LFF 2015: He Named Me Malala ***
Malala is an awesome character in a film that feels mediocre and unsurprising … A great shame, really.
Category: Documentary
A Dangerous Game ****
The first thought that pops into the mind watching filmmaker Anthony Baxter’s follow-on film to You’ve Been Trumped (2011), A Dangerous Game is, can there really be that many people needing to play golf on Planet Earth? The rest is a powerful expose of the usual greed, arrogance and miscommunication that such documentaries are so …
Plot For Peace ****
The opening shot to this fascinating documentary, Plot For Peace, shows an unassuming man playing a card game, accompanied by a voiceover. The setting itself feels theatrical, as though subsequent events are a new fictional-feature spin on the release of one of the world’s most iconic statesmen, Nelson Mandela, and the end of Apartheid in …
LFF 2013: The Armstrong Lie ****
Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney, winner of the LFF 2012 Best Documentary prize for Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God returns this year with an equally absorbing film that literally puts professional cyclist Lance Armstrong on the spot. Oprah has been there, trying to get the truth. Now it’s Gibney’s turn, especially …
The Gatekeepers ****
No one situation is as controversial as the Israeli-Palestine one, so any further insight into the views of those involved in its history naturally provide a fascinating and ultimately compelling screen account. These Heads of Security or ‘Gatekeepers’ of the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret service agency who were tasked with decision making on ‘security’ in …
BFI LFF 2012: Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God *****
In the week that has seen the shock resignation of Pope Benedict XVI comes a brutally uncompromising documentary about the clerical child sex abuse scandal and the extraordinary lengths the Catholic Church went to cover it up which goes all the way to the highest echelons of the Vatican. The Pontiff is in fact the …
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Project Nim ****
Director James Marsh of the fascinating 2008 film, Man On Wire, this time gives us jolt of clarity into our ‘playing God’ actions, one filled initially with both hope then despair that ultimately makes you ashamed to be human. Unfortunately for Project Nim, it has the sci-fi action adventure, Rise of the Planet of the …
Just Do It: A Tale Of Modern-Day Outlaws ***
Award-winning documentary film-maker Emily James’s latest ‘window on life’ comes at a very appropriate time when most of us are feeling rather impotent and disillusioned at the way modern-day existence is heading, what with global capitalism ruling the planet and banks (and newspaper organisations) pulling the strings of those in power. Just Do It and …
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Countdown To Zero ****
Good documentary film-making informs and provokes debate, and hopefully, addresses all sides of the argument. So in recent times, we’ve had some highly emotive big-screen subject matter (Inside Job’s banking crisis, for example) that’s naturally one-sided to stir up a hornet’s nest of public outrage. It seems film-makers need to find a common concern to …