Doc your world!: Some cool, eclectic non-fiction to be streamed from farther-flung corners
By Liam Lacey
After a month of being shut-in, awash in dramas about drugs, murder, cartels, hillbillies and other things that amused us in “the before-times,” it feels like time to shake things up.
Here are five documentaries to watch, designed to increase the biodiversity of your home-screening experience and put you in other people’s bedroom slippers. Only one of these films actually costs money, though a couple involve signing up for free trial periods.
Vietnamese doc follows three generations of Vietnamese metal with Spinal Tap flourishes
The American Nurse. Watch at: www.americannurseproject.com
The New York-based distribution company, Kino Lorber has made this 2014 documentary free during the coronavirus quarantine as a salute to front-line healthcare workers.
Director Carolyn Jones, a photographer, was moved by the nurses who cared for her during her breast cancer treatment and decided to make a film about the profession. The film focuses on five men and women, and their personal motivations: One helps an ovarian cancer survivor through the birth of her child; one visits house-bound patients in remote Appalachia; another tends to hospice patients in a maximum security prison. A former army medic deals with war vets with amputations and PTSD, and a nun brings troubled kids and nursing home seniors with the use of therapeutic farm animals.
This is not a film for the squeamish – terrible things can happen to a body -- but it’s tremendously moving to consider the sacrifices and intangible rewards involved in a life dedicated to care-giving.
Kim Kardashian-West: The Justice Project. Go to www.hayu.com or download the app and register for the free first-month. No long-term commitment required.
Influencer, icon and punchline, Kim Kardashian is inextricably tied with issues of race in the United States: The god-daughter of O. J. Simpson, whom her late father, Robert defended, the wife of rapper Kanye West, and frequent target of criticism for appropriating black esthetics.
As part of her re-branding, the 39-year-old mother of four, who plans to be a lawyer, has recently focused on America’s world-leading incarceration rates, which disproportionately affect people of colour. Yes, Kim, styled as though sealed in cellophane and given to clichés, is a lot to take. But the inmates’ stories are powerful and the odds are interesting: Can an influencer with 163-million Instagram followers bring attention to the conditions of the 2.3 million in U.S. jails?
Shakedown: Free at https://fourthree.boilerroom.tv/film/shakedown
Shakedown, is an archival portrait of a Los Angeles black lesbian strip bar operating in the early 2000s, shot by filmmaker and patron, Leilah Weinraub.
Shown at The Whitney Museum and on Pornhub (there’s a combination of venues for you), Shakedown crosses all kinds of lines. It’s an experimental, friendly, raunchy and often naked movie that introduces us to such personalities as club owner and emcee, Ronnie-Ron, along with dancers Egypt and Mahogany, who reflect on what was, in retrospect, a utopian moment in the lesbian sub-culture, comparable to the vogue ball scene in Paris Is Burning.
Probably not safe for work, but since you’re working at home, it should be okay.
Caniba. https://www.criterionchannel.com. Sign up for free month trial period.
Prepare to be shocked and horrified – actually, I really mean it. Caniba, which was added to the Criterion Channel last month, is definitely not safe for work, or anywhere else.
The film consists of an extended interview, mostly in out-of-focus close-ups, with Issei Sagawa, who in 1981, killed and cannibalized a young fellow Sorbonne student, Renée Hartevelt. Released to his native Japan, where, for some reason, he eluded jail time, he found celebrity, writing novels and mangas about his crime, as well as appearing in pornographic movies (a clip is shown in the film).
Now an invalid, Sagawa is cared for by his brother, Jun, who shares screen time with him and reveals some of his own dark impulses. The point of this is wide open for interpretation (are we, the audience, cannibalizing the film’s subject?) and directors Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, who made the powerful 2012 commercial fishing documentary, Leviathan, leave us with few clues to their purpose.
Saigon Metalhood: Vietnam’s Heaviest Story. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/saigonmetalhood. Rent for $8.88.
Put together the phrase Vietnam and “heavy metal” and the mind goes to Jimi Hendrix, at Woodstock, using his Stratocaster to scream out the Star Strangled Banner over the sound of missiles and bombs.
Perhaps metal music still serves as noise therapy in Vietnam, at least for a devoted cult. Saigon Metalhood follows three generations of heavy metal rebels pursuing their art to a small fervent audience in scenes chockful of Spinal Tap pathos.
Curly-haired sixty-year-old Trung Thanh learned guitar during the American occupation but only rarely gets to showcase his shredding talents between wedding gigs. Thirty-one-year-old grind-core musician Trung Loki has a philosophy of heroic independence but struggles with addiction issues. Finally, a young metal collective, run by Hysterical Buffalo bassist Vu Nguyen, struggles as promoters, trying to put Vietnam on the metal concert touring map.
The filmmakers are Saigon-based former language teachers Sean Lambe and William Snyder, who released Metalhood during the quarantine via Vimeo On Demand. They promise to “make the lockdown a rockdown!” I might just have that embroidered on my mask.