Category: Documentary

Pavarotti

Rated: MPavarotti

Directed by: Ron Howard

Produced by: Ron Howard

Written by: Marc Monroe

Featuring: Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, José Carreras, Bono.

Before even the first images appear, the cinema is filled with the chittering and warbling of birdsong, and I can only suppose that some kind parallel with Pavarotti’s voice is being drawn. In fact, when the vision comes up, I find myself swooping over the Amazon jungle looking down at the serpentine loops of the river.

As Pavarotti’s story unfolds, director and producer, Ron Howard, not only ushers us behind the scenes, but invites us onstage and even takes us on the road with the maestro. While Luciano Pavarotti may have been born with, ‘One of the most clearest and passionate voices, heaven on earth,’ it took a very earthly degree of physical exertion to fill an entire concert hall with a single voice. Without a microphone. Without an amplifier. And certainly, without speakers.

Despite a long induction emulating his father’s singing, Pavarotti initially qualified as an elementary school teacher. The decision to take on the long training to become a tenor was an enormous leap of faith, ‘You don’t become well-known in a day. You don’t know your destiny’.

According to his wife Adua Veroni, Pavarotti was not a person who ever planned things and that was certainly the case for his international debut. He took the stage as a stand-in playing opposite Joan Sutherland, but was more than a lucky break. Pavarotti was in awe and he believed that Sutherland’s breathing technique allowed him to become a serious professional. During a rehearsal, Sutherland invited him to feel the muscles in her diaphragm. Much to Pavarotti’s amazement, they were responding, even before Sutherland had sung a single note.

For the operatic tenor, the high C is the epitome, but it is not a natural range in the way a bass or baritone is and to achieve the fluency that makes it seem effortless requires more than talent. So, when Pavarotti performed nine high Cs, he created opera history. Likening it to horse jumping, when the Maestro of the High C was asked whether he knew he would be able to reach the note, he replied with a contrary smile: ‘No. That is the beauty of my profession’.

According to Placido Domingo, the art of the opera singer is to share the emotion of each particular word: ‘If you pronounce it well you get the rhythm immediately.’  For Pavarotti, it was a matter of technique: ‘You measure your breath’. The public will not know what you are doing, but they will feel it. But, for all of the art and the artifice, Pavarotti’s wife felt that he was so suited to his operatic repertoire because he was a ‘bumpkin’ at heart.

Then again, his eight-year-old daughter described her father as a thief, because he went to work each night with a suitcase full of fake moustaches and beards. For Pavarotti, ‘the opera is something fake that little by little becomes true’.

On camera Pavarotti seemed so confident and cavalier, but behind the scenes, before every performance, Pavarotti would lament, ‘I go to die.’ According to José Carreras, ‘The voice is a demanding mistress, anything will affect it’.

In his later years, Pavarotti performed with many contemporary musicians. While the focus is on his unlikely friendship with Princess Diana and Bono, he also performed with Elton John and Lou Reed among many others.

Little by little, Howard builds a lifelike portrait of an extraordinary life, but his documentary, overflowing with texture and detail, still cannot cram it all in.

The Eulogy

Rated: MThe Eulogy

Directed and Edited by: Janine Hosking

Produced by: Janine Hosking, Katey Grusovin, Trish Lake

Music Performed by: Geoffrey Tozer

Featuring: The Honourable Paul Keating, Richard Gill AO

I don’t know about you, but for me a film titled, The Eulogy does not sound like easy viewing. In this instance, though, the story behind the eulogy is so improbable that it has been described as sounding like, ‘A Story someone might have made up in a pub’.

The documentary opens as ex-prime minister Paul Keating delivers a fiery eulogy hailing classical pianist Geoffrey Tozer the musical prodigy Australia shunned. Keating is incensed and his eulogy is both an ode to the soaring beauty of Tozer’s music and an excoriating rebuke to a mediocre and mean-spirited arts establishment who shut him out. Keating lashes out at them as, ‘A cottage industry in nastiness’.

If Tozer was the extraordinary talent described by his peer, internationally lauded concert pianist Arthur Rubinstein, ‘Possibly the finest pianist of the twentieth century’, why has his memory been virtually expunged from the national consciousness? Music educator and conductor Richard Gill AO has set himself a mission to find out. Was Tozer a prodigy? And if he was, Gill asks:

‘What. Went. Wrong?’

The first hint that Tozer might be the virtuoso that Keating claims is a cutaway to a concert pianist in the opening scenes: fingers dance so lightly across the keys, releasing a rapturous cascade of music. Gill’s students listening in, describe the subtlety of the touch, every note in the performance ‘en pointe’, but none recognise the musician.

Gill’s search for the life story of this neglected artist begins in a trim and freshly painted backyard shed, a miniature museum as part of Tozer’s estate, filled with letters, journals, drawings and photographs. While, at the same time as he sifts through the artefacts, Gill also ponders the nature of genius. Speaking to his students, he notes: ‘Originally prodigy was linked to omens and the foretelling of monstrous events, but now it has come to mean a special gift.’

Certainly, Tozer’s genius was not difficult to identify in his early years. At the age of thirteen, he became the youngest ever recipient ever of the Winston Churchill Fellowship and he made his debut on the international stage at the age of fifteen, playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 15 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Although, by the time he was thirty two, Tozer was eking out an existence by teaching part-time at St Edmunds College in Canberra.

It was there that Paul Keating met and befriended him. Keating was at the St Edmunds Christmas recital to watch his son, but Tozer’s performance stole his breath away. Their meeting, the beginning of an enduring friendship, would eventually see a, ‘Prime Minister so passionately avenge the death of a musician’.

Not only does, The Eulogy offer a unique glimpse into the genesis of prodigy, Richard Gill’s quest contains all the ingredients of a decent mystery story, with Tozer’s playing a sublime counterpoint and his, Medtner Concerto Number One an epiphany for the senses.

Halston

Rated: MHalston

Directed by: Frédéric Tcheng

Produced by: Frédéric Tcheng

Starring: Roy Halston Frowick, Liza Minnelli, Joel Schumacher, Elsa Peretti, Tavi Gevinson.

Jackie Kennedy was surrounded. Everyone else was dressed in fur when Jackie appeared in her cloth coat and iconic pill-box hat designed by Halston for JFK’s presidential inauguration in 1961.

‘That was a day that changed fashion in America.’

Throughout the 1970s Halston was possibly the America’s most influential designer, before mysteriously disappearing from view in the ’80s.

In an attempt to piece together the life of this quintessentially American designer, a lone researcher paws through the few remaining snippets and artefacts in a basement archive when the documentary opens.

As she sifts through the meagre remnants the researcher turns to the camera and says: ‘They bought his name, sold off his work for pennies on the dollar; they took his studio and erased 250 tapes’. At the same time she coyly refuses to reveal her own name.

For a country bent on taking over the world with Coca Cola and culture, this radical erasure of an artist from the cultural pantheon is tantamount to treason. What was it about Halston that could have elicited such a dire response?

As the nameless researcher asks, ‘Whatever happened to Halston?’

That is certainly one of the questions begging an answer about this boy from the Midwest who began his career as custom milliner to New York’s wealthy elite at Bergdorf Goodman.

Early on though, the question being asked was, ‘Was Halston at Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball?’ It was the event of the year for the rich the social and the beautiful, and Halston was not invited. Or was he? ‘He must have been there.’ Since it was a masked ball, no-one could be absolutely certain, but he definitely went to the ball in one sense: his masks and hats covered virtually every face and head of the attendees.

When he launched his own fashion label in 1968, Halston’s creations were designed to ‘honour the body’. Cut on the bias, the fabric moved and flowed and spiralled around the figure. Famed for cutting from a single piece of cloth, Halston’s patterns were not unlike abstract art, ‘Design reduced to its common denominators’. His elegant simplicity, an antidote to the exuberance of the ’60s.

All the society ladies were there for Halston’s first outing as a fashion designer, and before each model stepped onto the catwalk, he leant in and whispered: ‘Don’t forget, you’re the best.’

Almost overnight Halston was a sensation, but he loved to be controversial: from dressing Iman for her first runway event to staging a show as a happening, where the models sang and played guitar and clarinet.

That show was not so well received.

Fortunately Halston had other strategies.

Realising the boost that celebrities could give his name, he was the first to bring in movie stars, with Liza Minnelli enlisted for his overseas debut. With no time for rehearsals, ‘the event was directed more like a musical’. The Palace of Versailles was in uproar. ‘It was fashion in your face and it was modern.’ Halston’s name was on the international map.

‘Whatever happened to Halston?’ With his career captured in a rich cache archival footage, you will have your answer by the time the credits roll, but you may still find yourself asking: what is in a name?

Amazing Grace

Rated: GAmazing Grace

Realised and Produced by: Alan Elliott

Feature-Film Director: Sydney Pollack

Original Album Produced by: Aretha Franklin, Arif Mardin, Jerry Wexler

Originally Recorded Live At: The New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, Los Angeles.

A documentary filmed in 1972, Amazing Grace is the recording of Aretha Franklin singing in The New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, Los Angeles, a live recording that became the highest selling album of her career and the most popular Gospel album of all time.

The footage was never released because the sound couldn’t be synchronized – in the documentary, Reverend James Cleveland actually says, ‘Give the technician a big hand for the difficult.’

But without clappers or marks to guide the sound to sync with the video, Sydney Pollack, the original director, was unable to release the film.

Until now.

With digital technology, Alan Elliott, Jerry Wexler, and Pollack were able to match the sound to picture to make the documentary out of raw footage.

Recorded over two nights, the documentary gives a backstage pass back in time, and it feels like it with the 70s style, sweaty faces and running glitter.

The filming itself is basic with out-of-focus shots that slowly clear to tears and joy and crew in the background – it’s all so very raw but somehow that step back in time has given the film something else.

What the album doesn’t have is seeing that choir sing, to see the audience cry and fall in the aisle at the purity of Aretha’s voice.

‘She can sing anything,’ explains Rev James Cleveland.

And there’s nothing wrong with the sound.

I kept having to remind myself this was all recorded live.  This is what Aretha’s voice actually sounds like, the soul of it so clear on the faces appreciating the moment in the church.

There’s real joy here.  The glow felt through the screen, making me smile, making me feel something glow.

I was smiling all through the film.  This blurry, badly shoot film.

And, there’s a story.

What you don’t get from the album is the fear you can see in Aretha’s eyes.

This is a recording of an album that opens a door to Aretha’s life.  She wanted to go back and sing the songs from her childhood where she sang gospel at New Bethel Baptist Church where her father was a minister.

And her father makes an appearance in the documentary, speaking to Aretha, to the church.  It’s like her past and present come together.  No wonder she looks nervous.

Added to her performance is the effortlessness of the musicians – the piano playing like breathing, the bass playing in the intermission, the choir director, Alexander Hamilton keeping the whole performance together – shots of the singers in the choir from side-on to see the voice issue from their hearts.  And Rev Cleveland introducing the audience to the church, keeping the vibe cool, keeping it real, keeping it together while singing his spirit.  I just couldn’t help but love the guy.

This is the footage that’s been buried for decades.

To hear and see Aretha issue that ‘stone’ voice, it’s sanctified.

And one of those experiences where you wish you were there – with this documentary, you get a taste.

The Australian Dream

Rated: MA15+The Australian Dream

Directed by: Daniel Gordon

Written by: Stan Grant

Produced by: Sarah Thomson, Nick Batzias, Virginia Whitwell, John Battsek

Key Interviewees: Adam Goodes, Stan Grant, Brett Goodes, John Longmire, Tracey Holmes, Nova Peris, Nathan Buckley, Nicky Winmar, Eddie McGuire, Linda Burney, Gilbert McAdam, Andrew Bolt, Paul Roos, Natalie Goodes and Michael O’Loughlin.

“I believe racism is a community issue, which we all need to address and that’s why racism stops with me” – Adam Goodes

Terra Nullius.  That’s what Lt James Cook declared during his voyage around the coast of Australia in 1770: no one’s land.  Empty land.  A land without people.

And because of this declaration, England claimed the land without recognising the civilisation who had lived here for sixty thousand years: the oldest and longest known living civilisation in the world.

On the fringes of my understanding of Australian history, I grew up knowing the Aboriginals were here first.  We were taught a little about some stories – I remember some picture books in primary school; hearing a little about the atrocities in high school; knowing of the complete genocide of Aboriginal people in Tasmania.  To think that an entire population was wiped out is horrendous and perhaps why the past has been buried so deep.

The Australian Dream is a documentary about Adam Goodes, Brownlow Medallist twice (2003 & 2006) and one of the most decorated football players of all time.

But this documentary isn’t about a sporting legend, this is about a man who stood up to a country and said: racism stops with me.

The backlash against his stance filtered through even to my ears – a person who doesn’t really follow footy (but barracks for the Tigers and always will) – because the media explosion following his stance to take no more racial abuse caused a howl that’s been buried under a casual racism Australians have been a part of for hundreds of years.

Ignorance was brought into the spotlight and the people did not like the idea of an Aboriginal man standing up to a long-standing status quo.

The Australian Dream is a powerful documentary that hit me hard because it finally gives voice to a history people, Australians, don’t want to take ownership of. Not all Australians, sure. But it has to be said our history seems to be acknowledged more outside of the country than within.

It’s seeing the context of the situation that gives understanding of the heavy weight this footballer decided to take on.

And seeing the behaviour of spectators towards Indigenous players in the past, like Nicky Winmar, is shameful.

After the invasion, the lack of acknowledgement of the people already living here, the policies put in place in an attempt at trying to fix a bad situation only made it worse.

Adam himself says his upbringing was difficult, his mother doing her best, moving close to relatives only to move away because of the alcohol abuse, the violence; an environment of, ‘broken glass and mangy dogs.’

But the Aboriginal people survived despite the history of thinking the Indigenous people would just die-out while living in intense poverty, losing connection to their way of life, to the taking of their children to assimilate into the society of those who invaded their country, to make them white, to have to fight to be even recognised as people.

To be called an ape on the football field, when you’re the star.

Putting the audience into the shoes of Adam for just a moment makes the conversation of racism in Australia very hard to ignore.

Director, Daniel Gordon has a background of making films about the cultural significance of sport including, Hillsborough (the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster) and ‘9.79*’: an investigation of the infamous and controversial 1988 Seoul Olympic men’s 100m final, won by Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson, who was subsequently stripped of his gold medal after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

And there’s a statement from Walkley award winner, journalist, Stan Grant stating, “Sport has a way of really capturing the essence of what’s happening in society.”

This is a brilliant example of a nation’s attitude brought into the spotlight, and how carrying this terrible burden, one that in 2015 caused Adam to quit playing the game he used to love, has made a change in attitude towards Indigenous people.  And yes, the original people of this amazing country.

There’s some balance here, as the film shifts from the personal journey of Adam to journalists talking about the circumstances and reasoning behind the constant booing and hate from the spectators directed towards Adam on the field.  Andrew Bolt from, The Bolt Report explains you call out a young girl, you call a war cry to the crowd, you’re bound to get a reaction.

As Stan Grant says, about the spectators’ response: Adam made the mistake of being an angry Aboriginal.

And he’s right.  When a culture has been systematically forgotten, why should we listen.

To hear Stan tell of his time reporting overseas from places of terrorist attacks and hate, to return to the Lucky Country to hear about the racial tension surrounding Goode.  He was shocked.  Provoking him to write his landmark essay , The Australian Dream (QE64 – November 2016).

He states, ‘As this man retreated from the field Australia was forced to confront the darkest parts of its own history. Black and white we are all formed by this. We carry the blood of each other in our veins. Yet, we meet across a vast divide.

This wasn’t about sport; this was about our shared history and our failure to reconcile. Some sought to deny this, some to excuse it – to explain it away – but when thousands of voices booed Adam Goodes, my people knew where that came from.

To us it sounded like a howl: a howl of humiliation that echoed across two centuries of dispossession, exclusion, desegregation. It was the howl of people dead on the Australian frontier; killed in wars Australia still does not speak about. It was the howl of people locked up: a quarter of the prison population is Indigenous. It was the howl of hungry children; women beaten and men in chains.’

When put into context, how would I feel to cop racial abuse from the children of the invaders who raped, killed and stole children?  Still, in living memory and from the time when my mother was young? Would I take abuse, as a person, let alone a brilliant athlete, the best in the game while playing that game?!

I think I’d retaliate with more than a war cry.

But this a powerful film because it’s a hopeful film.

Adam isn’t about retaliation.  The message of the documentary is one of reconciliation.

“What we saw ultimately was the true measure of who we are. It wasn’t the booing; it was the people who stood up to the booing. It can never be too late. it can never be too late for that. Our history is a history of violence and racism and it’s a history of people over coming that. People reaching across that divide.” –  Stan Grant

Aboriginal history is an oral history – to teach when people are ready to listen.

Maybe, we’re ready to listen.

Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché

Rated: GBe Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché

Written, Directed and Produced by: Pamela B. Green

Co-Written by: Joan Simon (Writer, Executive Producer)

Executive Produced by: John Ptak, Joan Simon, Geralyn Dreyfous

Narrated by:  Jodie Foster

Cast Including: Alice Guy-Blaché, Patty Jenkins, Diablo Cody, Ben Kingsley, Geena Davis, Ava DuVernay, Michel Hazanavicius, and Julie Delpy.

Be Natural is an investigative biography, taking writer and director Pamela Green eight years to piece together the life of one of the first director’s of film: Alice Guy-Blaché.

Most enthusiasts, film professionals and critics will sight the Lumiéne brothers. The responses will vary.  Rarely will the name Alice Guy-Blaché be mentioned.

The documentary is shown like a mystery, while asking the question – was she overlooked in the history books because she was the first female director?  Writing, producing or directing 1,000 films, then going on to build her own studio, Solax in the U.S, alongside the likes of Paramount Pictures and Universal, how has this titan of the industry been forgotten?

Greene sets about investigating, showing her search with animated maps tracing her travels; the conversations with sources from Alice’s relatives, to archives and museums, while travelling to France, Brussels and through-out the United States.

We’re taken on the journey as each detail is revealed and highlighted with the red outline of a magnifying glass as narrator, Jodie Foster, details the findings, to cut to interviews of actors, directors, relatives and found footage of an interview with Alice herself, giving insight into the difficulties she had, not as a film maker, but to get credit for her own work.

The documentary travels back in time, to Alice’s beginnings, to her first job as a secretary working for Léon Gaumont, where at 23, she was to make one of the first narrative films ever made, La Fée aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy) (1869).

This was a time when film was first invented, the company Alice worked for in France, Gaumont Film Company, selling cameras to the scientists, the inventors, to the leaders of their industry; where anything new or different was recorded like a stock shot – the ocean rolling in and tourist attractions from around the world.

There was no thought of using film to tell a story.

The general consensus was that film would pass as a fad.

For a woman to have such control was unnoticed because no one thought filmmaking would last.  Alice was able to find a place in the industry.

So how is it that no one has heard of Alice Guy-Blaché?  How did she get forgotten?

Even though Alice wrote her own memoirs, and that she corrected the historians time and again, her body of work was mostly lost leaving silence around her phenomenal success.

I felt the injustice, not because Alice was a female film maker, but because one of the pioneers of film-making had been so completely overlooked.

Historical documentaries aren’t my usual go-to for movie watching; yet, Greene has gone to great lengths to keep the sheer volume of information clear and interesting.

Using montages and layered screens and unique ways of showing shots of photos held by relatives; magazines thrown, one on top of the other, and the slicing of Alice’s films to show her work, kept the investigation moving like a quick wit (rather than a dry news story).

I could see the huge amount of information Greene managed to amass, the amount of work and effort obvious in getting history right this time.  To give Alice, finally, her due.

Just one of her many moments of forward thinking, we learn that Alice had notes all over her studio, including a large sign, Be Natural.  ‘That’s all I asked of them,’ she says of her actors.

And in the end all Alice wanted was acknowledgement of her work.

For those interested in cinematic history, this documentary is a gift.  For those not looking for a history lesson, this is a doco that is more investigative, more about the revealing of a mystery shown in an interesting and clever way.

Alice Guy-Blaché (1873-1968)

Mystify Michael Hutchence

Rated: MA15+Mystify Michael Hutchence

Directed by: Richard Lowenstein

Written by: Richard Lowenstein

Produced by: Maya Gnyp, John Battsek, Sue Murray, Mark Fennessy, Richard Lowenstein, Lynn-Maree Milburn, Andrew De Groot

Executive Producer: Maiken Baird

Music by: INXS, Michael Hutchence, Ollie Olsen, Max Q, Kylie Minogue & Nick Cave, Olafur Arnalds, Nils Frahm.

With a noted very special thank you to: Tiger Hutchence – Geldof.

Michael Hutchence: ‘The trouble is hanging on to a fixed point long enough to understand it.’

I grew up with INXS, clearly remembering watching Michael Hutchence on TV performing on stage at Wembley Stadium (leading to their album, Live Baby Live) and feeling something stir.

Like the rest of the world, I saw that Michael had that something.

What this documentary shows is that Michael wanted to be more than a pop star.  He wanted fame.  And he wanted to be an artist.

Usually I’m scribbling notes and at times drifting during a screening, thinking of a phrase to write.  But I was absorbed into this documentary because there was so much footage of Michael.  Those eyes.  That heart.

Director and writer, Richard Lowenstein knew INXS and Michael personally, directing most of their music videos and the film, Dogs in Space (1986) with Michael starring as the lead (and part of my, If you Haven’t Watched You’re in for a Treat, List).

Lowenstein notes, ‘There finally came a time when I felt that the hype had calmed down and enough time had passed for someone who had known him well and respected that relationship, to physically and emotionally tell a genuine and respectful chronicle of his life.

That’s when the interviews began.’

The documentary is made up of footage of Michael taken by family and friends and himself with voice-overs from those who were close to him – Kylie Minogue tries to explain their intimate relationship admitting it was exactly what it seemed, the dark and worldly Michael introducing Kylie to the sensory delights.

And we witness his relationship with super model Helena Christensen, as they gallivanted around the South of France, living the dream.

Early girlfriend and long-time close friend, Michele Bennett and Helena had never spoken publicly about Michael, until being interviewed for this film.

Michele Bennett, Kylie Minogue, Susie and Kell Hutchence (Michael’s parents), Tina Hutchence, Rhett Hutchence (sister and brother) and ‘Ghost Pictures have opened up their extensive archive of never-before-seen personal 35mm, 16mm and home video for this film. Many other informants and sources have supplied photographs, sound recordings and rare documents seen for first time.’

It was so easy to think Michael was just this superficial, sexy guy.  But the story of his life, in this documentary at least, depicts a sensitive dreamer who worked hard.  Who made the band INXS his family.

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing him alive and well in those early days, only to get my heart broken again by his ultimate suicide.  Yet, there’s answers here, which I appreciate as a fan.

Whether the film gives us insight into all that happened during Michael’s heady days, I’m not sure.  The band members weren’t given much of a voice but were shown alongside Michael, on stage, backstage.

What struck me was the revelation of the attack that occurred in 1992 in Copenhagen, when he was outside a pizza shop with Helena.  The traumatic brain injury (TBI) he suffered lead to a complete loss of his sense of smell and 90% of his sense of taste.  And he kept the injury a secret.

The later years of his life were buried in controversy after his relationship with Paula Yates became the London presses favourite topic.

All I remember from the time is the much-publicised divorce and custody battle Paula fought against Sir Bob Geldof, and the drug abuse of Paula and Michael.

Here, we’re shown the effect the controversy had on Michael while his condition took it’s toll, the symptoms from his TBI looking like the effects of drugs.

Michael says of life, ‘Sometimes it clicks and sometimes you’re fighting against nature.’

It was a pleasure to see, once again, the performance of Michael on stage and to see behind the scenes of this surprisingly shy man.

It’s a haunting documentary that satisfies the curiosity while breaking the heart.

Michael Hutchence: 1960 – 1997.

Heavy Water

Rated: MHeavy Water

Directed by: Michael Oblowitz

Produced by: Red Bull Media House and All Edge Entertainment

Distributed by: Adventure Entertainment

Best Surfing Film in the 2017 Byron Bay International Film Festival 

Winner of the 2018 Wavescape Category in the Durban International Film Festival

‘Either the water lets you go.  Or it doesn’t.’

Watching surfing guru, Nathan Fletcher tell the story of his life, I can see how bad the drive to find that edge can be.  And how rewarding.

Heavy Water is a documentary driven by Nathan’s dream to surf a big-wave by dropping from a helicopter: A Helicopter Acid Drop.

I can’t imagine the coordination, balance, strength and shear will/balls/tenacity it took to successfully pull-off this feat – the first of its kind.  But on the 21st of April, 2017 – Nathan succeeds.

For fellow surfers and adrenaline fans that understand the skill involved, this is an exciting feat to watch.

But it’s the story leading up to The Drop that makes this documentary an absorbing film.

Director, Michael Oblowitz states, ‘I’m a surfing anthropologist and my baseline is good storytelling.’

A Hollywood director who surfs to escape the pressures of his career, Oblowitz decided it was time to combine his two passions, ‘To make surf movies that are unlike any other surf movie ever made’.

The documentary flows along the timeline of Nathan’s life, from growing up in San Clemente, California, where he learned to walk and talk and surf all at the same time.

There are voice-overs and interviews and footage giving insight into the Fletcher family, pioneers in surfing, from: Herbie Fletcher starting the motorised wave-ski tow-line drop, to Nathan’s brother Christian who started the aerial surfing trend and even his grandfather, big-wave original Walter Hoffman.

Riding a wave that can kill you is a family tradition.

Heavy Water is a biography showing the tight-knit circle Nathan ran with growing up, with mates like Darrick “Double D” Doerner, Danny Fuller and legendary Jay Adams (the original DogTown Z-Boy) talking skateboarding over footage of the guys skating in an empty swimming pool, the grimace of tough coolness hard-won and admired – the punk-rock style changing the face of skateboarding forever.

Nathan adopted the style, using the skate moves on the water, wanting to jump higher and higher.  Eventually leading to his pursuit of big-waves.

Nathan and mates like Bruce Irons would be constantly checking satellite weather patterns searching for ‘Code Red’ swells and then travel to places like Fiji, Indonesia and Tahiti to ride waves called the Himalayas, Jaws, the Mavericks – massive, dangerous waves that can crash you into a 60-foot crevice and hold you under, never knowing if you’ll get to the surface in time, or drown.

Seeing how big those wave are from the perspective of the ones riding them; to see the awesome power of the pull of water literally gave me goose bumps.

The film has footage of guys like Andy Irons and his brother Bruce, and Sion Milosky pushing their limits, all dancing with death – some making it through, some not.

Christian Fletcher states that those lost in the water are immortal, forever at the age they died doing what they love.  It’s the ones left that miss them.

The intensity and risk creates a spiritual bond, the documentary giving insight into what it takes to get to such a high level – some of the guys ending up in jail after pushing the limits too far.

Nathan leaves his entire life behind to compete in a comp in Tahiti, scoring 10, then another 10, going home a professional surfer.  Only to arrive to nothing – no home and no wife.

He lived in a van for two years, chasing waves.

The film takes away the glamour of the glossy magazine shots and shows the reality of what it takes to get those photos.

The footage of Nathan and Bruce back in Tahiti, leading to that famous shot of Nathan awarding him the XXL 2012 Ride of the Year shows the motivation and spiritual mindset needed to get to that headspace.

This isn’t a stylised promo for surfing or any branding, Heavy Water is the story of a guy who wants to continue the family legacy with all the risk and reward that goes with it.

Free Solo

Rated: MFree Solo

Directed by: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chin

Produced by: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, Evan Hayes

Cinematographer: Jimmy Chin

Featuring: Alex Honnold

‘I see it all rooted in rationalism, in a basic evaluation of objective reality: Can I do this?  And if I can, then I just do it’ – Alex Honnold.

After nine years of living in a van, living a ‘dirt-bag’ climber existence, professional rock climber Alex Honnold overcomes the most fearsome feat for a ground dweller to contemplate: to free solo climb (rock climbing without rope or any safety net if he falls) the El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.  A 3200-foot climb that climbing with ropes requires a gold medal standard of skill.

To climb without a safety-net requires an iron-clad emotional armour where fear has no place.

This ability to overcome fear became such a fascination Alex agreed to have a Functional-MRI scan to analyse the function of his brain while pictures of fearful images were shown: knives, heights (ha, ha).  It was interesting to see his amygdala showed no activation compared to the control.

Alex explains he’s faced his fears so often there’s no fear left.

Director Jimmy Chin explains the difficulty in filming a documentary where the threat of death is as close as you can get.  It has its issues.  Especially when you’re friends with the guy.

It’s all about trusting the subject (friend) to make the right decisions and not push just because he’s on camera.  And that trust and not wanting to see someone you know fall to their death while you’re filming creates a whole other dimension to the film because we see the type of personality it takes to contemplate, let alone, achieve something so dangerous, scary, impossible.

Adding girlfriend, Sanni McCandless, to the mix just shows the layers of emotion Alex has to process, or not – he’s kinda a cold rational thinker adding a bizarre lightness to the tone of the film – to get to a headspace to make such a climb.

Free Solo wasn’t so much a thrill ride, although I kept repeating, Oh my God.  Oh. My. GOD – the ‘Boulder Problem’ part of the climb had me gripping the arm rest of my seat.  The film was more an insight into the process to get to that headspace – iron-clad determination combined with a shrug of, We’ve all got to die at some stage.

Finding the edge just makes death feel more immediate.  If you die in an accident, then it’s a shame – you’ll be missed.  But dying on your own terms changes the dynamic.  Life is short.  Live it.

When someone loves you, like Alex’s seemingly accident-provoking, ever-loving girlfriend Sanni, then there’s more to lose.

The film asks, but if you don’t do what you love than how do you feel alive?

Free Solo isn’t a documentary just about Alex, it also brings the film makers into the story, to show the truth of what Alex’s trying to achieve.  It’s crazy.  To film the climb is crazy.  But he does it.  And it’s amazing.

Pick Of The Litter

Rated: G Pick of the Litter

Directed and Produced by: Dana Nachman and Don Hardy

Written by: Dana Nachman

Original Score: Helen Jane Long

Photographed and Edited by: Don Hardy

In Order of Appearance:  Diane Meier, Terry Blosser, Janet Gearheart, Sharon Kret, Ronald Strother, Christine Benninger, Linda Owen, Rebecca Minelga, Eric Minelga, Oliver Minelga, Nick Ursano, Alice Ursano, Cathy Wassenberg, Bill Wassenberg, Lisa King, Chris King, Patti White, Al White, Louise Pay, Gail Horn, Tammy Shankle, Adam Vanderhoofven, Melissa Griffith, Kristin Sheppard, Kenny Sheppard, Deana Allen, Anne Tyson, Rick Wilcox, Maureen Balogh, Jenna Bullis, Meghan Fraser, Carol Simmons, Adam Silverman, Melanie Harris, Stacey Ellison, Todd Jurek, Rachel Chamness.

A documentary shot over two years, Pick of the Litter follows a litter of five puppies (otherwise known as the P-Litter) born into the Guide Dogs for the Blind program.

This is a straight-forward, linear doco that allows the dogs and those who come into contact with them, tell the story.  And it’s very sweet getting to know each of the dogs as we follow them through their training from pups to adulthood: Patriot (mouthy and super-enthusiastic), Phil (the chiller), Potomac (a handful and full of curiosity), Poppet (a blessing who loves her work) and Primrose (well, she just wants to be loved).

Co-directors Dana Nachman and Don Hardy have teamed up for their forth feature doco, Pick of the Litter taking three times the number of shots trying to keep up with each of the dogs to capture each personality.  And the extra time and care pays off as I found myself cheering along the dogs wanting them to succeed after all the effort not just from the dogs but from the volunteers who train them.

Especially Patriot who reminded me of a hyper-kelpie farm dog I once knew (Benji), jumping and straining against his chain, chocking himself with excitement.  The trainers have to be able to re-direct this energy into obedience and skill.

We’ve all come across a guide dog and their human at some point, understanding the role of the dog’s guidance of a blind or visually impaired person.  Pick of the Litter opens the door to the rigorous training process, only the select few making it to become someone’s guide into the world, to give back so much freedom.

It’s an education to watch.  And sad to see when all the work doesn’t end in success.

It’s sad and sweet and makes you feel good about those out there doing their best to help those in need showing that training these special canines isn’t for everyone with a 16 to 18 month commitment (dog asleep by 10pm; owner asleep by 10pm!), with constant assessment by the program to see if the dog’s appropriate to continue training or be, ‘career changed’, meaning, a civilian dog.  And it’s not unusual for a dog to be taken from one trainer and given to another if it means a better chance for the dog to succeed.

Lives are put into the hands of these dogs, so it was reassuring to see the process, to see the dogs themselves show their will not to be a guide dog.  Sometimes the dog’s life is meant for something or someone else.

The film just adds to the fascination and special relationship between human and dog.  I swear my pet Aussie Terrier, Jim-Bob could sense when I was sad and would find me to cheer me up.

So, it’s a dog-lover’s movie with a special interest into the process of training these extra-special dogs to become guide dogs, shown from each perspective of those involved from: the breeders, the volunteers who train them, the trainers in the association who graduate them, to those who ultimately benefit.  And the dogs.  Who doesn’t like a dog movie!

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