To start things off on a particularly strong foot i will discuss my personal favorite of the festival first.
"Late is arbitrary." In three words this sentence causes one to question time and its relevance in the universe. After all, time is a manufactured metric created by humans to help us organize our world with-in an infinitely chaotic universe. But I have digressed, before i shovel this blog full of pretentious philososhit about time and space, i will attempt to speak coherently about Coco Schrijber's wonderful film Bloody Mondays and Strawberry pies. Narrated by the sonorous and enthusiastic voice of John Malkovich, Bloody Mondays goes far beyond the callings of documentaty films. Although it charades itself as a exploration of Boredom and the human condition, Bloody Mondays is in fact so much more. Through a series of delicious interviews that are unmatched this side of a Werner Herzog film and with Malkovich reading from both Notes from the Underground and American Psycho, This film touches thoughts and feelings that are rarely evoked in todays cinema. To try to put my own spin on the material presented in this film would be too self important even for this aptly (or perhaps not so much anymore) titled blog. Instead I will share a few ideas that the film roused during my viewing.
First, is it possible to be bored with out knowing it, or is it impossible to be bored and know it?
"Does every young person believe they will lead a fascinating life?"
Why does time matter? Why have humans created a abstract system to measure what we perceive to be "Time"? Because of Death time matters.
The best appraisal i can find for Bloody Mondays is that in many ways it reminded me of Errol Morris's transcending piece Fast, Cheap and Out of Control. In other words, Absolutely watch it.
Given my time restraints I will now have to curtail my review work and wrap with one final mini-Review.
Of all the films that played at SilverDocs, one will rise above the rest in terms of public success and perception. I feel compelled to speak about Louie Psihoyos' The Cove not because I found it to be a particularly good film, and not even because I agree with the themes in the film. I am speaking about this film because from a theoretical filmic standpoint, the film presents a very serious issue.
Before I get into the meat of my argument, i must elaborate on the content of the film. The Cove deals with a secretive cove and industry in a remote region of Japan that is responsible for the capture and slaughter of 23000 dolphin a year. From what the film tells me, it is apparent that this industry is a well guarded secret both in Japan and across the world. This film is designed to show the world what it does not know and to incite a movement to stop the capture and killing of dolphins. And this is exactly why I am writing about the film today. This Film is Propaganda.
I will admit that the film is very well made, it is paced well, beautiful, mature, captivating and tense-all excellent qualities that are hard to find in documentaries, but given its unyielding political agenda, I find it difficult to absolutely praise this film. It is no doubt effective, after watching the film I felt compelled to approach the director and his marketing personal to inquire about when this film would be available for campus distribution because I thought that students needed to be able to see this film NOW! But those feelings were not the effect of a particularly strong film, they were the result of effective propaganda, and I was the target and the victim.
This brings me to the most interesting aspect of a film like The Cove. Given its backing and run-away success across the festival scene, The Cove is getting setup to be a Box Office and TV Home Run around the world (even Japan). It will draw millions of views and create millions of Dolphin-activists. So is it ethical for a Film Maker to create this kind of a Film even if it is for a seemingly positive cause? I must say the answer is No. Propaganda is a political tool, it is more than a political tool, it is a weapon-and i dont need to elaborate on the merits of weapons.
I do not believe that The Cove handled its material ethically. To the general public this film may be understood as journalism and the Film Makers seem to have every intention to promote that view. So why didn't they just produce a piece with strict journalistic integrity?
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