Park City Dispatch. 8.

As in recent years, the documentaries once again stole the show at Sundance 08. Among the 41 films I crammed into nine days, 23 were nonfiction titles. Topics included: social activism, environmentalism, economic concerns, anti-war issues, the corrosion of democracy, world politics, displacement, gender identity, inspiring senior citizens, and entertaining biographies of Roman Polanski, Hunter S Thompson and Patti Smith.

One festival highlight was certainly the premiere of U2 3D, a genuine concert experience utilizing the technology of 3-D and surround-sound. Leave it to Bono, the Edge, Adam and Larry (all in attendance at the screening, along with Al Gore) to merge rock-and-roll with social activism. After the screening, Bono's response to an audience question about whether the band might consider doing a "deeper" show, inadvertently spoke to the festival's raison d'etre: "Underneath there is a narrative running: social activism, human rights, non-violence. Taking human rights on the road is not a flippant thing to do," he reasoned. "I think you might know that in this country."

I marveled at many of the documentaries' timeliness and the prescience of the filmmakers, many of whom spent upwards of three, four, and five years in production. For example, I.O.U.S.A., Fields of Fuel, Secrecy, Flow: For Love of Water, Dinner with the President, The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo, Slingshot Hip Hop and Bigger, Stronger, Faster each address topics of immediate national and international concern.

In the wake of Bush's tax cuts and, even as the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates in an attempt to ward off recession or worse, I.O.U.S.A. (Patrick Creadon), looks at the history of the US economy: the over-burdened social security system, the national health crisis, the ever-expanding military-industrial complex and the growing debts to foreign interests, all of which foreshadow a future of national economic and spiritual bankruptcy. But Creadon, wisely moving beyond partisan entanglements, suggests sound solutions for a future fiscally sound nation.

With the price of oil having recently topped $100 a barrel, Fields of Fuel (Josh Tickell), winner of the Audience Award for Documentary, uncovers desperately needed alternatives which might lead to a decentralized, sustainable energy infrastructure: a new Brooklyn biodiesel plant serving three states, a miraculous Arizona algae-based fuel farm. Tickell's passionate and generous film tracks the rising domination of the petrochemical industry in the second half of the 20th century and, concurrently, summons citizens' action.

Remember Frank Herbert's Dune? In Flow: For Love of Water, French director Irena Salina sounds the alarm: water, our most precious resource, is in peril, and, given the goal of privatization by billion-dollar water companies, impoverished nations could be headed for extinction. But people around the globe are fighting back (the Cochabamba protests of 2000, also known as "The Cochabamba Water Wars," were a series of triumphant protests that took place in Bolivia's third largest city in reaction to the World Bank's plans to privatize the municipal water supply. Salina interviews African plumbers who secretly reconnect shantytown water pipes to ensure a community's survival; a California scientist who exposes toxic public water supplies; and a "water guru" who promotes community-based initiatives to provide water throughout India. As both I.O.U.S.A. and Fields of Fuel point out, we have been fighting wars for oil for more than 100 years. But, as Flow demonstrates, unless we instigate change, we face a world in which water wars are inevitable and even more urgent.

Secrecy corrupts. From unprecedented rendition to warrant-less wiretaps and Abu Ghraib, we have learned that, under the veil of classification, even our leaders can give in to dangerous impulses. Secrecy (Peter Galison and Robb Moss) uncovers the vast, invisible world of government secrecy and explores the tensions between our safety as a nation and our ability to function as a democracy. This stylistically elegant and provocative film combines animation, installations, an effective score and riveting interviews with lawyers, CIA analysts and the ordinary people for whom secrecy becomes a matter of life or death.

Slingshot Hip Hop (Jackie Reem Salloum), one of my favorite docs, follows the Palestinian rappers - Tamer , Joker, and Suhell of DAM (the first-ever Palestinian hip-hop group) and PR (Palestinian Rapperz) - through Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank as these activists for (nonviolent) social change prove that a revolution of music, rising above decades of conflict, is as powerful as bombs. We observe their struggle to produce an album despite crushing poverty, walls of separation and internal checkpoints - and cheer as they progress to jubilant sold-out shows in Europe. And the triumphant female soloist Abeer challenges gender roles and cultural traditions.

After the December assassination of Pakistani presidential hopeful Benazir Bhutto, Dinner with the President (Sabiha Sumar and Sachithanandam Sathananthan) is a welcome entrée into a country with cultures as ancient and complex as Pakistan's. Projected to be the world's third most populous country by 2050, this nuclear-capable nation has stood at the crossroads of East and West for centuries. President Pervez Musharraf is the center of a tripartite that includes the Islamic theocracy, the military, and tribal leaders. Sumar and Sathananthan did indeed have "dinner with" Musharraf, his silent wife and doting mother. Dinner with the President is an in-depth look at one of the world's potential powder kegs.

The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo (Lisa F Jackson), which won a Special Jury Prize for Documentary, regards Congolese women's bodies as a wartime battleground and recognizes rape as a key destabilizing method in a corrupt cycle. Jackson interviewed women who survived rape in war-ravaged remote villages of the Congo (where, since 1998, more that four million citizens have been murdered), thereby providing an intimate glimpse into the struggle of the lives of these survivors of rape. Jackson recounts her personal gang-rape experience to the women and fearlessly interviews the warring rapists themselves.

Bigger, Stronger, Faster (Christopher Bell). With Barry Bonds, Marion Jones and Roger Clemens in the news and, worse, Chris Benoit's "'roid rage" slaying of his wife and 7-year-old son, and subsequent self-hanging last year, Bell examines America's win-at-all-cost malady by exposing his two brothers' membership in (and his own brief flirtation with) the steroid subculture. The film opens with images of 1980s super-heroes: Rambo, Conan and Hulk Hogan, but then analyzes the extent of (even rappers and R & B stars admit to using steroids and human-growth-hormones) and deeper issues surrounding these drugs: ethics in sports and the ramifications in terms of both psychological and physical health. Bell takes on a serious topic and infuses hilarious archival footage into his study of America's love of winners.

For the stunningly beautiful and riveting Up the Yangtze, director Yung Chang spent five years chronicling the life transitions of families who live near the gargantuan Three Gorges Dam and, subsequently, must find a way to adjust to the rising waters in a dramatically changing China. During my interview with Chang, he mentioned that by now two million residents have been displaced. Then there's the destruction of countless cultural and archaeological sites. And the government anticipates an additional four million may be forced to leave their homes along the river's edge. But, by focusing on the stories of two teenagers who leave their families to work on a cruise ship that ferries primarily American tourists along the river, Chang humanizes a situation that contains apocalyptic overtones.

The three bio-docs ranged from superb - Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, to very good - Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S Thompson, to good - Patti Smith: Dream of Life.

In Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, director Marina Zenovich explores the infamous 70s case, in which acclaimed director (Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, The Pianist) allegedly had unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, and uncovers a very different story than the one that the legal system, fired by the media, sold to the public. Rather than face certain jail time, Polanski fled to Europe, where he remains to this day. This riveting investigative documentary dispels much of the myth and mystery that have haunted this professionally respected, personally reviled, controversial character for more than 30 years.

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S Thompson (Alex Gibney) follows on the heels of Jann Wenner and Corey Seymour's oral history of Thompson. Gibney (The Trials of Henry Kissinger, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and the Oscar-nominated Taxi to the Dark Side) creates an intimate and revealing portrait of the writer. Focusing on his work between 1965 and 1975 and using never-before-seen clips of Thompson's home movies, newly discovered audiotapes and passages from unpublished manuscripts, Gonzo creates a multi-faceted portrait of a true American icon.

Patti Smith: Dream of Life (Steven Sebring). The legendary musician/poet/painter/activist/wife/mother and sometime lover of Sam Shepard once wrote: "Life isn't some vertical or horizontal line. You have your own internal world, and it's not neat." Amen to that. Sebring - whose gorgeous black and white cinematography contributes to the dreamlike quality - tracked this punk pioneer and spiritual child of Rimbaud, Blake and Burroughs for 11 years, from the intimacy of her temporary home in the Chelsea Hotel to her mesmerizing public performances. Never having been much of a Smith fan myself, this insightful and often poignant film converted me.

Posted by dwhudson at January 31, 2008 4:06 PM