| VIENNALE 2008 capsules (1/7) : documentaries in competition : including 'The Inheritors' [7/10] |
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 End of the Rainbow. A solid, sensitive look at how globalisation can disrupt delicate economic and social eco-systems, focussing on the arrival of industrialised gold-mining in a sparsely-populated corner of Guinea (West Africa.) While 'The Company' presents a avuncular, paternalistic but relatively forward-thinking image - perhaps partly for the benefit of the cameras - it doesn't take long for various discontents to surface. The director focusses mainly on men going about their labours, punctuating these Michael-Glawogger-ish sequences with spoken and/or sung testimony from the locals - the latter adding a soulful, reflective dimension to the film that prevents it from being merely fly-on-the-wall fare. The Inheritors. Though less impressive than his devastating 2004 debut Tropic of Cancer, Eugenio Polgovsky's follow-up confirms him as a high-calibre documentarian. Once again, he delivers an unadorned, uninflected look at poverty-striken lives in today's Mexico - the emphasis now on various forms of child labour. There is no voice-over, no on-screen titles to provide information about the subject, forcing the viewer to come to their own disturbing deductions. We're initially surprised that the children seem so happy - smiling for the camera like youngsters do. But the implications of those smiles are, we realise, more troubling and haunting than pages of statistics. Must Read After My Death. Chronicle of an unorthodox, dysfunctional American family will be compared with Andrew Jarecki's Capturing the Friedmans - both depend on the subjects' own enormous, self-recorded archives. But while Morgan Dews, a junior member of the clan himself, doesn't come up with anything quite so shatteringly disorienting as Jarecki, there's still much of psychological and social interest here. It's essentially a clear-eyed tribute to his free-spirited grandmother, whose 'open' marriage to a continent-hopping womaniser gradually shades from happiness into nightmare. The archive of audio and visual footage is very smartly edited, though Paul Damian Hogan's score is somewhat over-conventional and distracting. The Order of Myths. This study of American race-relations is certainly timely, but Margaret Brown's unobtrusively anthropological profile of the Mardi Gras celebrations in Mobile, Alabama (the oldest such festivities in the country, and long since "segregated" into a pair of parallel, wildly elaborate events, one organised by the black community, one by the whites) would be worthy of attention at any juncture. Deft and even-handed, it's surprisingly illuminating about the past (countless eye-opening details emerge), a colourfully vibrant record of the present, and also a cautiously optimistic peek into possible futures. Though hardly groundbreaking in form, the film's rich content provides bountiful compensations. To See If I'm Smiling. Tamar Yarom has tracked down six women, all formerly members of the Israeli army, willing to talk openly about their experiences in the Occupied Territories. She then draws out testimony which is not only an incisive indictment of the army's policies in Palestine, but paints the conduct of these individuals in an often-unflattering light. Though it's perhaps chiefly a confessional catharsis for guilt-ridden oppressors - who, unlike so many of their Palestinian targets, are still alive to tell their tales - the picture does convince that its eloquent participants are also, to some degree, victims of a deeply misconceived policy. Neil Young 3rd November, 2008  END OF THE RAINBOW : [6/10] : aka Tout l'or du monde : Australia/France 2007 : Robert NUGENT : 83m V, 22.10THE INHERITORS : [7/10] : Los Herederos : Mexico 2008 : Eugenio POLGOVSKY : 90m V, 25.10 MUST READ AFTER MY DEATH : [6/10] : USA 2008 : Morgan DEWS : 76m V, 26.10 THE ORDER OF MYTHS : [7/10] : USA 2008 : Margaret BROWN : 80m V, 23.10 TO SEE IF I'M SMILING : [6/10] : aka Lirot im ani mehayehet : Israel 2007 : Tamar YAROM : 59m V, 27/10 VIENNALE 2008 index-page |
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