From the film In the Rearview.
When year-end list season rolls around, it’s always fun to check out the lists to see if/where your favorites showed up. But an even more vital role of these lists is to draw your attention to things you may have missed but that are absolutely worth your time to seek out. In that spirit, I went diving into the site’s traffic numbers and dug out the documentary film reviews by our intrepid film review staff that didn’t get a huge number of page views, but that our critics loved just the same and would encourage you to check out. See below for 18 documentaries released and reviewed here on The Arts STL in 2024—with subjects ranging from film history to sports to the refugee experience and more—with a snippet of each review and a link to the full writeup if you’d like to know more. Time allowing, hopefully I’ll follow this up with lists of underappreciated narrative films and archival releases as well. Happy reading! | Jason Green, Editor-in-Chief
Arthur Dong’s Asian American Stories (Kino Lorber, NR): “Arthur Dong is one of those filmmakers whose work is well known to aficionados of documentary film, but whose name may draw a blank among people whose taste runs more toward multiplex fare. That’s a shame, because his films are not only well-made but also tell stories you aren’t likely to come across elsewhere. […] The four films included in Arthur Dong’s Asian American Stories are all traditional documentaries, straightforward and unfussy, which allows Dong emphasize the story being told rather than flashy film-making. Having said that, he shows great skill in combining archival materials, interviews, and narration to make the stories come alive and to place individual histories in social and political context.” | Sarah Boslaugh (full review)
Chasing Chasing Amy (Level 33 Entertainment, NR): “[Kevin Smith’s 1997 film Chasing Amy] was hailed as an audacious and innovative triumph upon its release for its sharp dialogue and cast of richly realized gay characters, but the consensus has shifted and now it’s mostly regarded as a well-intentioned movie filtered through the lens of its straight cis male writer/director that inadvertently sends the message that lesbians are only lesbians until the right man comes around. […] Enter Sav Rodgers, a young queer filmmaker who embraces Chasing Amy in all its messiness. The early parts of the film make it seem like Chasing Chasing Amy will be a typical “talking heads” documentary, as Rodgers interviews dozens of queer film critics, directors, and screenwriters as well as people involved in the original film’s production—some are kinder to the film than others, but all seem kind of baffled by Rodgers’ love for it. If this is all starting to sound like a hagiography in defense of the film, I’m very happy to report that that is not the case. […] As a defense of the original film, as a piece of film criticism, as a story of Chasing Amy’s creation, it excels. But it’s as Rodgers’ personal story, and as a low-key love story backed by an exploration of the profound impact that a movie can have on a person’s life, that it really shines.” | Jason Green (full review)
Copa 71 (Kino Lorber, NR): “In Mexico [in 1971], six women’s national football teams (from Argentina, Denmark, England, France, Italy and Mexico) battled for the right to be crowned world champions. Copa 71, a documentary directed by Rachel Ramsay and James Erskine and whose executive producers include Venus and Serena Williams and Alex Morgan, tells the story of that 1971 world cup, with ample attention to the context and significance of the event. It’s educational in the best sense, and also a lot of fun, featuring a wealth of game footage and other archival materials, interviews with women who played in the tournament, a lively soundtrack by Rob Lord, and crisp editing by Arturo Calvete and Mark Roberts. […] Despite the shocking sexism sometimes on display, however, the mood of Copa 71 remains mostly upbeat, as it should, because these women not only persisted but triumphed.” | Sarah Boslaugh (full review)
Ever Deadly (Kino Lorber, NR): “Throat singing, an art form both fascinating and expressive, permeates Ever Deadly. It’s a very specific sound that can take a bit of getting used to, but you’ll have the chance to do just that while watching this documentary, which opens with a seven-minute performance by Tagaq and Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory. The film also regularly cuts back to what appears to be a performance in a night club in which Tagaq, wearing a stunning mirrored dress, sings while backed by a jazz ensemble. Her art is something different, but it works, and that’s the only thing that matters.” | Sarah Boslaugh (full review)
Heart of an Oak (Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment, NR): “Laurent Charbonnier and Michel Seydoux’s Heart of an Oak (sometimes billed as “Heart of Oak”; the French title is simply Le Chêne or “The Oak”) represents an interesting hybrid approach to nature documentary. The central character, so to speak, is a massive oak in the Sologne region in central France, but most of the film’s interest lies in its observation and dramatization of the lives of the many creatures living in and around this mighty tree. On the one hand, it is legitimately without words except for some song lyrics heard on the soundtrack, so there’s no voice of God narration telling the viewer what to think and feel. On the other hand, this film is organized around a series of dramatic wildlife encounters, created through Hollywood-style continuity editing and accompanied by a dramatic soundtrack cueing the audience to the appropriate emotional response, that would not be out of place in the most conventional Disney, or Attenborough, documentary.” | Sarah Boslaugh (full review)
Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting (First Run Features, NR): “The principal subject of Aviva Kempner and Ben West’s Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting is the use of Native American names and images for sports teams, but it covers a lot more ground to create a context in which Chief Wahoo and the tomahawk chop can be understood if not excused. This documentary explores a rich mine of popular culture, including paintings, comic books, toys, and posters as well as clips from movies, cartoons, and live-action television programs.” | Sarah Boslaugh (full review)
Indigo Girls: It’s Only Life After All (Oscilloscope Laboratories, NR): “The Indigo Girls documented most of their forty years of playing music together in nearly every recording format you could imagine. The footage of the Girls goes back to their childhoods, throughout four decades of playing together, to current times, with rarely shared details about their private lives. Having such a deluge of information in the space of one film wasn’t as overwhelming as you’d think. In fact, you started to tie together themes throughout their careers. Always music. Always courage. Always standing up for the little folks. Alexandria Bombach’s new documentary about Amy Ray and Emily Saliers gives us a deeply personal view of both women and their work together. […] As a lifelong fan of their music, it was like sitting down and chatting with my musical heroes for a few hours.” | Melissa Cynova (full review)
In the Rearview (Film Movement, NR): “Maciek Hamela’s documentary In the Rearview offers an excellent opportunity to learn something about the experiences of civilians fleeing the war in Ukraine. The film’s genesis is a story unto itself: Hamela, a filmmaker from Poland, decided in the early weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine to purchase a van and drive people to safety. […] He later hired a second driver to split the driving duties and to act as a cameraman recording the experiences of the refugees as well as the conditions they were driving through on the way to safety in Poland. Most of the time, the camera is focused on the passengers, who talk to each other and directly to the camera about their experiences, where they are going, and what they are leaving behind. […] The ultimate impression In the Rearview creates is that of ordinary people doing the best they can under difficult circumstances, aided by one man who decided he could make a difference.” | Sarah Boslaugh (full review)
Lead and Copper (Vehicle City Films, NR): “Lead and Copper acts as a nifty timeline of events, and also a broader view of the United States’ contemporary issues with contaminated water in poor and majority-minority communities. The extent of the problem in Washington, D.C. alone is astonishing. […] Very little feels more important than telling the stories of the people affected by this disaster, and that’s where Lead and Copper excels.” | George Napper (full review)
Love, 2020 (Prime Video, NR): “It’s a great time to examine the impact of the 2020 US Open, the first major international sporting event to be held after the worldwide outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was also notable for the ways in which the athletes used their platforms to spread awareness of social justice causes. Love, 2020 recaps much of that abbreviated year in tennis, and it’s a highly admirable documentary for its willingness to question some of the decisions made, and also for featuring doubles and wheelchair tennis players making a global impact. […] As the film so rightly points out, tennis is perhaps the greatest example of an international sport with an international activist and political reach. There has always been a tension between this history and the stuffy, elitist vibes the sport has accrued over the decades that makes tennis as historically fascinating as it is viscerally entertaining. That tension is at the heart of what Love, 2020 explores.” | George Napper (full review)
Mad About the Boy: The Noël Coward Story (Kino Lorber, NR): “The single most impressive thing Coward may have done, however, was to create a public persona which he sold so well and so consistently that no one gave a thought to the possibility that the casually cultured and ever so charming upper-crust English gentleman who delighted them on stage was a creation of a man who was born to an unhappy and sometimes barely solvent family, left school at age 9, and was gay. Coward’s public persona figures large in Barnaby Thompson’s documentary Mad About the Boy: The Noël Coward Story, a choice which saves it from becoming a mere collection of celebratory clips and quotes (although that could also be fun). The result is that instead of yet another celebrity hype doc, Thompson delivers a serious film with an intelligent script (also by Thompson, and read by Alan Cumming) that never forgets that there was a man behind the public image, a man who perfected his ability to invent create a cover persona and to re-invent himself as needed simply as a means of survival. […] a delight to Coward fans and a revelation to newcomers.” | Sarah Boslaugh (full review)
Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (Kino Lorber, NR): “Alongside his career as one of the premier directors of his generation, Martin Scorsese developed a sideline in introducing audiences to films he loves but which are not widely known outside of cinephile circles. The latest of these documentaries does for The Archers what [his previous documentaries] did for American cinema and Italian Neorealism: it introduces key films and provides technical and historical analysis from the point of view of a director who freely shares his love for the films discussed in a way that is positively infectious. […] If you don’t know the films of Powell and Pressburger, Made in England provides a great introduction to their work, with a generous selection of film clips along with keen analysis and enthusiastic appreciation by Scorsese. It also includes some clips from Scorsese’s films, as the director shares what he stole from Powell and Pressburger and how he used it in his own work.” | Sarah Boslaugh {full review)
Merchant Ivory: The Documentary (Kino Lorber, NR): “What do you get with a Merchant Ivory film? An interesting and intelligent script, often based on a literary work; beautiful production design with great attention to period detail and often location shooting as well; great actors doing some of their best work; a soundtrack that perfectly complements the rest of the film; and frequently subject matter that goes where few mainstream films were willing to go. In a word, their films were classy, bringing a taste of high-brow culture to the movie screen and thus to towns all over America. […] Merchant Ivory: The Documentary includes a lot of clips from their work, and a lot of interviews (some of which drop juicy nuggets you aren’t likely to find elsewhere) with the filmmakers and those who worked with them. […] If you’re a fan of their work, this film is a real trip down memory lane and may also motivate you to seek out some of their less famous films. If you don’t know their work, it offers a good introduction and may well intrigue you to check out their work.” | Sarah Boslaugh (full review)
Nadia (IndiePix Films, NR): “Anissa Bonnefort’s documentary Nadia[‘s] subject is the best Afghan female footballer of all time. Or possibly the best Afghan footballer of all time, period. In case you’re wondering how a woman could play football in Afghanistan, since currently girls can’t even attend school past the sixth grade in that country, the answer is that they can’t—but if they’re lucky and persistent and talented and a lot of other things they can play in another country. That’s what Nadia Nadim does—she represents Denmark internationally and plays club football for AC Milan in Serie A (Italy). […] Be aware, though, that Nadia is not a conventional sports biopic. While it includes lots of game footage, Nadia spends even more discussing what’s happening in Afghanistan, life as a refugee, and a lot of other things not directly related to football. Sometimes the juxtaposition of these two concerns provides remarkable food for thought.” | Sarah Boslaugh (full review)
Pianoforte (Kino Lorber, NR): “The narrative spine of Jakub Piatek’s documentary Pianoforte is provided by the 2021 International Chopin Piano Competition. Founded in 1927 and currently held every five years in Warsaw, the Chopin Competition is one of the most prestigious musical contests in the world, offering a prize of 40,000 Euros and a gold medal to the winner. Even more important, winning this competition can provide the kind of boost that makes the difference between being one talented young person among many and becoming the rare musician that has a successful international career. […] Music is mainly heard in short bursts in Pianoforte, but what you do hear is beautiful. The contestants are also impressively articulate about what they’re doing and why, and there’s not one who gives the impression that they regret their choices. Watching these young people, I have a feeling similar to what I get from watching gymnastics in the Olympics—wonder that human beings can do such things at all, and even more that so many people can do them at such a high level.” | Sarah Boslaugh (full review)
Rookies (Icarus Films, NR): “I think topics surrounding teachers and children are among the most difficult to portray on film in a textured and nuanced way. Rookies, directed by veteran dance documentarians Thierry Demaizière and Alban Teurlai, does exactly that. New themes emerge and develop with each interview and its accompanying dance sequence. These themes range from the deeply personal to the broadly societal, and in every case, the directors have the clarity of purpose and perspective to explore each interaction from every possible angle.” | George Napper (full review)
Swan Song (Kino Lorber, NR): “The through-line in Swan Song is preparation of [Karen] Kain’s production of Swan Lake, which is trying something different: to get past several centuries of the male gaze and offer up a more feminist version of the story. She knows she’s taking a risk: dancers are trained in certain ways, ballet companies depend on patronage from people who may prefer productions that feel familiar, and women who dare are often punished for it. Still, if Matthew Bourne could stage an all-male version of Swan Lake to great acclaim, you’d think people would be up for a re-imagining that’s much less radical, but there are no guarantees of fairness in the arts world.” | Sarah Boslaugh (full review)
Toyko Uber Blues (PBS, NR): “Enter Tokyo Uber Blues to help us learn a little bit about how the pandemic and its subsequent societal shifts impacted Japan. The film, as Uber so self-righteously promises, connects us. […] Directed by 26-year-old (at the time) Taku Aoyagi, the film follows his experience as an Uber Eats delivery biker in Tokyo. Having just graduated from film school with a mountain of debt, Aoyagi leaves the rural home of his family, essentially broke and looking to be able to pay off some small part of his debt. Ingeniously, he turned his delivery experience into a film, a very honest and thoughtful one at that.” | George Napper (full review)
