DocuWeeks ’12: Digital Dharma

The holy texts of Tibetan Buddhism are not very portable.  That is not necessarily a problem if you are studying peacefully in a monastery, but it is a serious drawback if your country is invaded by an imperial power.  Such was indeed the fate of Tibet.  Following the 1950 Communist invasion, centuries of Tibetan culture were at of risk of being lost forever.  However, one American scholar successfully spearheaded a drive to digitize, translate, and disseminate thousands of sacred and secular Tibetan texts.  His campaign is documented in Dafna Yachin’s Digital Dharma (trailer here), which is currently screening during DocuWeeks New York 2012.

The late E. Gene Smith was a perennial student who specialized in East Asian languages with little commercial application.  Tibetan was perfect for his purposes.  Yet, as he immersed himself in the culture, he became increasingly alarmed about its chances for survival.  After the initial invasion and again during the Cultural Revolution, monasteries were ruthlessly razed and books were systematically burned.  As a result, many critical texts were completely unavailable to the Tibetan Buddhist Diaspora.

Fortunately, most of the books still survived, hidden away to avoid the Communist rampages.  In the 1960’s, as a Library of Congress field worker in non-aligned India, Smith catalogued and facilitated the publication of hundreds of volumes smuggled out of Tibet.  Retiring from the Federal government, Smith eventually cofounded the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center, which would pursue the mission of digitization and translation, insuring the wisdom of Tibet will survive and spread across the world.

Clearly, Yachin nearly venerates the Tibetologist as if he had been a lama himself. While Smith surely did invaluable work preserving the endangered Tibet culture, he was not infallible.  In fact, the 1960’s era pacifist seems to have carried some residual ideological baggage, leading to the somewhat debatable decision to leave his collection to the Southwest University for Nationalities in Chengdu, Sichuan.  Smith was determined to return the ancient documents to the Tibetans, laudably considering himself only a temporary caretaker.  Yet, just how trustworthy a caretaker a Chinese chartered institution will be surely remains to be seen, particularly considering earlier efforts to transfer his collection were forestalled by the 2008 riots that swept across Tibet.  At least the contents of his collection are now preserved for posterity.

Often fascinating, Digital offers viewers some helpful context for understanding Tibetan Buddhism as well as the captive nation’s thorny history over the past seventy years or so.  It is also one of the more polished productions seen during this year’s DocuWeeks, featuring some stylish but informative graphics.  Despite prompting some unanswered questions, Digital Dharma tells a great story.  In fact, it is the rather rare film that presents both religion and technology in a positive light.  Respectfully recommended for amateur Tibetologists and China watchers, Digital Dharma screens through Thursday (8/23) at the IFC Center in New York, as DocuWeeks 2012 comes to a close.

DocuWeeks: Garden in the Sea

The island of Espíritu Santo is wild land, off limits to humanity.  It sounds like an awful, forbidding place, but Mexican environmentalists consider it one of their greatest triumphs.  To commemorate this feat of preservation, Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias created a special installation, not on the new no man’s zone, but off the coast, on the floor of the Sea of Cortez, bringing new meaning to the term “site specific.”  Thomas Reidelsheimer documents the creation and dedication of the Espiritu Santo architectural sculpture in Garden in the Sea (trailer here), which screens during this year’s DocuWeeks.

There is a tiny irony that a film taking us to task for all we collectively dump into the ocean would also celebrate plunging a series of concrete gates into said waters.  Yes, it’s hardly the same thing, but it is still rather odd.  Still, there is a good chance the fish will like having it down there, like a giant aquarium ornament.  Potentially, Garden could have been one of those documentaries that take viewers someplace they will most likely never have the opportunity to visit, like Into Eternity, Michael Madsen’s tour of Finland’s subterranean nuclear waste depository Onkalo or Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Werner Herzog’s 3D journey into the Chauvet cavern.

Unfortunately, despite the striking vistas of Espíritu Santo and the liberal helpings of underwater photography, Garden simply is not very cinematic.  Frankly, it feels more like a cable special than a theatrical documentary feature, particularly given the relatively brief sixty-nine minute running time.  However, it includes some soothing but distinctive Stephan Micus music licensed from the ECM label, perfectly suited to the aquatic theme.

Perhaps you have to be there.  Swimming through Iglesias’s Atlantis gates is probably a pretty cool experience for scuba divers, but at about ten feet tall, they are not imposing enough to command the big screen.  There are also only three of them too, so the project cannot really be thought of as Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Gates underwater.

Granted, Espíritu Santo is a nice story about engaged citizens taking direct action.  However, most viewers will have nagging doubts whether turning the preserve over to the Mexican government is the wisest course of action.  One has the uneasy feeling that if the environmental consortium is not constantly monitoring it, the beautiful island might be turned to more nefarious purposes.  Of course, Garden is not about to address any concerns regarding systemic government corruption in Mexico. (Instead, look out for Bernardo Ruiz’s Reportero on the festival circuit for that kind of reality check.)

Aside from the occasional stern environmental talking-to, Garden is a slight but moderately pleasant travelogue.  Marine enthusiasts might enjoy it, but its brevity makes it difficult to justify New York City ticket prices.  Be that as it may, Garden in the Sea screens through Thursday (8/23) at the IFC Center, as part of the final week of DocuWeeks New York.

DocuWeeks ’12: Ricky on Leacock

For many, Richard Leacock was Mr. Documentary, directly inheriting the title from Robert Flaherty, with whom he once worked.  Since his name is attached to many of the Twentieth Century’s acknowledged exemplars of the field, his reputation was not without merit.  Longtime friend, colleague, and protégé Jane Weiner collects decades of footage she shot of the verité pioneer in her documentary profile Ricky on Leacock, which screens as part of the 2012 DocuWeeks showcase.

Leacock shot his first documentary as a teenager to serve as a PR film for his father’s banana plantation.  Decades later, Canary Island Bananas is still regularly screened at Leacock tributes and retrospectives.  Obviously not exactly from humble roots, Leacock was educated at private boarding schools.  It was at one such institution Leacock happened to meet Flaherty, who promised to hire Leacock after viewing Bananas.  Though Leacock dismissed the pledge at the time, he did indeed find himself side by side Flaherty shooting footage for Louisiana Story.

Frankly, Flaherty’s 1948 classic boasts some of the strongest images collected in Weiner’s documentary, along with the uber-cool visuals of Roger Tilton’s smoking short, Jazz Dance, on which Leacock served as a cinematographer and Jimmy McPartland’s combo provided the music (with Willie “the Lion” Smith on piano, Pee Wee Russell on clarinet, and the great slap bassist Pops Foster, oh yes indeed).  Yet problematically, many of his grungy later super-eight micro-docs that fired Leacock’s passion are not so powerful looking when collected on-screen.

Granted, there are some interesting making-of stories about Leacock’s films, including his collaborations with D.A. Pennebaker, who shares some on-camera reminiscences.  Yet, the fact is Leacock’s oft repeated calls to “democratize” documentary filmmaking sound awfully dated in the digital age, as does the invective he directs towards television.  His frustration might be understandable, but frankly if you cannot get anyone with a financial stake to share your vision for a project, perhaps that ought to tell you something, especially considering his filmography includes the sharply critical Ku Klux Klan—the Invisible Empire produced for CBS in 1965.

Regardless, Weiner cannot seem to get enough of her teacher’s words of wisdom.  Granted, Leacock had a distinctive voice, but his opinions are not always as timeless as his best films.  She also loves to watch him cook, which is fine the first few times we watch him putter about the kitchen. 

The result is moderately interesting oral history of documentary filmmaking probably best suited to the television Leacock so brusquely dismissed.  Tilton’s Jazz Dance is highly recommended for all audiences (check out Jeff Van Gundy getting down around the 8:06 mark), whereas Ricky on Leacock is strictly for those who have an abiding fascination with the work of Leacock and select collaborators, like Pennebaker and Flaherty.  It screens through Thursday (8/16) at the IFC Center in New York and then runs for a week (8/17-8/23) at the Laemmle Noho 7 in Los Angeles as part of the 2012 edition of DocuWeeks.

DocuWeeks ’12: Out of the Clear Blue Sky

A prestigious Wall Street firm specializing in Treasury securities, Cantor Fitzgerald suffered more losses on September 11^th than any other organization, including the New York Police and Fire Departments.  The numbers are staggering: 658 of their 960 New York employees died that morning.  However, Cantor’s story did not end there.  Filmmaker Danielle Gardner, whose brother Doug was one of the 658, documents CEO Howard Lutnick’s efforts to support the anguished Cantor families while desperately working to keep the firm afloat during its darkest hours in Out of the Clear Blue Sky (clip here), which is currently screening as part of the 2012 DocuWeeks New York.

Had it not been the morning of his young son’s first day of school, Lutnick surely would have been at Cantor at the time of the attack.  With offices several floors above the initial impact zone, Cantor employees never had a chance.  Rushing to the scene only to witness the Towers’ collapse, Lutnick and a handful of senior staff began scrambling to determine who survived.  With the enormity of their loss weighing on him, a distraught Lutnick became the public face of the tragedy.  Yet, as some family members lashed out Lutnick in frustration, the media turned on Cantor, hard.

Blue’s stories of grief and remembrance are truly heartrending.  Surprisingly though, it is also a compelling business documentary, providing an inside account of Cantor’s fight to survive during the precarious days following the fateful Tuesday.  Their resourcefulness is quite extraordinary, conducting Twenty-First Century financial transactions with scrounged office supplies.  Of course, the stakes were high.  Had the firm folded, Lutnick’s ability to help Cantor families would have been severely limited.  Indeed, that behind-the-scenes look Cantor’s tenacious rebound is what sets Blue apart and above other well meaning 9-11 documentaries.

As a member of their ranks, Gardner clearly earned the trust of Cantor families, eliciting some unusually eloquent testimony from her interview subjects.   While there are many emotionally charged scenes, the film never feels intrusive or exploitative.  (The only exception might be Lutnick’s tearful television interviews recorded within days of the attack, which have already been replayed innumerable times in the media.)  Indeed, Gardner deftly walks the tightrope, directly conveying the rawness of survivors’ pain, without reveling in it.

While the media does not cover itself in glory for uncritically recycling complaints against Lutnick, the overall film is scrupulously nonpartisan.  Too many misguided people would prefer to forget or deny the horrific events of September 11^th.  Worse still, some might even be inclined to dismiss Cantor as an instrument of the “1%” amid the current polarized climate.  Blue acts as a valuable corrective to such impulses, reminding viewers the Cantor employees lost at the World Trade Center were all individuals from diverse backgrounds, who left behind friends and loved ones.  Poignantly engaging but also quite an enlightening portrait of corporate resiliency, Out of the Clear Blue Sky screens through Thursday (8/16) at the IFC Center in New York, with a week’s run at the Laemmle Noho to follow (8/17-8/23) in Los Angeles, as part of this year’s DocuWeeks.

DocuWeeks ’12: Defiant Requiem

A Catholic requiem in a concentration camp might sound like a problematic endeavor.  So it was, but not necessarily for the reasons one might assume.  It was actually the programming choice of a group of prisoners, led by a remarkable maestro.  The story of the Terezin performances of Verdi’s Requiem and the subsequent on-site re-staging for survivors decades later are documented in Doug Shultz’s Defiant Requiem (trailer here), which screens as part of the 2012 DocuWeeks in New York and Los Angeles.

Verdi’s Requiem is a draining chorale work, in many ways.  It would not seem like a natural piece of music to unwind with after a hard day of labor—slave labor to be more accurate.  However, these were far from normal times for the Terezin (a.k.a. Theresienstadt) concentration camp captives.  These Czech citizens had been swept up by the conquering National Socialists and held at Terezin until they were deported to a death camp.  Nonetheless, many died at Terezin due to the inhuman conditions, but a determined young conductor harnessed the power of music to keep their spirits up.

Gathering those interested around an old upright providentially discovered in the basement of his barracks, Rafael Schächter started his make-shift chorus off with Czech popular songs and Smetana operas, but he eventually coaxed them into the Requiem.  The key might have been his translation of Verdi’s Latin into Czech.  As Murry Sidlin, the conductor of the commemorative Requiem concerts observes, the Requiem’s lyrics hold tremendous meaning for anyone unjustly denied their liberty and dignity.  Rife with prophesies of judgment from above, Verdi’s opus is not just a requiem.  It became a J’Accuse—an indictment of the National Socialist crimes so bold, only the International Red Cross inspectors could miss its significance.

Yes, the Requiem was performed at that Terezin, the concentration camp temporarily remodeled into a Potemkin village to fool the Red Cross.  It was there that Sidlin brought members of Catholic University of America chorale ensemble and a full orchestra, for an emotional performance.

In fact, mounting Verdi’s Requiem and telling the story of Schächter has become a mission for Sidlin, who serves as the film’s musical director and one of its primary commentators.  It is an important story, but the film also fosters a greater appreciation for Verdi’s work.  Wisely, Shultz takes a rather traditional documentarian approach, largely approximating the shape of Sidlin’s music-with-historical-context concert presentations of the Requiem, filling in here and there with tastefully recreated scenes in the rehearsal cellar and some animated sequences adapted from surviving Terezin drawings.  This is hardly the place to get experimental, after all.

Granted, anyone who knows anything about the Holocaust and the fate of the Terezin prisoners in particular will sadly know exactly what to expect from the film.  Nonetheless, it deepens our understanding of life at Terezin and offers up an example of music as an instrument of survival.  Frankly, hearing some of the stormier passages promising divine justice will likely make viewers’ hair stand on end.  Highly recommended precisely for such memorable moments, Defiant Requiem screens through Thursday (8/9) in New York at the IFC Center as part of DocuWeeks New York as well the week of August 17-23 during DocuWeeks LA.