DOC NYC ’16: Diving into the Unknown

This must be the most depressing caper movie in the history of cinema. In February 2014, two Finnish scuba divers died while exploring the underwater Plura caves in the frozen north of Norway. Less than two months later, their four surviving comrades led a mission to recover their bodies. Juan Reina documented this grim operation in Diving into the Unknown (trailer here), which screens during DOC NYC 2016.

All the Plura divers were experienced and none could be described as reckless. Perhaps they did not fully understand the degree of difficulty of those particular caves. That would prove fatal when minor complications suddenly exploded into full-fledged tragedy. Teams of Norwegian and British divers tried to retrieve the bodies, but to no avail. At that point, the local police called off the recovery efforts and declared the caves off-limits to civilian divers.

Despite risking possible arrest, Patrik Grönqvist, Vesa Rantanen, Kai Känkänen, and Sami Paakkarinen return, with reinforcements, hoping to bring back the bodies and a bit of closure for their families. As fate would have it, the Finns were filming their deadly February dive, so viewers will see a good deal of what transpired in Plura. However, the step-by-step mechanics of the tragedy and subsequent recovery remain murky. Frankly, it is often difficult to make out just what is happening on-screen.

In contrast, Reina skillfully employs graphics to explain to viewers just where the April 2014 party is within the cave system and how deep they are below sea level. As a result, we definitely have a sense of the danger they are facing. We just have no idea whether they are proceeding according to plan.

In many respects, the stiff-upper lip stoicism of the Finnish divers is admirable, but it does not do Reina any dramatic favors. We quickly come to admire their loyalty and resolve, yet there is no getting around the fact we are watching a group of inherently reserved and deeply depressed men quietly wrestling with their guilt.

Most viewers will easily understand why Reina was compelled to chronicle the divers’ efforts. It is also nice to see the virtues embodied by the Finns represented on-screen. Nevertheless, it is a visually and figuratively dark viewing experience. If you have a taste for existentially downbeat films, then Diving into the Unknown will be your catnip when it screens tomorrow (11/17), as part of DOC NYC 2016.

DOC NYC ’16: Finding Kukan

It is arguably the most historically significant lost American film. It was one of the first documentaries recognized by the Academy Awards (via a special citation) and it provided a first-hand record of the Japanese bombing of Chongqing from the fire-engulfed streets. Yet there are no screenable and preservable prints currently known to be in existence. Fellow Hawaiian filmmaker Robin Lung illuminates the content of the missing film and the role played in its production by the glamorous and mysterious Li Ling-ai in Finding Kukan (trailer here), which screens during DOC NYC 2016.

Frustrated by the lack of media attention devoted the Japanese aggression in China and concerned for the safety of her beloved nurse sister, Chinese American Li understood the way to reach American hearts and minds was through cinema. Fortuitously, there happened to be an adventurous photo-journalist in Honolulu by the name of Rey Scott. With a little goading, Li convinced him to capture conditions throughout China, including the war-era capitol Chongqing for a feature documentary she conceived.

It seems Scott later spliced in footage of Li he shot in the U.S. before leaving for China, but like so many aspects of Kukan, the question remains murky. However, Li clearly assumed the financing and publicity responsibilities, even though she was only credited as an advisor. Lung persuasively argues Li did not get the credit or recognition she deserved for Kukan (which incidentally roughly means “bitter struggle”). However, she takes nothing away from Scott, who very definitely risked his life shooting the film. In fact, Scott emerges as a sympathetic and somewhat tragic figure, due to struggles with post-traumatic stress after serving as a military cameraman in several theaters of combat.

While there are certainly issues of appropriation in Finding Kukan, it is refreshing that both the Scott and Li families appreciate the contributions of each filmmaker. If there is a villain in the film’s mysterious disappearance it is probably the bankrupt distributor or Hollywood’s general short-sightedness. Some talking heads speculate 1950s anti-Communism led to the film’s devaluation, but this seems unlikely given Kukan’s pro-Nationalist perspective. It would also be colossally and cosmically unfair that Kukan would be discarded, when the deliberate and overt white-wash of Stalinism, Mission to Moscow (in which the victims of the Moscow Show Trials had it coming) still survives in all its shame to this day.

Li’s story is fascinating and interview footage of her recorded in the mid-1990s, when she too was in her mid-90s, proves she was something else entirely. Sharp as a whip, she could break-up the film crew with her acerbic asides (so do not leave while the closing credits roll). She could turn on the charm and generate press, so it is rather baffling that she was nearly forgotten until Finding Kukan just started making the festival rounds.

Finding Kukan makes you want to see Kukan, which is rather the point, so let’s hope a salvageable print turns up in a vault somewhere. It also inspires respect and affection for its forceful protagonist. Time spent with her is a pleasure. Very highly recommended, Finding Kukan screens this Tuesday (11/15) and Wednesday (11/16), as part of DOC NYC 2016.

DOC NYC ’16: Fight for Space

Since the Space Shuttle was decommissioned in 2011 the United States has not had manned space flight capabilities. If we want to send an astronaut to the International Space Station that we helped pay for, we have to hitch a ride with the Russians. Maybe it is not so bad we just elected Putin’s bestie as the 45^th president. You might think this would be an issue the candidates for the highest office in the land would have addressed, but they were obviously not so inclined. Many scientists and former astronauts try to start that conversation now in Paul Hildebrandt’s Fight for Space (trailer here), which screens during DOC NYC 2016.

The Apollo 11 Moon landing was one of the greatest moments in human history. Hildebrandt and his impressive cast of interviewees briefly review the concerted effort that got us there and review some of the remarkable resulting spin-off technologies (GPS, for instance). However, they slow down to chronicle, step by step, the budget cuts, political shifts in priorities, and painful tragedies that now have NASA mired in confusion and self-doubt. It is a sad, but fascinating story.

There are some eye-opening contentions in Fight, including the argument NASA should have maintained and updated the Apollo-era Saturn 5 rockets rather than developing the Shuttle (which most observers now admit was a flawed concept). It turns out that is exactly what the Russians did with their Soyuz rockets. Evidently, there were also credible proposals floated at NASA to get a crew to Mars with existing technology without busting the budget, but unfortunately subsequent agency administrators opted to reinvent a bigger, louder, dumber Saturn program.

Watching Fight for Space is like one long face-palm. We have gone from first to worst within a generation. NASA takes a lot of flak during the film, but most presidential administrations look even worse. George W. Bush is nearly an exception. He had the vision thing, but his second appointed NASA Administrator receives particularly low marks.

Hildebrandt assembled an impressive battery of experts to pass such judgements, including former astronaut Jim Lovell, flight director Gene Kranz, space historian Jim Logsdon, physicist Michio Kaku, and astronomer Neil DeGrasse Tyson. TV celebrity Bill Nye also makes a few appearances, but his soundbites aren’t very insightful. However, nobody can hold a candle to the garrulous wit and conviction of Story Musgrave, the only astronaut who served on all five space shuttles.

Rick Tumlinson of the Space Frontier Foundation makes a point in Fight that just keeps ringing in our ears. He attributes the spread of lunatic fringe theories about faked moon landings to the simple fact that we haven’t returned since 1972. Some of Hildebrandt’s experts make the economic argument regarding the benefits of spill-over technology, whereas others are more idealist, in the Star Trek tradition. Yet, the real question is whether we want to have an active role in the future or do we prefer to leave it to other nations. Recommended as a persuasive wake-up call for anyone concerned about our place in the world and the universe, Fight for Space screens this Monday (11/14) and Tuesday (11/15), as part of DOC NYC 2016.

DOC NYC ’16: The Beekeeper and his Son

Despite some modern developments, the principle of beekeeping remains pretty much the same. Bees in a comb produce honey. Perhaps that is why it appeals to the traditional seventy-something “Lao” Yu Yangui, but not so much to his restless son Yu Maofu. The son has just returned from a year studying and working in a big city, but it will be an awkward homecoming for the Yu family, as Diedie Weng documents in The Beekeeper and his Son (trailer here), which screens during DOC NYC 2016.

Having fallen under the sway of urban life and values, the son has notions of creating a boutique honey label. In contrast, the father insists he learn the Beekeeping trade, step by customary step. They do not just argue over beekeeping. Pigsty maintenance issues practically bring them to DEFCON one. Although she pretends to be impartial, Maofu’s mother Chengnuo Chang clearly sides with her son. Meanwhile, old Yu struggles with his own filial issues when he faces his distant ninety-year-old mother’s increasing infirmity and dementia.

Beekeeper certainly captures the generational gap in contemporary China, but it only hints at the rural versus urban disparities. It is very micro in its focus, unlike Tianlin Xu’s thematically related Coming and Going. Nor does it have the same urgency as Fan Jian’s My Land, which captures the relentless campaign to evict a family of migrant share-croppers (and also features a goose on its one-sheet). However, old Yu emerges as a keenly compelling, somewhat contradictory figure: doting grandfather, stern father, argumentative husband, guilt-ridden son.

There have been a lot of documentaries focusing on the plight of exploited migrant workers and thee hardscrabble rural poor. Arguably, Beekeeper is more accessible than some of Wang Bing’s three-hour-plus documentaries, but it does not have the strong narrative structure of others, such as My Land.

Beekeeper is a perfectly respectable film that illustrates many of China’s social tensions on a decidedly personal scale. However, it makes us wonder why My Land has yet to screen in New York, because it is such a viscerally dramatic record of the sort of struggles faced by Chinese agricultural workers, albeit ones working on urban plots of land. It is also completely fair to warn prospective viewers, pacing can be an issue for Beekeeper, even though it clocks in under ninety minutes. Recommended as a journalistic snapshot, The Beekeeper and his Son screens tomorrow (11/13), as part of this year’s DOC NYC.

DOC NYC ’16: Machine of Human Dreams

As the free-spirited child of former hippies, Ben Goertzel intellect is unfettered by conventional boundaries. Awkwardly, the same might be true of his ethical judgement. His life-long passion has been to create a high-functioning Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) system through his OpenCog software. Rather problematically, he does not seem the least bit curious about the Chinese Government’s motivation for funding his research throughout Roy Cohen’s Machine of Human Dreams, which screens during DOC NYC 2016.

You need to get through the nauseating first ten minutes of Machine before things start to get interesting. Once we get past accounts of Goertzel’s precocious brilliance and his mother’s lingering contempt for America, Cohen begins to chronicle Goetzel’s rather checkered career. The genius programmer met Lisa Pazer, the venture capitalist with whom he co-founded Webmind through the online personals, even though he already had a pregnant wife at the time. According to Pazer, they burned through twenty million dollars, but only earned roughly one hundred thousand dollars in revenue, which is why Webmind is no more.

Pazer has plenty to say in the film, but one thing that stands out is Goertzel’s track record of disastrous demos. When history repeats itself with the (Beijing approved and dominated) Hong Kong government, it frankly comes as a relief. As one of the only conflicted members on Goertzel’s team points out, their work preparing for the HK government took place during the height of the 2014 Umbrella demonstrations, yet Goertzel never stopped to ask why his funders were so interested in this technology.

If burying the lede were an Olympic sport, Machine would be a gold medal contender. The relationship between Goertzel and Beijing’s hand-picked Hong Kong government raises a host of questions, but Cohen never puts any of them to Goertzel. Like his subject, he is often too enamored with the cute toy robots whom Goertzel hopes to invest with self-learning AGI.

Goertzel’s enthusiasm is infectious, but the way he keeps landing on his feet after one professional setback after another is remarkably fortuitous. Both he and the estranged Wozniak-figure from his Webmind and Simon’s Rock College days credit science fiction as an early source of inspiration, but nobody seems concerned about the potential dangers of the Singularity sf regularly explores.

Yes, there is some provocative stuff in Machine, but it is the sort of film that makes you want to watch the outtakes and possibly re-edit a different cut. Generating wildly mixed responses, Machine of Human Dreams screens tomorrow (11/13), as part of this year’s DOC NYC.

DOC NYC ’16: The Lure

There is gold in the Rockies. Forrest Fenn knows, because he put it there. Bestselling novelist and narrative nonfiction writer Douglas Preston is the only living soul besides Fenn who seen inside the eccentric millionaire’s hidden treasure chest—so far—as far as we know. His description of the gold within it will not dissuade the growing ranks of treasure hunters (yes, my house publishes Preston’s Wyman Ford novels, why do you ask?). The hider and the seekers discuss the modern-day treasure hunt in Tomas Leach’s The Lure (trailer here), which screens during DOC NYC 2016.

After surviving a cancer scare, Fenn apparently decided he needed to shake things up. The prosperous (and sometimes controversial) art dealer hatched a plan to bury a strong box full of loot somewhere in the mountains north of Santa Fe. He assures us he embedded nine clues to its location in a poem. Whoever finds the treasure, reportedly valued in the neighborhood of two to three million dollars, may keep it, fair and square.

Apparently, a flock of people have come to Santa Fe, in hopes of doing just that. Ever the trickster, Fenn often engages with the “hunters” online, occasionally even dropping even more cryptic clues. Clearly, he is enjoying all the drama and intrigue. As for the hunters, they vary tremendously. The healthy ones seem to enjoy the challenge as well as the time spent amid the splendor of the Rockies. We even meet one hunter who seems to find her match through her new enthusiasm for climbing and hiking. Others clearly become obsessed in the wrong way.

The Fenn treasure mania is exactly the kind of subject that cries out for documentary treatment, but Leach’s quiet, observational approach feels like a mismatch. A weird story like this demands more attitude and irony. Nobody drops any movie quotes, like “the stuff dreams are made of.” Instead, he shows us plenty of treasure hunters hiking around in the mountains.

There is something very American about the Fenn treasure and the man behind it. Leach’s previous documentary, In No Great Hurry: 13 Lessons in Life with Saul Leiter was an excellent film, but he probably is not the right filmmaker to give The Lure the capery vibe the hunters would appreciate. It is impossible to make Fenn boring, but ultimately the film is too reserved for its own good. Recommended for those looking for a Charles Kuralt-style examination of the Fenn treasure craze, The Lure screens tomorrow (11/13) and Tuesday (11/15), as part of this year’s DOC NYC.

DOC NYC ’16: The Road

Leave it to the Communists to give capitalism a bad name. They haven’t done much for the reputation of Keynesianism either. The so-called Second Great Leap Forward was supposed to stimulate the economy through massive infrastructure projects. However, there have 37 major bridge collapses in China since 2007. It is easy to understand how those catastrophes happened when you watch Zhang Zanbo’s The Road (trailer here), which screens during DOC NYC 2016.

For nearly four years, Zhang documented the construction of the Xu-Huai Highway bridge and it is never pretty. The contract means big money to the Loudi Road & Bridge Company, so VP-“Problem Solver” Mr. Meng is constantly at work. When rocks from their blasting punch holes in the roof of a granny’s cottage, he is there on the spot, offering her sixteen bucks for new roofing tiles, take it or lump it.

By Mr. Meng’s standards that was pretty compassionate. Over the course of the film, we see him deny multiple damage claims from the beleaguered local farmers and withhold migrant workers’ wages until they will settle for ten percent of what they are owed. However, he is scrupulously generous with building inspectors and Communist Party officials. Throughout the film, we constantly see him and other Loudi executives distributing the famous “red envelopes” to all the local officials of authority.

The up-front matter-of-factness of Loudi managers discussing the bribe money contained within those red envelops is absolutely staggering. It is also clear Mr. Meng and his colleagues had no idea how their crooked day-to-day dealings would look on-screen or the totality of the impact of all that malfeasance when absorbed in one sitting. As Huma Abedin might say, the “optics” are terrible.

To add further irony, the Hunan region was the one-time home of Chairman Mao, so there will logically be plenty of pageantry and celebration to mark the 90^th anniversary of the Communist Party during the shooting. Despite being beholden to the Party for public works projects, the Loudi executives are openly contemptuous of the CCP’s corruption and wasteful inefficiency.

One wonders what sort of rushes Zhang showed his subjects, because the business practices documented in The Road are shockingly exploitative. Frankly, the resulting doc would be considered evidence of criminality several times over in a more just jurisdiction. It is hard to believe this film even exists, much like Nanfu Wang’s courageous Hooligan Sparrow, but the evidence of our senses will not be denied.

The Road is just an unbelievably gutsy and revealing film. Zhang documents the callous and deliberate victimization of villagers and workers over and over and over again. It is a gritty, up-close-and-personal work of cinematic muckraking, but it becomes starkly surreal as the hulking, conspicuously shoddy concrete structure takes shape. Probably the best documentary since Sparrow, The Road is the single can’t-miss film at this year’s DOC NYC. Very highly recommended, it screens this Saturday afternoon (11/12), at the IFC Center.

DOC NYC ’16: Pulitzer at 100

In 1965, the Pulitzer Prize music committee voted to award not a full Pulitzer, but a special “Miss Congeniality”-style citation to Duke Ellington for his exceptional body of work, but the full Pulitzer board vetoed their decision. It was an ugly, possibly racist episode that goes entirely unmentioned in Kirk Simon’s ridiculously sanitized puff piece, The Pulitzer at 100, which screens during DOC NYC 2016.

It is doubly ironic that Simon whitewashes the Ellington snub because nearly every other journalistic story, play, and novel discussed in the doc addresses one subject: American racism. Yes, the legacy of slavery is evil and still very much part of our national psyche. However, if you thought the American traditions of religious liberty and freedom of the press also partly define our national character than Simon and his talking heads beg to differ with your racist preconceptions, you knuckle-dragging cretin.

P@100 has about fifteen minute’s worth of interesting material regarding Joseph Pulitzer and his more democratic, blue collar approach to journalism. It is also nice to hear from music winners Wynton Marsalis and John Adams. Unfortunately, the history of the awards is conspicuously selective. In addition to ignoring the Ellington insult, Simon sweeps under the rug the notorious Janet Cooke affair, in which the Washington Post staffer was awarded a Pulitzer for a wholly fabricated story about a child drug addict.

Arguably, the deliberate omission of Walter Duranty controversy is even more pernicious. Despite cravenly denying the very real horrors and famine of the Stalinist era USSR, Duranty won a Pulitzer for his dispatches from Soviet Russia. Today, the New York Times no longer stands behind his reports, but they have taken the perverse position they will only return his Pulitzer if the awards committee revokes it. To date, that has not happened.

It is impossible take Pulitzer at 100 seriously when it ducks such well-documented incidents of terrible judgment (to put it charitably). As a result, Simon’s appallingly myopic film does not deserve your time or attention and it certainly does not merit a screening (11/12) at this year’s DOC NYC.

DOC NYC ’16: 95 and 6 to Go

Kimi Takesue’s late grandfather had great taste in music. Thanks to his influence, the soundtrack of her documentary includes renditions of “Autumn Leaves” by Stan Getz, “The Way You Look Tonight” by Fred Astaire, and “Aren’t You Glad You’re You” by Chet Baker. His influence extended beyond music, as viewers will see in 95 and 6 to Go (trailer here), her highly personal portrait of Tom Takesue, which screens during DOC NYC 2016.

After her grandmother’s death, Takesue returned to Honolulu to care for her grandfather, but she found he was already ready to move on. As the first-generation son of Japanese immigrants, he learned to be tough at an early age. He grew up during the Depression, served during World War II, and regularly endured the Hawaiian rains as a career USPS employee. Yet, the filmmaker’s probing periodically reveals some of his bottled-up feelings.

Clearly, the death of her lovely aunt while just in her early thirties remains a difficult subject for him. He also seems to carry some guilt regarding his marriage to her grandmother. Of course, he is obviously not the introspective type, so some of our conclusions might be erroneous inferences from subjects evaded and conversations cut short.

There is a long tradition of exquisitely intimate documentary filmmaking in Japan, including work by Naomi Kawase and Mami Sunada’s Death of a Salaryman. Yet, the poignancy of the latter film (which follows the director’s recently retired father after he is diagnosed with advanced stage cancer) is largely missing from 95 and 6 to Go (a title suggested by her grandfather, a football fan, when given a six-month prognosis at the age of ninety-five).

Clearly, a great deal is hashed out between the filmmaker and grandfather. It is also fascinating to hear memories of what pre-war life was like for Hawaii’s Japanese-American community. However, that still does not make it a strikingly cinematic film.

There is certainly value in taking stock in a long, dignified, and productive life, but the film could easily be edited down to an hour for a PBS broadcast. Nice but possibly too modest for the ticket price, 95 and 6 to Go screens this Saturday (11/12) as part of this year’s DOC NYC.

DOC NYC ’16: The Ballad of Fred Hersch

It seemed like every three months or so in the late 1990s, there would be a story in one of the big three jazz magazines about lingering (or downright overt) homophobia in jazz. Inevitably, Fred Hersch would feature prominently, along with two or three other out-of-the-closet musicians. That is part of who he is, but it is not the whole story—there is the music too. Things got seriously real for two months in 2008 when Hersch went into a pneumonia-related coma, but he emerged with the inspiration for an ambitious new suite. Charlotte Lagarde and Carrie Lozano document Hersch at work performing in night clubs and preparing for the world premiere of My Coma Dreams in The Ballad of Fred Hersch, which screens during DOC NYC 2016.

If you dig Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, you probably already know of and appreciate Hersch. He was a sideman to the greats (we see clips of him played in Art Farmer’s combo), but developed into one of the more popular leaders on the scene today, especially when playing with his trio or solo. As you might expect, he has an affinity for ballads, but he will unleash his inner Thelonious Monk in one of the Coma Dreams movements. If you are still skeptical, Jason Moran vouches for his artistic integrity, which should convince anyone.

Early on, we see Hersch play a homecoming gig in Cincinnati and meet his mother, who keeps a fridge stocked with beer and frosted mugs in case any jazz musicians drop by. We also meet Hersch’s spouse Scott Morgan and Herschel Garfein, the director-librettist of My Coma Dreams. Fortunately, they are both rather charismatic figures, because the reserved Hersch is much more engaging when he performs.

Ballad is an observant record of a high-profile jazz musician’s working methods and the challenges he faces when stretching outside his comfort zone. In that respect, it compares very directly to Robert Mugge’s Saxophone Colossus, which followed Sonny Rollins as he prepared to debut Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony. If anything, Lagarde and Lozano soft-pedal issues of sexuality and jazz, despite some less than edifying history. However, nobody can consequently accuse them of exploiting their subject to score political points.

To their credit, the filmmakers also have enough confidence in Hersch’s music to let him play the film out. As a documentary profile, it might get too bogged down in questions of rehearsal lunch-breaks and the like as far as civilian viewers are concerned, but this is the reality for jazz headliners of his caliber. It is a very nice film, but it does not have the emotional kick of I Called Him Morgan, I Go Back Home—Jimmy Scott, or Thomas Chapin Night Bird Song, which is probably just as well for Hersch and Scott Morgan. Recommended for Hersch’s admirers and those who are interested in the creative process, The Ballad of Fred Hersch screens this Saturday (11/12) as part of this year’s DOC NYC.

DOC NYC ’16: How to Build a Time Machine

George Pal’s 1960 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ Time Machine is considered a classic. It featured Rod Taylor’s first leading man performance and won an Oscar for best special effects. However, if I had realized the kind of cult following the film still claims, I would have pushed harder for a backlist promotion for the fifty-fifth anniversary last year (it’s a long story, with no pay-off). It all comes down to the machine itself. Several fans have lovingly reproduced life-sized facsimiles, but nobody can match the perfectionist details of animator Rob Niosi. However, if you really want to make a functional time travel vehicle, physicist Ron Mallet is the man you need to talk to. Their complimentary obsessions are explored in Jay Cheel’s How to Build a Time Machine (trailer here), which screens during DOC NYC 2016.

Niosi had been fascinated with the George Pal film and distinctive prop, ever since he saw the film at the theater where his father worked as an usher. The fifty-some intervening years were clearly good to Niosi. He now lives in an old Hollywood-style mansion and can afford to have custom parts hand-crafted out brass and copper rather than the wood and tin used for the original.

Niosi seems to enjoy the building process so much, he may never finish his time machine. In contrast, Mallet would dearly love to build a functional time machine. Like Niosi, he takes inspiration from the George Pal film and the original novella, but he is motivated by the tragic early loss of his beloved father. Mallet focused his research on black holes, because their time-warping characteristics definitely applied to his long-term goal, but it was a more academically respectable manifestation of extreme theoretical physics.

Frankly, Mallet makes a shockingly convincing case some kind of time travel might be possible. Of course, he is building on the work of eccentrics like Albert Einstein. Yet, rather poignantly, he concludes it will most likely not allow him to visit with his father, as he hoped.

In fact, Mallet emerges as quite a sad, tragic figure, albeit a brilliant one. On the other hand, Niosi seems like a bit of loon, but a relatively well-adjusted one, who brings good business to various pipe-bending and metal-dying facilities. If he enjoys tinkering with his time machine than he should just have at it.

There are some borderline revelations regarding the science of time travel in How To. Unfortunately, there are also plenty of slack moments in which we simply watch Niosi putter about in his workshop. Yet, Cheel brings the themes and strands together in the closing scenes. Twenty minutes could easily be edited out, but any film with this much food for thought is worth seeing. Recommended for DIY geeks and time travel science fiction fans, How to Build a Time Machine screens this Friday (11/11) and the following Monday (11/14) as part of this year’s DOC NYC.