AFGHANISTAN YEAR 1380
directed by Alberto Vendemmiati and Fabrizio Lazzaretti

Anabah, Northern Afghanistan houses an emergency hospital established by European relief agency NGO and Italian documentary filmmakers Alberto Vendemmiati and Fabrizio Lazzaretti traveled there one month after September 11, 2001 to document the trials of war surgeon Gino Strada and medical coordinator Kate Rowlands while the United States and the world mounted retaliatory strikes against terrorist organization Al Qaeda and the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Returning to an emergency hospital in the heart of capital city Kabul vacated just six months previous at the behest of an aggressive Taliban, chain-smoking Dr. Strada and a small staff of Afghan caregivers engage in the process of life-saving in the middle of a horrifically volatile hot spot. The reality of metal death raining from the clear desert skies hounds the doctors as civilian casualties--children and old women among them--parade through their theatre in an endless, Brechtian stream of carnage and viscera. The picture is a harsh, nigh unwatchable, reminder of that no matter how just the war, the first casualty is the innocents at the periphery. (Images from within Northern Alliance jail housing Taliban soldiers as Dr. Strada and Rowlands make their rounds are likewise thorny and disturbing though, I confess, arousing of less sympathy in my hardened heart.) As valuable a document as any of the nightmare of modern aggression, Afghanistan Year 1380 humanizes the victims of every war as it celebrates the courage of people who have dedicated their lives to the love of mankind. Given over to the occasional tiresome "meaningful zoom-in" on haunted peepers (an artifact of the Italian Euro-Horror genre, perhaps), Afghanistan Year 1380 remains a surprisingly non-didactic record of the human price of warfare weighed free of polemical dogma. Though it may be difficult for we as Americans to consider the comparison in this wrathful time, the blood spilled in rubble laid waste from the sky pours just as red for non-combatants in Afghanistan as it did for the same in Manhattan and D.C.. The picture should be a call to arms for the United States to produce a similarly visceral document of 9/11 free of politicizing and our dangerous yen for the human-interest story so that we might better remember the profundity of what we've collectively lost.***1/2 (out of four)

AUGUST: A MOMENT BEFORE THE ERUPTION
directed by Avi Mograbi

The very definition of "self-indulgent" and "hubristic," Israeli director Avi Mograbi's August: A Moment Before the Eruption (hereafter "August") is a dreary, strident documentary cum performance-art piece that seeks to relocate Eliot's "cruellest" month to August and, in the process, provide proof (as if proof were needed) of the violence and fury simmering beneath Israel's day-to-day. That most of the vérité footage of the picture is Mograbi walking around with a camera and antagonizing people by poking it in their faces muddies the film's thesis beyond repair: are people in Israel prone to violence or just prone to violence against Mograbi? (After spending this interminable 70 minutes with Mograbi, I'm leaning towards the latter.) Though it's a matter of the law of averages that a few interesting scenes are captured on the streets of Israel, Mograbi is far too infatuated with his own sense of the absurd as he stages abrasively amateurish split-screen melodramas between himself and his "wife" (Mograbi wearing a pink towel-turban) and "auditions" a trio of actresses vying for the role of the wife of a mass murderer in a fantasy project. Redundant in the extreme, August has the distinction of failing both as a documentary and as a piece of experimental cinema; I understand that Mograbi hopes his antagonism toward the month of August is reflected in our irritation with his little project, but when one seeks to make a Hebrew version of "The Tom Green Show," one should first consider whether "The Tom Green Show" actually has anything valuable to say about the society it disturbs.* (out of four)

FAMILY FUNDAMENTALS
directed by Arthur Dong

Arthur Dong's remarkable roundelay documentary Family Fundamentals traces three fundamentalist Christian families dealing with their homosexual children and how those grown children, in turn, sublimate that destructive lack of tolerance and hatred into, ironically, something approaching a Christian acceptance and grace. With an even-handedness that is remarkable and absolutely appropriate, Dong gives equal time to both sides of the issue, charting the political, social, and emotional toll of hate and fear on the families wondering where they went wrong and the children wishing they still had a family. A sequence in which the son of a Mormon minister stalks the halls outside the reception area where his grandparents are marrying is an astonishingly heartbreaking portrait of disconnection and loneliness. Dong is an intrusive presence in his picture--his questions are heard and he allows off-topic asides to remain unaltered ("Is that blinking light your battery light?" Dong is asked. "Are you being nosy?" he responds. "No, I'm trying to change the subject"). His style is as open and frank as his subjects, but Dong is a canny documentarian, going so far as to ambush conservative congressman Bob Dornen on his radio show to comment on his treatment of his adopted gay son. Godly Midwesterners preaching a platform of "curing" homosexuals are detailed with an inhuman patience and lack of condescension while nearly every facet of either side of the divide combine to provide an incendiary, deeply thought-provoking look at one of the most peculiar (and peculiarly venomous) bigotries in our increasingly frightening theocracy.**** (out of four)

JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE
directed by Jon Osman and Jonathan Stack

A documentary that takes a look at a case of possible police misconduct resulting in the deaths of two Hispanic youths, Jon Osman and Jonathan Stack's Justifiable Homicide is another iteration of an old story, one that seemed to recur with an uncomfortable regularity under the Draconian anti-crime thumb of former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Featuring interviews with the parents and friends of one of the slain teens (going so far as to track down a friendly witness in exile)--Anthony Rosario--but none of the officers involved in the case, Justifiable Homicide presents a skewed version of the tale, though it appears as though an understandable reticence on law enforcement's part to participate is more to blame than a lack of completion. Still, the effect of the piece is to offer a story about an un-justifiable homicide that is probably true without major insights into the kind of corruption or environment that might have led to (and repeatedly leads to) this kind of incident. More, rather than giving voice to an otherwise forgotten incident, the picture seems to be mainly responding to Rosario's mother Margarita, an extremely strong woman who organizes events and marches on behalf of her slain son in a quest for what she believes to be truth. Fitfully interesting (though it's difficult to separate whether that interest is a result of a voyeuristic curiosity or actual outrage), Justifiable Homicide presents a good case while failing to provide a reason for us to care beyond the very basic dictums of human decency. Margarita's founding and championing of "Parents Against Police Brutality" becomes, by the end of the film, the film's reason for being, though it's unclear the impact her group has made besides a significant increase in the number of people marching through the streets of New York, holding pictures of lost loved ones. Shot well before the events of 9/11, these images, juxtaposed a time or two with Margarita lobbying in ground floor of the World Trade Center, take on a magnified haunted feeling the picture hasn't quite earned.** (out of four)

THE LAST JUST MAN
directed by Steven Silver

The Last Just Man, Steven Silver's difficult documentary on the genocide that occurred in Rwanda of 1994 and the gross incompetence of the United Nations as an effective "peace-keeping" entity, is a harrowing exposé of the hazards of international politics and the problems of communicating atrocity even in midst of the information age. A carefully researched and brilliantly composed piece, The Last Just Man's centrepiece is an extended, raw interview with General Dellaire, the Canadian officer in charge of 2,500 UN troops (he had asked for 5,000), who heroically refused to leave his command as the massacres of the minority Tutsi tribe escalate around him and countries began pulling out their powder blue-helmeted soldiers. Over the course of one-hundred days, over 800,000 people were slaughtered under the fearful eye of the UN security council--still reeling in 1994 from the example of America's resounding failure and cowardly retreat from Somalia a year previous (the widely misinterpreted Black Hawk Down is, in its way, as brilliant an examination of hubris and incompetence in military leadership). With only 450 troops, Dellaire headed out daily to document the genocide he was made helpless to stop (evidence, unrefuted, shows that not only was Dellaire capable of halting the atrocities before they occurred, but nearly every step along the way was he directly thwarted by the United Nations and their astounding lack of moral fortitude), sending daily reports back to the world media on the unspeakable things he witnessed until, finally, the United States was forced to declare the situation a "genocide" and thus compel a meaningful response.

Dellaire speaks in a hoarse tenor--his eyes are haunted and shaded as he recounts things done to children by the rampaging majority Hutus--he is more than the last just man of the title, he is a hero on a scale almost impossible to quantify. Silver doesn't bang his drum, however, choosing instead to gather a preponderance of evidence and historical information (and its accompanying irony, especially in regards to the role of Belgium first in Rwanda's colonization, then its return as UN peacekeepers)--and the final resolution, that the UN must have a standing army in the cause of human rights, is less jingoistic philanthropy than ultimately just common sense. The best thing about a magnificent picture, The Last Just Man's ability to illustrate what it means to be a decent and moral human being as a function of common sense makes the film a thing of uncommon power and surpassing grace.**** (out of four)

PRESUMED GUILTY
directed by Pamela Yates

Directed by Pamela Yates, Presumed Guilty is a workmanlike documentary following the literal trials and existential tribulations of the defense attorneys working at every level of the criminal justice system in the San Francisco courts. Drawing its drama from the real-life plight of the legal eagles' disadvantaged clientele, the piece is only distinguished from its network news magazine brethren by the laudable absence of a Serling-esque anchor/narrator/master-of-ceremonies. Without a genuinely assailable focus or a single credible contrary point of view, the picture's single perspective is of limited interest. The rawness of the courtroom footage reminds most of the afternoon highlights of Court TV, so that what's left of distinction from Yates' examination are lawyer testimonials, which succeed in profiling an almost dangerous zeal (a Vietnam vet-turned-attorney's recollections are particularly disquieting) for the purest ideals of justice common among the underpaid public defenders--fed almost exclusively, it seems, by their sense of unerring blazing-sword righteousness. It occurs to me that the feeling of ordinariness suffusing Presumed Guilty perhaps speaks more to the state of our post-O.J. savvy than to any real shortcoming in the film's approach, but in the end, that's only another avenue of depth and inspection overlooked by the picture.**1/2 (out of four)

PROFIT AND NOTHING BUT
directed by Raoul Peck

A sombre exercise so message-laden that it ultimately says nothing at all, Profit and Nothing But rails against capitalism and the madness of the wealthiest 2% controlling the purses of the world, but it provides very little in terms of viable alternatives and proximate solutions in our own lives. It urges activism but its thesis (that capitalism is inescapable) is so firm that it seeks to make heroes of those benefiting from the social system and martyrs of those already suffering from it. Speaking largely from the point of view of his native Haiti, writer/director Raoul Peck is a talented editor, laying in a solemn narration over images of New York's concrete canyons interposed with Haiti's poverty, but a trio of interviews with French economists pounding on the logic of the dollar and glimpses of men and women on the street talking about how tough it is to make a buck only inspire the capitalist in me to look for a better job and urge them to do the same. It's impossible to argue the point, in other words, especially from a point of view such as my own that is so mired in the promise of the "American Dream" with all the capitalist ramifications that come part and parcel with that aspiration. All that Profit and Nothing But really accomplishes, then, is to provide some moving portraits of poverty with the overlying stump having the novelty of blaming the system of exchange rather than particular political corruptions and wage of war. Too often, the piece seems to propose an abolishment of capitalism as a failed process (and, indeed, with our recent economic woes, the machine doesn't seem to be in that grand a shape)--but whether the viable alternative is to be socialism, communism, or some combination of both with capitalism the footman should the other two prove again to be unviable options, Profit and Nothing But seems less than certain.*1/2 (out of four)

7 DAYS IN TEHRAN
directed by Reza Khatibi

Not only about a French documentary crew traveling to Tehran to film a subject-less documentary, but also about a man (Rezi Khatibi, also the writer/director) returning to his culture after fifteen years in self-imposed exile, Khatibi's 7 Days in Tehran captures the stew of embarrassment, affection, and alienation in which people divorced from their cultures and desirous of a reunion often find themselves. But it does more than just document a middle coming-of-age, managing to find the pulse and the sensibility of a Middle Eastern culture that most of us who grew up in the seventies saw as a mortal enemy. A scene where a policeman, horrified that an Iranian pedestrian has mistaken a French actor for a thief fears that the French might get the wrong idea about Iranians, resonates particularly for its insight and humanity. Its performances transparent and its screenplay (by Khatibi and his co-actors Esfandiar Esfandi, Anelle Halfon, and Anahita Maafi) sometimes mysterious, sometimes ebullient, and often insightful, 7 Days in Tehran falters in its shifting from the omniscient to the documentary point of view (the change in stock represented by a distracting blue colour filter) but more often impresses with its sense of story and place. A nice culture clash drama played straight for a change, 7 Days in Tehran seems slight at first glance, yet its impact is abiding.*** (out of four)

TAIF AL-MADINA (In the Shadows of the City)
directed by Jean Khalil Chamoun

As theatrical and monumental in its way as Danis Tanovic's No Man's Land, Jean Khalil Chamoun's Taif Al-Madina ("In the Shadows of the City") details the melancholy of war through the eyes of Rami (Majdi Machmouchi, played by Rami Bayram as a child) first as a pre-pubescent crush that ends with the flight of little girl Yasmine (Sarah Mourad) from Beirut on the threshold of war, then as a journey into the heart of darkness as an adult Rami explores the ruin of his childhood wonderland. Surprisingly non-didactic for its subject matter, Rami's story is carried with unerring dignity by Machmouchi and Chamoun's sure-touch as writer/director, transforming the theoretical connection between The Wizard of Oz and Apocalypse Now into its literal manifestation. When this twice-transplanted Dorothy (Rami's family is Palestinian, forced to flee that nation as the film begins) returns to the stark reality of his Beirut "Kansas," he encounters familiar faces in guises of war while, one by one, they are taken from him through death, abduction, happenstance, betrayal, and sad serendipity. Taif Al-Madina is absolutely true to its themes of societal decay and the bittersweet, chaotic passion of life. Punctuated at key points by actual footage of the devastation wrought by Beirut's civil war, the picture feels a great deal like a multi-media-enhanced stage play that is powerful in its way but restrained as well by the strict dictates of the stage-form. Loose threads tied into narrow bonds, Taif Al-Madina nonetheless proves a satisfying exercise in political filmmaking that doesn't really have anything terribly surprising to say, but says it with a genuineness of intention that forgives a multitude of narrative conveniences.*** (out of four)

WAR PHOTOGRAPHER
directed by Christian Frei

Coughing into a rag at a sulphur mine sketched by Bosch, veteran photojournalist James Nachtwey (a little David Strathairn mixed with a little Treat Williams, and speaking with the slightly demented sprung rhythm of Crispin Glover) betrays one of three moments of obvious humanity in Christian Frei's remarkable documentary War Photographer. So long on the frontlines of man's inhumanity to man, Nachtwey is an enigma even to his friends and ex-lovers--stoic and unflappable, he is the anomaly of an old foreign photo correspondent and his time in the trenches (increasingly borrowed, it seems) tells in the creases on his brow. Nachtwey has a monkish reserve to him, a faraway look of a quiet man more comfortable with a camera acting as his stuttering mouthpiece, but his photographs (sledgehammer blows of emulsion and light) betray a heroic passion and a surprising eloquence. Capturing much of his footage with a tiny camera affixed to the side of Nachtwey's camera, Frei comes as close as one can come to elucidating the process of creation and genius in the difference between the final product constantly compared in our mind to events we witnessed unfolding in "real cinematic time." There's a story of suffering (and a purity) in each of Nachtwey's immaculate frames--the abominations we witness from Frei's point of view in Kosovo to Jakarta to Ramallah merely chaotic dioramas of atrocity. War Photographer charts a lifelong crusade to find the one true thing in a field of uncertainties; it is uplifting as only a document of the worst possibilities of mankind can be, and among the best films of the year.**** (out of four)