Documentary Reviews

Last of the Independents:

Last of the Independents by Kevin Anderson (2011) follows the drama surrounding the final months before closure of an independent hardware store , Farnam Bros in port Melbourne. The store, like many independents, closed because could not compete within the economic environment created by the chain stores, and was also a victim of shifting demographics in the area. The documentary invites the audience to question what is being lost in the name of progress and development.

For many of the general target audience of this documentary, their only hardware experience would be visiting a chain store, typically consisting of neatly lined up rows of product containing professionally packaged and marketed product.

Visually, Farnam Bros could not be a more different environment, and this novelty is exploited by Anderson to stun the views with a rich visual environment. The veranda of the store is slowly panned across, revealing an intricate and beautiful pattern of cracked paint. The imperfections in the tin read like story, telling of weathering many summers and winters.

There are no rows of product laid out in Faram Bros, it is more it is an open plan. This allowed Anderson to set up a camera in the centre of the store and pan around the detail of the environment. Nails are not displayed in identical plastic packages, but rather in old boxes behind the desk. Each box has its own unique markings and character.

It could be argued that in Last of the Independents, Anderson is taping into a strong sub-culture that was emerging within popular culture at the time of production, coequally known as hipster culture . Present within that culture is heightened interest of the technology and art of earlier eras, such as can be found with abundance in this shop

The story of the shop is is told through a combination of archival footage of the shop as well as interviews with customers and staff. The interview with Bob, the owner is used as the narration device throughout.

The staff interviews convey a picture of a strong, family environment within the store. There is an implication that these family bonds between staff are unique and not generally found amongst chain stores. This is, however, not investigated by the documentary and is left the audience to ponder, or apply their own prejudice.

Cherry’s parenting dilemmas

Cherry’s parenting dilemmas is one in a series of documentaries produced periodically by Cherry Healey for the BBC. The series, which stars Cherry, revolves around the documentary maker tackling lifestyle issues in society which are impacting on her own life personally. In every series this takes the form of Cherry embarking on a insightful, if somewhat narrowly focused, journey of befriending people from different corners of British society who are also affected by the issue at hand, in order learn how their experiences can help inform her future choices and actions.

In this episode Cherry grapples with finding parenting techniques that would be suitable to use to bring up her 18 month Daughter, Coco, by meeting several well cast mothers and their daughters.

The documentary does an excellent job of uncovering and exploring the immense diversity within British society. This is particularly evident One mother who was raised Christian and holds a conservative outlook on life, tries to deal with her daughter who is heavy involved in the British punk rock scene. Scenes of a traditional family life are intercut with the teenager’s bedroom, filled with tattoo art.

There are a number of advantages and drawbacks to this style of celebrity-fronted documentary in this instance. The audience gets to know and trust Cherry as a friend, and the people in her lives that she meets. This makes the subject matter more personal and emotionally compelling. How will cherry use these examples to help her bring up Coco? The audience is invited to ask. On the other hand, the need to relate all the material back to the personality of cherry and the cast does not allow for more abstract topics to be canvased beyond those exposed by the friendships formed by Cherry.

Tongues Untied

For strong reasons, Tongues Untied (1989) by Marlon Riggs is often cited as one of the best examples of a documentary made in the performative mode. Poetic and personal reflective elements are used by Riggs to great affect to emotionally engage and educate the audience about black gay rights. Through the use of these elements Riggs created a popular documentary which achieved a level of awareness of these civil rights issues within America which had not previously been aroused through any direct cinema.

The documentary was made 1989 in, at the height of the aids scare. The stories in the documentary tell of a tell of a society in which Aids was not understood, and was surrounded by many myths and misconceptions - many in the gay community were unfairly marginalised. As this was the cultural background for many of Riggs’s target audience, it was therefore appropriate that Riggs used personal and emotional humanise his subject for his audience

Riggs achieves this by taking his audience through a journey of some of the artistic elements of gay culture. The beautifully shot dance sequences present gay men who are both strong and dignified. The University of Snap sequence - which educates on how to snap like a diva, exposes a unique, culturally rich physical and verbal language, worthy of respect.

Rhythm is used not only as an artistic element, but also as a metaphor for moving forward. The documentary begins with the chant “brother to brother” repeated, which after a number of repetitions, begins to sound like a train traveling over tracks.

Riggs uses his own story as a narration device. Doing so staring directly at the camera and giving eye contact to the audience. As he details his own story about how he first found out that being gay, being who he was, was not socially acceptable, the pain in his eyes becomes the most powerful element of the scenes

The documentary ends with a sombre roll call of Black Gays that had died from aids. This becomes a statement that asks the question: are there more in our society than just war heroes whose deaths should be mourned, celebrated and mythologised. The documentary, in essence, a essay that successfully answers that question with a resounding yes.

Woody Allan: A Documentary


Woody Allan: A Documentary, by Robert B Weideis, is an encyclopedic look at Allan’s professional career form his Allan's viewpoint, as well as those who worked with him.

Weide is clearly a great Woddy fan, and from the outset of his documentary is keen to prove to the audience that Allan is great American artist, worthy of spending the next two hours getting to know. This is done through a medium that constitutes the bulk of material used by Weide – interviews with famous Hollywood insiders who have worked with Alan.

The audience is shown a montage of clips: “He is, without question, the best director I have worked with”, Scarlet Johnston says direct to camera. “who the hell is good for 20 years, the guy has been good for 40 years” Chris Rock notes.

The reliance on talking head interviews is, however, problematic. Whilst In addition to these interviews, the documentary does also contains a wealth of archival material from Allan’s career, the overall lack of visual interest means that the documentary does not remain compelling for the almost two hour runtime. Allan’s demonstration of the typewriter he has used for his entire career, and subsequent tour of present day New York, does break this up somewhat

The age and experience of insiders interviewed, which spans from winners of Oscars in the 50s as well as younger Hollywood stars, is a testament to the the relevance of Alan today. The documentary however, fails to inform, or at least explore, how Alan is effecting the future of cinema. All of the interview subjects talk of Allan’s career mostly in the past tense

The interview subject offer invaluable insight into how this extraordinary career unfolded, and offer a first person account of Allan's part in important historic Hollywood milestones. Their relationship to Alan, however, means that perhaps not so flattering aspects of Alan’s life are glossed over. His controversial relationship with Soon-Yi Previn not looked at in great detail.

Crude independence:
Crude independence is a major achievement for a student film made by first time director not even 21 at the time of production. It has won awards at multiple major film festivals.
Stanly is a small town in North Dakota with starkly different looking present than that of its past, and in the near future the town looks set to make another equally dramatic transformation. The town began life as a frontier farming community, and is presently suffering the same decline as much of Americas rust belt Now, thanks to recent boom in oil drilling in the area, stark divisions of wealth are showing between those that have mineral right to their land and those that don’t. The documentary aims not to take a view on the environmental issues surrounding oil and gas extraction, but rather explore the social effects of an oil boom on the town.
The opening sequence does an excellent job of depicting the contrasts between these eras, and right from the start compels the audience to engage with the story of this town.
The towns museum is brilliantly shot in a way that brings to life what living in Stanly would have been like 100 or so years ago. As the tour guide shows the crew round the room depicting women’s work the camera always comes back to the washing basin as an visual explanation point about the inevitability of the structured life lead by most people at that time.
The interview that immediately follows depicting local, spoilt teenagers describing how there is nothing to do in town shows in the starkest possible way how life has changed over the generations.
The interviewer is never heard in any of the interviews. In fact, it is not evident that any prompting questions were asked of the documentary subjects - all seam willing storytellers speaking with their own voice, giving interesting candid interviews going beyond the scope of what the makers must of originally intended.
A troubling insight into the effect of the new money that is flooding the town came from not pre-planned interview question, but rather an unprompted mid interview tour by an elderly local who had just built a giant, soulless, lonely mansion. When showing the crew around the bedroom, he disappears into the walk-in wardrobe and comes back out in a red robe and asks, rather insecurely and pathetically “Who do I look like? Hugh Heffner haha”
There is however some egging on of interview subjects in the documentary. There is a group interview with several oil rig workers. As each one opens up more, this encourages the others to also become more candid, which adds to the free flow of interesting insights from the documentaries interview subjects.
Whilst the interview subjects themselves drive the narratives, the voice and opinion of the documentary makers is very much evident in the editing. How the documentary makers want us to feel about the material presented is best highlighted by the strategic placement near the end of the doco, when all the story arcs are coming to a conclusion, of this comment by a local schoolteacher

“I hope this does not change the moral character of the town”