Change Your Image
wargentin
Reviews
Los Hermanos/The Brothers (2020)
A family of musicians trying to navigate their way through the politics between USA and Cuba
I found this to be a very interesting story of two brothers and their family, all devoted to music and how their lives have been shaped by the relations of the USA and Cuba as well as the differences between the two countries.
I thought the documentary didn't really take a side on the politics other than what the people whose story it tells say and didn't really spend that much time on the subject in general. To me personally it seems likely that after more than half a decade the harsh sanctions have done what they can and while pressure should still be applied on the Cuban government, in their present form they are counterproductive.
When it comes to things that could have been better I think the differences of living in either country and why people chose to live where they do could have been explored more in depth. One aspect of this documentary I enjoyed in particular was how well it used the music throughout the experience.
Louis Theroux's LA Stories: Edge of Life (2014)
Not Theroux's best
Having watched many documentaries dealing with the same subject I found this one to present a surprisingly different view. I had thought we had gotten better about reducing suffering in these kinds of situations in recent decades but there is no acceptance of the realities of the situation by even a single patient or their family here and most of the doctors on camera seem to do very little to help them get there either. This is very different from the meaningful & difficult discussions I saw them engage in with both each other and the families in something like Wiseman's "Near Death" for example.
Having one of the patients miraculously get better against the expectations of the doctors does offer something to be happy about in an otherwise gloomy documentary but I think it can lead to some people drawing the wrong conclusions. I am reminded of another documentary, Liz Garbus' Coma (2007), where doctors repeatedly made the point that when a year has passed patients with brain injuries very rarely get any better. I think predicting outcomes is probably just much more difficult when you are only days into recovery presenting a "one in a million" case like this alongside just a single case that's more typical ends up providing a fairly unrealistic view of how these things tend to actually go.
I usually am a fan of Theroux's work but in addition I feel like here he fails to get people open up much either. With different doctors it might have been different since I feel like Theroux is even having to suggest things that the doctors should have at points here and I can understand why he's not entirely comfortable doing their work for them. Overall I think there are many documentaries that do a better job at tackling this subject but I did appreciate getting a reality check on how rare it may be for people to really even accept that they are dying and how wildly the level of support doctors may be able to provide for them in doing that varies.
The End (2004)
Quite good but some other ones on the topic go deeper
A documentary about the terminally ill and their passing that succeeds in showing that while we may imagine that people gracefully accept their death in the final days the reality is more often than not less beautiful than that. We see different people and interesting stories but I do feel like other documentaries on the same topic have managed to cover many aspects in more depth. All in all it was nevertheless thought-provoking and I'm thankful to everyone involved for letting it be filmed.
Awaken (2018)
Not at the level of the classics in this genre
This does contain a substantial amount of incredibly beautifully shot time-lapse footage and that is clearly the strongest aspect of the production. Unfortunately it does also feel derivative and superficial, at times even fake compared to some of the classics in this genre like Koyaanisqatsi and Baraka that it is clearly influenced by. It feels a bit like it is half way between those and Ashes and Snow to me. The parts portraying European cultures are clearly just role-play taking us at least a hundred years back.
One can't help but notice the almost total absence of older and the strong focus on young women. Life on earth ends up being portrayed as more of an endless party instead of the social commentary you get in something like Le Syndrome du Titanic or the spiritual-naturistic message of Samsara that you see the remnants of in the way which this imitates Fricke's works. On the audio side the soundtrack is not bad but not at the level of Philip Glass or Michael Stearns while (thankfully very limited) narration offered by Liv Tyler is even more out of place here than in Terence Malick's Voyage of Time. The sound effects should have been left out.
Overall I still enjoyed the beauty of it and I always love seeing new entries in this genre. My review's tone probably seems really harsh considering that but that is just due to the standard set by Ron Fricke and others.
Departing (2016)
A reasonably interesting documentary on the topic of death
Fairly decent but low-budget documentary that won't do too much visually even having some stock footage and stills. The filmmakers don't seem to be trying to push a particular viewpoint too hard which is always good.
Starts with going through the various things that can be done to the body after a person dies. The interesting part is the coverage of cryonics and interviewing a representative of Alcor who goes into some detail on how they do it.
Ideas about what happens after death are discussed with an atheist, a professor of philosophy who has written a book about afterlife beliefs and a Christian priest providing their viewpoints. I thought this was a fairly nice balance although much more detail could have been provided about what science has to say about this and I don't think the problem of consciousness really requires a duality of mind and body at all as the philosopher seemed to suggest.
There's also a part where assisted suicide is discussed. Here I thought the way they presented a "counterargument" was a little misguided. They were saying that a person could always change their mind even after they've already taken the medication that will cause them to die. With assisted suicide the idea is that it would be an option for people who are terminally ill with a short life expectancy and the rest of their life is going to be painful/otherwise difficult. Calling what they presented next a "counterargument" misses the mark because it was represented with someone who was depressed but still many years of life in front of him as an example. This is a very different situation.
There's also parts about hospice and what constitutes a good death, how people usually handle it etc. This part concentrated a little too much on anecdotes that I didn't really personally find credible but the documentary isn't pushing for the viewer to accept it, they've just made the choice to include these stories.
Overall I found this worth the time it took to watch and reasonably interesting even if it didn't cover any of the topics with any particular depth. I liked that it was relatively balanced and didn't really misrepresent any facts or strongly push a particular perspective as well as the consistent way it went through the various topics of discussion.