With another day to go, it's time to look at what stood out about the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam. The picture of the whole festival is diffuse, as befits a fest whose programme booklet is almost three hundred pages thick. There was, as always, a sea of films about abuses and current political issues, but there were also microcosms and experiments in form. I would have liked to have seen more of the latter.
This year, one of the programme components was Benjamin Barber: Jihad vs McWorld 2015. Barber, a writer, political scientist and, for example, advisor to Bill Clinton, selected a programme on all the major themes in current politics: terrorism, refugees, globalisation, etc. In that context, I saw, among others Cartel Land, which passed as a viewing tip earlier.
In addition, IDFA offered a cross-section of current offerings in docs, best of festivals, major and minor new films. A small but fine feature is the paradocs programme, which screens the quirkier, more artful films.
Let Errol Morris do the talking
Guest of the year was documentary legend Errol Morris. His masterclass included a conversation with academic and documentary specialist Bill Nichols. Monologue might be better worded: Nichols asked the occasional question, tried to interject with an observation, but there is no stopping Morris.
Nichols introduced the afternoon with the famous milkshake scene from A Thin Blue Line. In that film, Morris reconstructs the murder of a Dallas cop and the conviction of a suspect. Based on the crash of a milkshake thrown away from the police car, he carefully reviews the evidence. If the second officer, and key witness, had assisted her colleague according to standard procedure, she could never have dropped her milkshake on the passenger side of the car. Morris uses a reconstruction of the falling cup, in slow motion, with sound effect ('thunk') as a novel dramatic device. With one scene, Nichols says, he changes documentary history by making it no longer about conveying information, but conveying impact. The hit of the drink still echoes today.
It was nice watching the men's body language. The academic, subservient, legs folded over, in a suit, versus the busily gesticulating, leotard-clad filmmaker. Morris led the conversation, taking Nichols' single question as a starting point to tell his own story. About how to break all the rules and, above all, how to get people to talk. After about three or four minutes, people naturally start etching their own craziness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z97Pa0ICpn8
All of history in 10 films
Another highlight were the films selected by Errol Morris. The most beautiful and important in all of history, from Man With The Camera From Dziga Vertov to Friday's viewing tip, The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On.
Morris chose films by people who very clearly put their own stamp on the medium, who considered form equivalent to content. Something I would like to see more often in documentaries. Actually, you could see the top ten as an abridged course in documentary history.
Small but fine or navel-gazing?
Notable this year was the number of tiny stories. A little boy dreams of becoming a circus performer (Jonas and the backyard circus) and is followed through the year while he also has to go to school and his friends do their own things. But the YouTube collages also stood out. (Self)exhibitions is a collection of YouTube clips where the medium assumes the role of a diary. Big events for the people themselves (coming out of the closet or losing weight), but navel-gazing for the audience.
It is interesting how young filmmakers are appropriating this medium and making their own story, or, depending on your interpretation, practising media criticism. To the cynical viewer, it may be old wine in new bags. Haven't filmmakers been working for decades on found footage? And isn't the result often more beautiful and interesting when other sources are tapped? Yes and yes, but it is logical that today's artists relate to today's mass culture and engage with it. And whether it is beautiful then is really not at all relevant.
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