it was released in
Canada in 2012 – when I named it the Best Documentary of the year. The Gatekeepers did one of those
hit-and-run qualifying releases late in 2012, and it worked as it got nominated
for an Oscar last year. Again, it would easily make my top 10 list of docs of
the year, but that would seem rather strange given that it was nominated last
year, so I didn’t include it.
Which brings me to my top 10 docs of the year.
10. The Punk Singer: A Film About Kathleen Hanna (Sini Anderson)
The Punk Singer is a fascinating portrait of
Kathleen Hanna – the lead singer of Bikini Kill – the influential punk band
from the early-to-mid 1990s, who sang about feminism. Hanna has an undeniable
energy when she performs, and she used her sexuality smartly – when she speaks,
she sounds like a Valley Girl, until you listen to what she is saying. The band
was one of the most talked about of its time – yet never really made much
money. All that would be fascinating enough – but the film offers a more
complete portrait of Hanna – and her post Bikini Kill career and life, which in
some ways is even more fascinating. Yes, the film is perhaps a little too
infatuated with Hanna – there are intelligent people who had and still have
problems with her, but they are mainly shunted to the background – but what the
film mainly intends to do is inspire, and in that it succeeds wonderfully.
9. A Band Called Death (Mark Christopher Covino & Jeff Howlett)
Three African American brothers from Detroit form a
punk band in the early 1970s – a few years before The Ramones and The Sex
Pistols would hit it big. They develop a small cult following, and even record
an album – but the record company doesn’t want the record, at least in part
because the brothers refuse to rename their band – Death. Decades go by, and
only a few people even remember the band – which broke up years ago, with two
brothers moving on to form a reggae band, and the other returning to Detroit to
toil in obscurity, and descend into alcoholism – before, miraculously, they are
rediscovered. A Band Called Death shares some similarities with last year’s
Oscar winner – Searching for Sugar Man – except this time directors Mark
Christopher Covino and Jeff Howlett put the surviving brother’s front and
center the whole time, instead of playing up a mystery angle. This makes the
film a more straight forward documentary, but one no less satisfying -and
emotional. The music, by the way, is great – as a New York Times article said a
few years ago, this band was punk before punk was punk.
8. The Cheshire Murders (Kate Davis)
The most undervalued documentary of the year is
this one, made by Kate Davis. In it, she recounts the horrific crimes
perpetrated by Joshua A. Komisarjevsky & Steven J. Hayes. The two invade
the home of the Petit family in Cheshire, Connecticut, beat the father with a
baseball bat, and tie up the mother and the couple’s two daughters and rob the
house. They were not, however, satisfied with the haul they got – so Hayes
takes the mother to the bank the next morning so she can withdraw more money.
Despite the fact that she is able to tell the teller what is happening – and
the police are notified – they allow Hayes to take the mother back home. It is
then they real horrific action takes place – involving rape and the death of
the mother and daughters – although the father is able to escape. The
documentary switches focus throughout – concentrating on the crime first, the
police’s action (or lack thereof) second, the lives of the criminals third, and
finally to question the death penalty – not because there is any doubt about
guilt, or the horrific nature of the crime, but whether everything required to
put someone to death is worth the toll it takes on everyone involved. I
admittedly watch too many crime shows – 48 Hours, Dateline, etc. – and when I
sat down to watch this (which aired on CNN, after airing on HBO); I assumed I
was going to get a documentary like that. But this one is deeper and more
thoughtful than that. Too bad very few people noticed. 
7. Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Verena Paravel)
I was not quite as big of a fan of Leviathan as
many critics were – but there is no denying that it is a one of a kind
documentary, and one of the key films of the year. I have never seen anything
quite like this film – which takes place on a merchant fishing vessel, and
immerses the viewer in all the gritty, ugly details. You won’t really learn
what life on a ship like this is like – that’s not what the film does. What it
does do is put some of the most unique images I have ever seen on film – from
the view of fish being killed, to attaching a camera to fishing nets as they
are thrown out to sea. Directors Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel are
breaking new ground with a film like this – it certainly isn’t the most
enjoyable film of the year, but it’s sure as hell interesting and one of a
kind. 
Cutie and the Boxer is a documentary about two artists who are married to each other – one of those artists is well known, but still cannot sell anything he makes, and the other is almost completely unknown – and has the same problem. What’s different about Cutie and the Boxer than many artist documentaries is that the film doesn’t really shy away from the harsh truths about its subjects - Ushio Shinohara may well be famous, but for years he has also been a brute, and while his art is undeniably different, and to some important, I think it’s also clear why he doesn’t sell much (would you hang one of his wall sized boxing painting in your house? Or buy a life sized motorcycle made out of cardboard from him?). His wife, Noriko, is far more sympathetic – having dealt with her husband and his drinking for decades now – and finally getting some attention for her own work. What makes Cutie and the Boxer so fascinating is its portrait of a complicated marriage – one that isn’t always happy – and is sometimes downright miserable – but one where both partners want to stick it out.
5. 20 Feet from Stardom (Morgan Neville)
The highest grossing documentary of the year was
this crowd-pleasing doc about the unsung stars of music – the mostly African
American, mostly female backup singers who sing the hooks to some of American
music’s best loved songs. Most of these women wanted to be stars, but never did
quite make it – talent not being the deciding factor, but perhaps drive,
ambition or simply bad breaks were. The documentary is a fascinating look at
something most of us probably never even think of – the stories they tell are
at times inspiring, at times heartbreaking. Documentaries are best at
highlighting stories that otherwise would never be told – and that is precisely
what 20 Feet from Stardom does so well. 
4. The Unknown Known (Errol Morris)
Some have complained that in The Unknown Known,
Errol Morris simply lets former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tell his side
of the story – and that Morris never truly is able to nail him. This is true to
a certain extent – but the portrait the film paints of Rumsfeld is hardly
flattering. It is clear throughout the film that Rumsfeld is either lying to
cover up past mistakes, or is lying now to cover up previous lies, etc.
Basically what I’m saying if the portrait of Rumsfeld that comes out of this
fascinating documentary is one of a liar – a man who will say anything in order
to cover his own ass, and who seemingly has no remorse for anything that went
wrong (the closest he comes is admitting “Mistakes were made” – without going
into detail of what those mistakes were). As is typical of Morris’ films, The
Unknown Known is impeccably made – with great use of archival footage and an
excellent score by Danny Elfman. No, The Unknown Known is not one of Morris’
very best films – which include his previous film, the wonderful, under rated
Tabloid – but even lesser Morris is better than what most documentary
filmmakers make at their best. 
3. Blackfish (Gabriela Cowperthwaite)
In Seaworld there is currently an Orca named Tillicum
– who has been involved in the death of three people – two trainers and one
crazy man who thought it would be fun to sneak into Seaworld after hours and
swim with an Orca. According to Blackfish, there has never been a recorded
incident of an Orca killing a human being in the wild, but this one Orca has
killed three? As the movie argues, convincingly, you really cannot blame Tillicum
for what he has done – he was captured as a baby, taken away from his family,
put into small pens with other Orcas who abused him, has been abused by some
trainers, and been forced to perform for screaming crowds on cue. Tillicum is
as much of a victim as anyone in the story. The movie argues that Orcas do not
belong in captivity – that they shouldn’t be trained to perform for our
amusement. I find both arguments convincing. A few years after seeing The Cove,
and learning what dolphins in captivity go through, I’m more convinced than
ever to avoid Seaworld – and every park like it – forever. 
2. Room 237 (Rodney Ascher)
There is a fine line between closely analyzing a
movie for its subtext, and just batshit crazy conspiracy theories – and it’s a
line that Room 237 explores brilliantly. The film allows five people who have
watched Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining obsessively for decades to expound their
theories as to what it means – according to them it’s either a Holocaust film
or a Native American genocide film or Kubrick’s confession for faking the moon
landing or other crazy theories. Watching the film, I found myself at times
coming close to seeing what these obsessives were talking about – only to have
their theories fly off the rails at other points, when they bring up ludicrous
connections. There are only a few films in cinema history where a film like
Room 237 would actually work – The Shining being just about perfect because
it’s a Kubrick film, and he’s a well-known perfectionist, so nothing could
possibly be a mistake (could it?) and because the film was viewed at the time
as a strange choice for Kubrick as it’s “only a horror movie”. Room 237 is
fascinating and transfixing – and at times hilarious. A brilliant documentary
even if you cannot believe a word of it.
1. The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer)
Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing is the
most audacious and original documentary of the year – by far. The film is about
the 1965-66 genocide in Indonesia – where the military got “gangsters” to kill
thousands of “Communists” throughout the country – although their definition of
Communist extended to anyone who was Chinese, or a member of a union or were
simply critical of the military regime. Amazingly even now – nearly 50 years
later – the men who committed these crimes are still celebrated as heroes in
Indonesia. Oppenheimer interviews some of the men – including Anwar Congo – and
finds that none of them are ashamed of what they did, or try to hide it.
Oppenheimer even gives them cameras and has them recreate what they did anyway
they want to – and being big fans of American movies, some of these
re-enactments are hyper-stylized as film noir, or musicals, etc. To some, this
is incredibly irresponsible – I admit there were moments that thought crept up
on me while watching the film. And yet what The Act of Killing does do is get
inside Anwar’s head – a place where at first he seems to be extremely
comfortable, but gradually we see the cracks he has – the regrets, the
nightmares. This doesn’t make Anwar a victim – he is a murderer and a criminal
– but it does make him human, which is terrifying. More than a year after I saw
this film at TIFF 2012, it has stayed with me – and haunted me. A brilliant
documentary.
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