Pelada (2010)

Artwork for Film

I liked this film, and it is because of this that I feel a lot of pain saying that this film is not really a great documentary.

It is, though, enjoyable.  Very much so.

The documentary starts horribly.  Ill-conceived shots.  Bad music.  And even worse insight.  But soon enough, they leave the US, and it is there, that they find their most inspiring shots.  And those are just utterly beautiful.

The film as a whole seems to lack conflict, style and purpose, and a documentary without that feels more stressful than it needs to be.  Having said that, I did enjoy the film, and it did leave me with a yearning desire to pick up my soccer ball and go play.

But that should never be enough.

I feel like there were many a moment where they could have gone deeper into the soccer culture, and have brought out some gems or insight that people had not heard before.  But every time they seemed on the edge of glory, they circled back to themselves and then moved on to the next country.

Ultimately, it felt like they could have done a really good 30 minute documentary, but pushed it farther, and in doing so, gave the pace of the film a cyclical feel where the film seemed to be at the point of ending at every turn, and in doing so, seemed endless.

Catch it on Netflix like I did, but don't waste your time hunting it down to buy it.

If you're looking for something a bit deeper into the politics of soccer, soccer with a conscience as it may be, watch Kicking It (2008) you will not be sorry.

The Orson Welles War of the Worlds Scandal (2007)

Artwork from DVD Release

There are many reasons for making a movie, many, many, many.  But sadly, I can't figure out exactly what the purpose here is.

I can simply surmise that the director intended to make some money off of the famous (my wife claims infamous) Orson Welles.

I say he is both.

There's a fine line between brilliance and madness, and it is often the maddest that are also the most brilliant.

This documentary on the other hand, reaches for both, and falls pathetically short, in all respects.  The voice-over is shallow.  The script is unimaginative.  The revelations are, for better or worse, shallow and often times wrong, and with no experts or dissenting opinions, one can't argue otherwise.

So wrong as a matter of fact, that halfway through, after they started talking about "the human need to not feel alone in the universe," and the decades old search for extra terrestrial life, I simply turned it off.

Enough was enough.

Instead, not having had my Orson Welles fill yet, I turned to an old Radiolab broadcast (NPR).  A sort of deconstructive radio documentary on the subject, and boy was it brilliant.

It inhibited all the reactions, in my wife and I, that the documentary failed to do.  And it did so in a much more succinct way.  Managing to cram three different versions of the broadcast from around the world as well as a criticism of media and where this has led to, as well as the old adage:  Can it happen again?

Skip this documentary, even if, like me, you are obsessed with Orson Welles and the War of the Worlds broadcast.  Instead head to Radiolab and listen to a much better and more informative documentary.

The Gleaners and I (2000)

Artwork for the English Release of the Film

Watch this film now.  Even if you are not a fan of documentaries, it is enjoyable and remarkably short for how much it packs.

As my wife bluntly put it, it is the rare French movie that makes sense from the onset.

Agnes Varda is by far one of my favorite filmmakers.  The rare master, like Martin Scorsese, that can effortlessly switch from feature film, to short film, to documentary, to drama, to horror, to comedy without seeming to be an ill attempted career move.

Dubbed the godmother of the French New Wave by the French filmmakers themselves, Agnes Varda has a very laisez-faire manner of approaching film, and never is this more apparent than in this film, which serves both as a documentary about gleaners and garbage pickers, while at the same time being self-reflective on the art of filmmaking.

Apart from a major hiccup having to do nothing with Agnes Varda proper, the film was excellent.  The only thing that bothered me endlessly was the poor quality of the translation which cuts a huge layer of the meaning from the film.

Starting with the title, the French title is Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse.  Sadly the American translation should have been something along the lines of The Gleaners and I, the Gleaner.  In the English translation she is almost entirely erased as being inclusive amongst the gleaners, and that, I think, is a major crime, but being aware of it, the rest of the film, should be ever more enjoyable.