Jimmy Carter Man from Plains.

"[E]ven someone as astute as [Jonathan] Demme could not have predicted that after he agreed to make the movie, [Jimmy] Carter would re-enter the news in a big way by titling his 2006 book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," writes David Carr in the New York Times. "Mr Demme had planned to travel with Mr Carter to Iran and the scene of the 1979 hostage-taking that doomed his presidency, to ask whether that crisis was really the defeat it had been portrayed as. But what might have been a nice bit of hagiography and re-contextualization was overtaken by the debate that roiled around the former president and his not particularly felicitous choice for a book title."

Updated through 10/26.

"Demme reveals Carter as a highly intelligent, dedicated, religious, humble, and concerned man constantly engaged with the world around him, and for that the film is time well spent with a human being who, even if one doesn't agree with his ideas, must be at least admired for his unwavering integrity," writes Michael Joshua Rowin at indieWIRE. "Nonetheless, [Jimmy Carter Man from Plains] is a limited documentary, unavoidably dependent on Carter's public speaking appearances and talk and radio show interviews for much of its material, making Man from Plains a compromised product and nowhere near a full accounting of Carter's legacy."

"Carter is scarcely the first commentator to characterize the enforced, unequal separation that exists in Israel's occupied territories as apartheid—the Israeli left has called it that for years," writes J Hoberman in the Voice. "But, waving the term like a red cape before the American public, Carter has been notably disingenuous in exploiting it." As for the film, "a book tour isn't even a political campaign, and traveling with Jimmy Carter isn't exactly going backstage with the Rolling Stones."

At Slant, Ed Gonzalez finds the doc, "like Neil Young: Heart of Gold and The Agronomist... a poignant portrait of a great man."

Earlier: Reviews from Toronto.

Updates, 10/25: "I'm still not quite sure why it's so compelling," writes Andrew O'Hehir in Salon. "I think this movie's appeal is overdetermined, as we used to say in sophomore Marxist-theory class, meaning that it derives from so many sources you can't keep track of them all. If Jimmy Carter Man From Plains sometimes feels like the portrait of a saint, it also reminds us that saints are strange and private people pursuing a personal compact with an invisible deity, in solitude and often in sadness."

"As a feature-length experiment in point-of-view, Man From Plains ranks alongside Demme's paranoia-tinged remake of Keith Uhlich at the Reeler.

"Like a scientist studying some unspecified virus, [Demme] shows Carter weathering the ire of political correctness," writes Armond White in the New York Press. "Man from Plains portrays a powerful man struggling to maintain humility in the face of political tyranny."

Updates, 10/26: "Man From Plains isn't about engagement; it's about disengagement from Mr Carter's critics and his more provocative beliefs," argues Manohla Dargis in the New York Times.

"Jimmy Carter is still Jimmy Carter: A measured man of principle, given more toward substantive policy discussions than soundbites and fiery rhetoric, and inclined to find common ground rather than pick fights," writes Scott Tobias at the AV Club. "These may be the qualities of a great man, but they're not exactly the stuff of a great documentary subject, especially given how hard Carter works to defuse the emotions stirred up by his book."

"[T]his admiring documentary is more interesting than you might think, though not as interesting as it should be," writes Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times.

Posted by dwhudson at October 24, 2007 12:52 AM