Posted by Larry Gleeson

Viewed by Larry Gleeson as part of the 2018 American Film Institute’s AFI DOCS.

Under The Wire tells the story of a daring entry on 13 February 2012, into war-ravaged Syria by two journalists. One of them was celebrated Sunday Times war correspondent, Marie Colvin. The other was photographer, Paul Conroy. Their aim was to cover the plight of Syrian civilians trapped in Homs, a city under siege and relentless military attack from the Syrian army and report on the untold suffering of women and children who were the kept secret of Assad regime’s assault on dissenters. Under the cloak of combating terrorism, the regime was effectively silencing the call for democracy…

The film opens with footage Conroy at one of his darkest moments in Baba Amr, a city-district in southwest Homs, in central Syria. Much of the opening sequence gives a feel of an expose. However, that soon gives way to a non-linear narrative that juxtaposes, at first Conroy, and later fellow journalists, recollections of those two and a half weeks they spent together attempting to tell the world what was happening to the women and children in Baba Amr. At the center of the story is their martyr, Marie Colvin, an American war correspondent, regarded as one of, if not the finest, combat journalist of her generation. Colvin came to fame through her reporting in East Timor in 1999. Without Marie’s reporting the UN said the people of East Timor would have perished.

In 2012, despite the exodus of virtually every Western journalist, Colvin, felt compelled to tell the world what was really happening in Syrian towns, especially the 28,000 civilians who were in Baba Amr. So much so, Colvin risked her life until finally paying the ultimate price when a precision bombing attack successfully neutralized its target, what was known in Baba Amr as the media center which in reality was a concrete “shithole” room on the 6th floor of an evacuated building.

Meanwhile, the United Nations and the world looked on helplessly as the Assad regime continued its daily bombing assault beginning first at 7:00 A.M. and later moved up to 6:30 A.M. According to French journalist, Edith Bouvier, who suffered a serious and potentially life-threatening leg injury when the targeted bomb hit the “media center” – as many as fifteen shells would hit in the first thirty seconds of the precision bombing.

Eventually, the wounded, surviving journalists would make a last-minute escape. Having been told a Red Cross ambulance would be coming to take her and her co-journalists  to safety during the first-ever cease fire, the journalists were warned by a man from the Red Crescent not to get in the vans waiting outside. Following his heeding the group refused to leave. Soon after, a group of rebels shepherded the correspondents to safety only asking that the journalist tell the world what was really happening in Baba Amr.

Under the Wire is a story of international fear and apathetic response from the global community. Despite numerous videos surfacing from Colvin and what many describe as a miracle worker, Dr, Mohammad Mohammad, pleading for the international community to halt the slaughter of innocent civilians whose only crime was a want for a more democratic way of life, nothing happened. Conroy’s life was saved. His mission has been to tell the world what happened in Syria. Utilizing archival news reports from the BBC and CNN (with Anderson Cooper), personal footage and photos from his times with Colvin, Conroy has set out to tell the world what happened.

Under the Wire is the story of Marie Colvin’s passionate commitment to tell the world the story of the women and children in Baba Amr and their shared experience of the “widow’s basement,” an underground shelter for women and children crammed with thin mattresses, little food and without basic medical assistance. This is not an easy film to watch. Part expose’ part action/adventure while booming sound, partial profile shots, fuzzy footage, along with some shaky, point-of-view, hand-held shots create tension and unease. Nevertheless, this is a story that needed to be told and now it needs an audience. The world needs to know the truth of what really happened. Highly recommended.

Posted by Larry Gleeson

Viewed by Larry Gleeson as part of the 2018 American Film Institute’s AFI DOCS, Director Kimberly Reed (Prodigal Sons, Paul Goodman Changed My Life), weaves and bobs through a heavyweight political fight with Dark Money.

Dark Money opens with a gaggle of geese and a news report stating the number of dead geese is higher than thought followed by some interesting aerial shots of a large swath of strip-mined land. With some montage editing, the mise-en-scene changed to black and white with an assortment of old mining photos, including the Anaconda Copper Company operations what seems to be a familiar voice-over (I thought it was Jesse Ventura – I was wrong).

To me, the opening seemed a little choppy as the next sequence revealed a farmer lamenting some malfunctioning plow implement – only the farmer turned out to be a U.S. Senator, Jon Tester, from the state of Montana. Well, that got my attention. His description of the way he carries out his vocation sounded as though he were the legendary Roman statesman, Cincinnatus. This was not a very flattering portrait of Senator Tester. Fortunately, Senator Tester, like the film, looked and got better as the film progressed.

Reed lays down some nice background material with archival photos and overlays before getting into the essence of Dark Money. Several Montana state officeholders hold ordinary jobs and share their advocacy for political engagement. Another political candidate laments his inability to respond to a series of political ads that flooded mailboxes and media three days before the election linking the candidate to John Wayne Gacy, an American serial killer and rapist. The ads were run by Mothers Against Child Predators and ran in a predominantly Catholic area. Upon inquiry, no one could determine who Mothers Against Child Predators were. After extensive investigation, it was determined that two women sent out the ads as part of a political process to gain access to seats in state government offices and the state judiciary.

I noticed a nice non-diagetic score mimicking a racing heart as a narrative voice-over from Ann Ravel, a Federal Election Commissioner, who uncovered how groups like Mothers Against Predators operate while hiding where their money comes from. Reed moves the setting from rural Montana to the nation’s Capital. Seemingly, Reed is alluding to the real seat of power and then juxtaposes the Capital with a little house with a sign that reads “Commissioner of Political Practices.”

Interestingly, Montana presently has a Citizen Legislature after a corrupt political past primarily associated with the Anaconda Mine. The Anaconda Mine site is one of the largest Super Fund cleanup sites in the world. According to a diagetic docent the Anaconda financed the Industrial Revolution. Yet, the trade off is that it is home to the greatest potential disaster threatening the Northwest as the toxic waste water sitting at the head of the Columbia River is so acidic that a gaggle of geese who lost their way and settled onto the Anaconda pit perished.

In 1912, Montana passed Corrupt Practices Act. This law was held in place until the United Citizens decision by the United States Supreme Court allowed dark money into elections. Proponents celebrated the decision as a win for free speech.

Later, Reed supplies footage of a Russian-style town hall meeting called by American Tradition Partnership.The goal is to get rid of all disclosure, all regulation and all truth-in-advertising mandates so corporations can dictate policy and influence government by manipulating the voting populace just as the Anaconda Mining Company had done a century earlier.

Thanks to a laid off investigative reporter, John Adams, who lost his job when the state news bureau was disbanded, corruption is uncovered in a series of American Tradition Partnership emails with evidence of illegal direct mailings. A trial is held pinning a state legislature with violations of the Montana Disclose Act. He is fined. And, much like the Trump Administration Cabinet appointees, he claimed during the hearing he didn’t know anything about the  coordinated in-kind contributions he received from dark money groups.

Fortunately, Reed doesn’t stop here. A link is made between the inaction of the Federal Elections Commission and its failure to require foreign government political contributions to be reported. Also, Reed  slips in a call to action in the form of followthemoney.org.

Dark Money is an interesting film as it delves into what dark money is, how it can affect political campaigns and how foreign governments are using it to influence the outcome of electoral processes – until ultimately controlling the United States Supreme Court. Highly recommended.

Posted by Larry Gleeson

Viewed by Larry Gleeson as part of the American Film Institute’s 2018 AFI DOCS Film Festival.

Hale County, This Morning, This Evening written, directed and produced by RaMell Ross, and Winner of a Special Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Ross tells the story of two African-American males, Daniel and Quincy, born in Hale County, Alabama, and the diverse paths their lives take.  Hale County, This Morning, This Evening breaks the mold of a traditional documentary with its cinematic language and use of montage.

In the film’s opening sequence, an immediate distrust of the camera is highlighted in a bold directorial choice regarding one of the film’s subjects, Quincy, who works at a catfish plant to support his young family. “What is the orbit of your dreams?’ sneaks into the lower left-hand corner of the film in a title, textual overlay. A transition is made revealing a small-town street lined with black folks sitting on they cars. Nice non-diagetic music accompanies the camera as it glides down the street. Apparently, them folks is impervious to what is going on ’round them. Welcome to the Deep South where race is constructed and dreaming is an everyday part of existence. RaMell Ross is a philosopher, a photographer, a teacher a high-school basketball coach and now a filmmaker.

Ross utilizes his photography skills to great effect capturing simple, elegant moments that juxtapose other images like a grown man heaping a large truck tire onto a fire while off-screen voices provide commentary on the color and density of the smoke rising up into the air. This telling scene was proceeded buy the title textual overlay, “What is done when all the cotton is picked?’ Ross is not sugar-coating the environment. This type of call and response brilliantly forms the crux of the film’s narrative. In another scene a young girl who really hasn’t learned to speak is being questioned by a semi-literate grown woman. First she asked the young girl her name (though i couldn’t comprehend the pronunciation of the word name). When the girl didn’t reply she asked a few more time with each rendering becoming more intelligible only to be followed up with a “How old you is?”

As a basketball coach, Ross has access to the film’s second primary character, Daniel, a strong, physically fit basketball player longing to escape the confines of his environment. Part of the beauty of Ross’s cinematography and consequent cinematic language is the tight framing of Daniel as he practices his jump shot. While Daniel might be confined for now, this (basketball) is his way out, his way to freedom from confinement.

In my opinion, the film ended rather abruptly evoking a feeling of wanting something more and left my pondering what I had just experienced. The montage of imagery alone makes this film worth seeing. But Ross adds a deep, visceral element, coupled with philosophical interjections, that creates a work of art transcending the confines of the theatre. It begs to be experienced. The result is a highly compelling, experimental film seemingly influenced by Melvin Van Peebles’ spawn of the Blaxploitation era, Sweet SweetBack’s Baadasssss Song. And, with a run time of a fast seventy-six minutes, it’s one you don’t want to miss! Highly recommended.

Posted by Larry Gleeson

Viewed by Larry Gleeson as part of the American Film Institute’s 2018 AFI DOCS.

The Providers, recently selected for the AFI Impact Lab was directed, produced and photographed by Laura Green and Anna Moot-Levin. Green and Moot-Levin follow the movements and activities of Matt Probst, Chris Ruge and Leslie Hayes, three health care providers working for a small network of clinics, El Centro, in northern, central New Mexico. El Centro clinics cover an area of 22,000 square miles and treats all patients regardless of insurance, condition or ability to pay. This area is in the top five for heroin overdoses in the United States. Moreover, approximately 70,000 deaths occurred last year in rural areas due to a lack of health care access – ten times the number of deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.

After introducing the three characters, The Providers kicks into high gear, as Green and Moot-Levin begin capturing footage of the medical workers as they treat their patients and deal with their own individual life issues on life’s terms. Probst’s father, an opioid addict dies and his sister is arrested for buying drugs with monies fraudulently obtained via identity theft with a gang of five. Ruge receives a letter indicating his Echo Care funding will probably not be renewed and struggles with an imbalance between his obsession for work and a wife at home. Meanwhile, while Dr. Hayes continues to manage her workload quite well and worries what will happen if the Echo Care funding dries up.

In addition to the work these three “country doctors” perform, each one has an extraordinary backstory and history that not only informs them but also inspires them to keep providing care to their own community that is so absent in far too many communities across the land. Green and Moot-Levin provide sharp cinematography and make effective use of traditional documentary filmmaking techniques with testimonials, voice-over narration, still photography, text overlays and non-diagetic music. Paul Brill provides a mesmerizing musical score and sound composition and the cinematography provided by Green and Moot-Levin is exquisite. Most importantly, the narrative is quite compelling as the protagonists make life a little brighter, a little better and a lot more hopeful for those they care for.

Matt Probst, a physician’s assistant, serves as the Director of El Centro and laments to a group of recruits that by the end of the summer El Centro will have a shortage of eight positions. Chris Ruge, a former truck driver who wanted to feel more connected, is  a nurse practitioner and has been funded for one year through a pilot program called Echo Care which allows Ruge to visit the sickest individuals in the region 24 hours a day. Leslie Hayes is a family doctor who treats her patients with compassion as they struggle with everyday, real-life problems and was in the first training session for treating opioid addiction in a primary practice. Dr. Hayes was recognized by the White House as a Champions of Change for her work in advancing the treatment, prevention and recovery for the opiate-addicted.

One thing becomes tantalizingly clear by the film’s end, The Providers is a heart-warming, soul-affirming documentary and it provides a deep insight into small-town America while confronting the challenges of keeping those in poor, rural communities safe. Warmly recommended with a run-time of an hour and twenty-four minutes.

*Featured photo: Chris Huge ((Photo credit: theprovidersdoc.com)

Posted by Larry Gleeson

The Distant Barking of Dogs, a documentary written, directed and shot by Simon Lereng Wilmont, and produced by Monica Hellstrom, shows a slice of life in an Eastern Ukraine village located within a mile of the front line of the Russian/Ukraine armed conflict in the winter of 2016. The film highlights a year in the life of a ten-year-old boy, Oleg, with a fly-on-the-wall approach, as Oleg becomes desensitized to the fragments of war and, along the way, loses the innocence of childhood. The Distant Barking of Dogs has garnered awards from the 2017 Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival (First Appearance Award), the DocAviv Film Festival (Best International Film) and the San Francisco International Film Festival (Golden Gate Award).

In the opening scene, to emphasize the closeness of war Wilmont chooses to show a large explosion of a military vehicle taking a direct from a roadside bomb. Wilmont’s camera was two cars back. A transition is made revealing a deft touch from Wilmont with an exquisite, cinematic shot of a landscape vista with gentle winds moving the green grasses hypnotically back and forth. Non-diagetic somber music lays the tone for the voice-over narration of a mature woman’s voice describing the feeling at the advent of winter immediately following the outbreak of war. “(We) feel like animals hiding from winter waiting for the cold to end.”

The film’s protagonist, Oleg, a young, pre-teen boy, being raised by his grandmother, Alexandra, in their family home. While others are choosing to leave the area as there is no end in sight for the war, Alexandra has no intention of leaving the area quoting Ukrainian wisdom, “Every dog is a lion in its own home.” As the war draws on, each begins to rely on the other as a source of strength and inspiration.

Female uniformed soldiers address Oleg’s elementary school class regarding the immediate dangers of the war. The children are animatedly engaged in their everyday lives discussing the collateral damage they encounter in the form of found weapons, undetonated mines and the loss of their fathers as they go off to join the army.

From here the film follows Oleg and his activities, mainly outside of school. Oleg goes swimming in the summer as ordnance shells are exploding in the distance. Soon they are growing closer and Oleg and his older friend, Kostya, decide to run home fearing for their own safety. Later, Kostya will put a pistol into Oleg’s hand while encouraging the boy to shoot a helpless frog. One thing is consistent throughout the film is the sound of war in the not-so-far distance.

Admittedly, Wilmont’s film lacks high drama, the uber intensity of combat, and the unfathomable devastation of bombed out towns and villages. Nevertheless, the underlying tension witnessing Oleg’s life unfolding under imminent danger of errant ordinance shells finding Oleg, his friends and Alexandra keeps an edge to the film. But the real question lies ahead. How will this war zone life experience affect Oleg and the children exposed to the constant danger of being killed as they grow into adulthood?

Highly recommended.

For your consideration, I reviewed Ukranian Sheriffs, a highly recommended documentary, detailing political and cultural life in a similar area before the outbreak of war.

Posted by Larry Gleeson

Viewed by Larry Gleeson as part of the 2018 American Film Institute’s AFI DOCS. The film was screened in the National Archives Museum in Washington, D.C.

The Cold Blue, a Vulcan Production, is a gripping story of the bravery of youth and a meditative reflection by the surviving members of WWII bombers, directed by Erik Nelson. Nelson based The Cold Blue on footage shot by William Wyler (The Best Years of Our Lives) and three cinematographers flying with the 8th Air Force during WWII bombing missions over Europe and into Germany for a documentary on the Memphis Belle, a B-17 bomber.

In assembling his film, Nelson effectively employed restored, archival footage, textual overlays, still photography and present day voice-over narration from surviving members of the 8th Air Force. Sadly, one of the original Wyler cinematographers perished during the WWII footage collection when his plane went down over France. Interestingly, more men died flying missions in World War II than were killed fighting as United States Marines. In all 135,000 men flew over three million missions over Europe.

A B-17 formation, often referred to as a flying fortresses, was capable of carrying two tons of bombs over a distance of a thousand miles. During WWII, the flying fortresses would make their runs into Germany and after releasing their bombs, the aircraft would turn around and fly another five hours to return home. An average mission took eleven hours.

The crews’ bombing accuracy placed approximately one-third of their payloads within 1,000 feet of their intended targets. Adverse weather conditions would negatively impact their accuracy, however. The men who piloted and crewed these aerial war ships lived together, ate together and flew together on a minimum of 25 missions. The age range for most of the men were 19-25 years old. Most, if not all, were family men and feared daily for the loss of their lives. The odds of surviving all 25 missions was 25%. Roughly one million Germans, with an estimated 40,000 guns, laid in wait for these men and their planes.

By 1945, 12,731 B-17 had been built with 5,000 being lost in the war over Europe during the same time frame. In late 1944, the Allies decided, in order to bring the war to a close, to transition from a precision bombing campaign to a pattern bombing campaign that destroyed  3.6 million German homes, killed over 700,000 thousand Germans and wounded another 780,000. Moreover, 7.5 million Germans were made homeless. Pattern bombing succeeded in bringing about the German surrender and shortened the war by a full year.

In closing the film, the surviving members of the 8th Air Force downplayed their hero status and expressed why they wanted their story to not only be told, but to be heard – so that young men and women would not have to endure what they experienced in the cold blue where temperature inside their ships ranged from 20 degrees on a warm day to -60 degrees on a cold day. The film was dedicated to the 28,000 men of the 8th Air Force and to Cinematographer Harold Tannenbaum who gave their lives in service.

While The Cold Blue lacks some of the cinematic overtures of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, Director Nelson weaves a powerful, linear, human interest narrative. David Hughes adds an excellent sound design mixing diagetic and non-diagetic elements that add to and augment the evocative story line. In addition, the cameras inside the plane offer an unparalleled access to a live, combat air mission with a death-defying mise-en-scene. The restored, footage quality is quite good after being in storage for 70 years.

The Cold Blue is a warmly recommended film and, as with the award-winning Dunkirk, The Cold Blue is best experienced on a large screen.