Today on KIOS at the Movies, Joshua LaBure, discusses three films that have been on his mind:
El Mar La Mar (2017)
Emerging from the tradition of Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab, which produced documentaries such as Leviathan and Sweetgrass, filmmakers Joshua Bonnetta and J.P. Sniadecki deliver a powerful and meditative piece about the tribulations migrants face when trying to cross the Mexico/United States border.
The film weaves together beautiful, powerful, and sometimes horrifying, impressionistic cinematography shot on 16mm film to create a cinematic painting that is more powerful than just hearing the stories we hear on the news. Wide sweeping silences, hot desert expanses with no shade, powerful lightning storms, border patrol helicopters flying above, and scenes of pitch-black darkness are all combined to create an immersive experience.
The engrossing sound design, brought to life by co-director and ambient musician/sound artist Joshua Bonnetta, includes snippets of stories from people who have seen horrible things living on the border, sounds of helicopters in the distance, thunder getting closer, and fires burning and rumbling the ground beneath us.
It’s startling to see how such beauty can quickly turn into a nightmare within a few frames.
This film is more of an experience than just a documentary. It’s worth making sure you have no distractions around, giving you time to soak in the film and process what you just saw and heard. This is the type of film that showcases how cinematic a non-fiction film can be.
“El Mar La Mar” is available now on Video on Demand and DVD.
Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game
Completely shifting tones in cinematic expression, I want to highlight a film that, on paper, should not work, but was incredibly funny, surprising, and entertaining.
"Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game," directed by Meredith and Austin Bragg, tells the story of Roger Sharpe, the young writer and pinball enthusiast from Chicago who helped get the 35-year-long pinball ban in NYC overturned.
The film uses documentary-esque interviews with the real Roger Sharpe, weaved with narrative film retellings of those stories. This type of conceit is really hard to pull off, but in the film, due to Sharpe's charm and willingness to even act through his "interviews," the strength of the performances from Mike Faist as Roger and Crystal Reed as his love interest (who in real life became his wife), and the direction of the Braggs, the film really comes to life.
It plays out like a stranger-than-fiction story in the likes of recent films like "Tetris" and the plethora of corporate heroes and villains stories that are very self-aware these days. But in this case, it's not about the corporate heroes. It's about the little guy who just loved pinball. That lends the film a sweetness and humanity that makes it such a pleasant watch.
Of course, the stakes are fairly low in this film, but it's a really fun watch - a great date night movie or for anyone interested in weird forgotten histories, like the fact that pinball was banned for 35 years in New York and other cities across America for being labeled as a game of chance and being associated with the mob and gambling. All the while, Sharpe and many like him proved that there is skill involved in the game.
"Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game" is now available on VOD and Kanopy.
River
Lastly I’d like to highlight a new documentary, River, from directors Jennifer Peedom and Joseph Nizeti and narrated by Willem DaFoe. This incredibly beautiful and impressionistic film explores the wonder, importance, and force that rivers possess. They sustain life, allow us to live in cities like Omaha, help us grow food and create energy. However, they can also flood cities and destroy communities and ironically they are fragile ecosystems and are being wiped out by desert communities, dams and the constant march forward in the name of capitalist progress.
The cinematography is the focus of the film, and it is stunning. We see incredible views of rivers, sweeping drone shots of waterfalls, and underwater shots of sediment and life, all visually telling the story of rivers without any sit-down interviews, charts or fact sheets. The documentary also features an incredible score from Australian Chamber Orchestra, as well as much Johnny Greenwood and Radiohead. The score is equally as important as the visuals - it really feels like an Odyssey, and together, they bring the story of rivers to life.
This documentary is full of wonder, beauty, tragedy, and hope. I highly recommend seeing River as soon as possible and getting lost in its captivating imagery and soundscape.
“River” is now playing in theatres and VOD.
