Reviews of screenings from the 2009 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Toronto, Canada.
El Olvido (Oblivion) (Dir: Heddy Honigmann)
World documentary master Heddy Honigmann (who underwhelmed a little last year with the slightly thin Emoticons) returns with a film ranking in the top tier of her rich career. In Peru, presidents come and go, but working folk are always toiling. El Olvido takes us on a tour of Lima where we meet a variety of people working in the service industry — not only in the formal sense of waiters and bartenders (who we see being taught to always provide service with a smile) but also those in the vast informal service industries, such as street hawkers and entertainers who put on the quickest of shows in crosswalks during red lights and hope for change from the cars ready to stream by them. We learn how to make a Pisco Sour (the national cocktail) and see the proper way to don a presidential sash while seeing how the people who provide these services live. With her warm empathy, Heddy elicits the hopes and dreams of the people we see and also finds out what happened on the days the bigwigs stopped by. Her eye also catches the beauty — and the rough side — of Lima. This film in its tone and details recalls her 1998 effort The Underground Orchestra but this is by no means a rehash. A perfectly wonderful film. Hightly recommended.
Invisible City (Dir: Hubert Davis)
Following two young men in Toronto's Regent Park as they navigate their neighbourhood and high schools, trying to get over and trying to grow up. Against beautifully-lensed shots of Regent Park under a siege of redevelopment, Mikey and Kendell look for the path they want to take, with the appeal of the street competing against the imprecations of their hard-working moms and the few authority figures that look out for them. This is a very good doc (and festival award winner for best Canadian feature), sticking with its subjects over a long stretch of time, and giving us a chance to watch them grow up. Its only failing might be that it doesn't do enough to show us what the boys are up against — with their loving mothers' guidance and support and teachers like Ainsworth Morgan, as well as their own generally articulate self-reflection, we see the things pulling them to the straight and narrow, but the pitfalls are merely shadowy suggestions. That aside, this is well worth seeing. (Well-paired with Code of Silence, a student short directed by Chris Quigg that scratches the surface of the "stop snitching" phenomenon. Capably done, but it leaves a hunger for a more comprehensive treatment of the subject.)
A Hard Name (Dir: Alan Zweig)
Alan Zweig turns outward from the personal investigation of his previous Loveable to meet and hear the stories of a group of ex-cons. Zweig is an excellent interviewer, both a friendly presence good at getting people to open up, but also pushing a little bit and asking the questions that are also in the audience's mind: why'd you do what you did? Would you go back to crime if you knew you wouldn't get caught? The film's subjects show varying degrees of self-awareness and desire to change, and a range of articulacy. I left the screening slightly underwhelmed — perhaps it just didn't live up to my expectations. A bit hard to take in places — the folks on screen went through a lot of bad shit and, in turn, inflicted a lot of pain on others — but it's still worth seeing.
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