HRWFF ’12: Brother Number One

For one New Zealander, a Canadian, and a British subject sailing through Asia, straying off course became a capital crime.  It was their profound misfortune to anchor within the territorial waters of Cambodia while the country was held in the inhuman grip of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, or the Khmer Rouge as they would subsequently be known.  In 2007, Rob Hamill had the opportunity to testify on behalf of his late brother in the first trial of a Khmer Rouge official for crimes against humanity.  Annie Goldson followed Hamill’s quest for justice, or at least a measure of closure, in Brother Number One (trailer here), one of a handful of must see films at this year’s typically uneven 2012 Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York.

The film’s title carries a rather odd double meaning.  Pol Pot, the Robespierre of the nationwide genocide, was dubbed “Brother Number One” in Communist propaganda, whereas Kerry Hamill was the first of three brothers.  Charismatic and athletic, the elder Hamill brother left New Zealand in search of seafaring adventure.  The 1970’s still felt like the 1960’s for him and his mates, who were largely oblivious to the horrors underway in Cambodia.

Canadian Stuart Glass was killed during the attack on their small yacht, which was probably a small mercy.  Hamill and the British John Dewhirst were captured and transferred to the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, commanded by Kaing Guek Eav, a.k.a. “Comrade Duch.”  In his own words, Duch’s prisoners were to be “smashed.”  This entailed torture, the extraction of a false confession, and an agonizingly slow execution.

As he prepares his “Civil Party” statement, Hamill visits the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and talks to the handful of survivors, getting a painful sense of his brother’s final months.  He also interviews several former Khmer Rouge officials, who are not exactly forthcoming.  More satisfying are his meetings with Dewhirst’s sister and his brother’s girlfriend, bonding through their shared grief.

Though it is an intensely personal story, Brother vividly establishes the scale and ferocity of the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror.  The walls of victim photographs at Tuol Sleng speak for themselves. We do learn a bit about Duch, the subject of The Bookkeeper of Death (recently seen on PBS World), but Rob Hamill is appropriately granted the floor throughout the documentary.  Frankly, it is quite amazing how well he keeps it together as he confronts the ghosts haunting his family.

An Olympic rower at the Atlanta games, Rob Hamill is indeed a compelling POV figure.  He certainly puts a human face on the nearly inconceivable tragedy of so-called “Democratic Kampuchea.”  Yet, the documentary never feels manipulative or exploitative.  Goldson wisely stays out of the picture, resisting the temptation of putting any sort of explicitly personal stamp on the film.  Nor are there moments of quiet observational slack.  Brother has a compelling narrative, which Goldson and her co-director-dp Peter Gilbert and co-editor James Brown hew to quite tightly.

Brother Number One clearly illustrates how vicious ideology can be.  It also reminds viewers how one murder can devastate an entire family.  As for resolution, that is another matter entirely.  That is indeed why Brother Number One is a timely and important film.  One of three highly recommended films at this year’s New York edition of HRWFF, along with Salaam Dunk and Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, it screens this coming Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (6/19-6/21) at the Walter Reade Theater, with Goldson and Hamill in attendance all three nights.

HRWFF ’12: Reportero

For years, Mexico’s best journalism has been done in Tijuana.  Frankly, with the rise of the drug cartels’ power, Tijuana might be the only place in the country where real journalism is practiced with conviction.  However, the staff of the resolutely independent news weekly Zeta has paid a heavy price for their journalistic integrity.  Bernardo Ruiz documents their dangerous mission covering the drug lords and the crooked politicians abetting them in Reportero (trailer here), which screens as part of the 2012 Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York.

Based on the experience of Zeta staffers, one could justifiably ask if Mexico ever had a free press, as such.  Founded to investigate the widespread corruption of the long ruling socialist PRI party, Jesús Blancornelas made a crucial decision to print the newspaper on the American side of the border.  This would be more expensive, but far more secure.  While the PRI is now temporarily on the outs, the drug traffickers have become even more proactive buying-off or outright intimidating journalists.  Indeed, Zeta has suffered its share of assassinations, including very nearly their founder, Blancornelas.

Ruiz adopts old school investigative journalist Sergio Haro as his primary POV figure.  No stranger to death threats, Haro has fearlessly raked the muck of Baja California.  Though a family man, he comes across as an existential champion of the underclass, who nonetheless needles the leftist PRI every chance he gets.  While not the most animated screen presence, Haro clearly walks the walk.  His stories should be considered blockbusters, but the guilty continue on, with evident impunity.

Ruiz’s dry observational style tries its best to drain all the sensationalism out of the film, but Zeta’s four-alarm headlines speak for themselves.  Indeed, the crusading publication’s war stories are exactly that.  Their scoop concluding the film is quite a jaw-dropper, but it is the memorial to one of two fallen comrades that really says it all.

It is nearly impossible to consider Mexico a functional state after viewing Ruiz’s profile of Zeta.  Fascinating but deeply scary stuff, Reportero is a bracing tribute to the new weekly’s principled journalists (and the staff of a short lived daily paper Haro founded in between his Zeta stints).  While it is an ITVS production destined for PBS broadcasts, it is well worth seeing the longer festival cut, because these details are devilishly important.  Recommended for anyone concerned about press freedoms or the social-political health of our southern neighbor, Reportero screens next Thursday (6/21), Friday (6/22), and Saturday (6/23) at the Walter Reade Theater.

HRWFF ’12: Salaam Dunk

There was no Title IX in Iraq under Saddam.  In fact, the general idea of gender equity that motivated the landmark legislation remains scarce throughout the region.  Yet, two years after its founding, the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS) fielded a pioneering women’s basketball team.  They never won a game during their first season.  David Fine documents their second in the truly inspiring Salaam Dunk (trailer here), which screens as part of the 2012 Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York.

Their students are the future leaders of Iraq.  Offering a rigorous academic program in the relatively sheltered environment of Sulaimani, AUIS makes a point of recruiting a cross section of Iraq’s population.  As a result, the nascent women’s basketball team boasts a roster of Arabs, Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis, and Christians.  They are led by Coach Ryan, a visiting American English lecturer.  Tough but supportive, he is a refreshing antidote to all the wrong sort of coaches who have made the news recently.  However, everyone is keenly aware his fellowship ends with the current academic year.

For students from Baghdad, Sulaimani is an island of stability, yet many still worry about their families.  Nearly all team members have lost friends or family to violence.  As Coach Ryan observes, his team has faced more in their still young lives than most of those watching their documentary will ever have to contend with.  Not merely an extracurricular activity, basketball becomes something uniquely “theirs.”  It bonds the young women together and gives them a sense of identity.  They also want to win.

Probably no genre traffics in shopworn clichés like the sports documentary, but Salaam is something else entirely.  When the coach consoles his team after a hard loss that their gutty performance is more important than a “W” or an “L,” it is not hollow.  It is a profoundly heavy moment.  Notions of sportsmanship and the “healing power of sport” take on very real meaning here.

Director-editor-co-cinematographer Fine gives viewers a full sense of players’ personalities, as well as that of their coach and student-manager.  They are all bright and immensely likable.  Indeed, the experience of AUIS in general and the women’s basketball team in particular appears to be a successful social catalyst, bringing the diverse team together, despite their religious and ethnic differences.  This does not mean Salaam is uneventful.  The AUIS team just saves their drama for the court (or the classroom or the debating society).

This is a great documentary.  The term “crowd-pleaser” just does not cover it.  While the circumstances of the Iraq War unavoidably hang over the young Iraqis, Salaam scrupulously avoids politics, as such.  It is one of the best sports docs in years, but it is not really about games and stats.  It is about a group of young scholars becoming athletes and leaders, who will inspire audience confidence in Iraq’s future.  While HRW is always a radically mixed bag, Salaam Dunk and the opening night selection, Alison Klayman’s Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, the Sundance alumnus profiling the Chinese dissident artist, are two films that should absolutely not be missed.  Highly recommended, Salaam Dunk screens this Saturday (6/16), Sunday (6/17), and Monday (6/18) at the Walter Reade Theater.