Cul De Sac: A Suburban War Story (2002/Icarus DVD) + The End Of The Line (2009/Docurama DVD) + Hotel Terminus: The Life & Times Of Klaus Barbie (1988/Icarus
DVD Set) + Looking For Fidel
(2011/Cinema Libre DVD) + Rivers Of A
Lost Coast (2009/MVD DVD)
Picture:
C/C+/C+/C/C Sound: C+ Extras: C+/B-/C/D/C+ Features: C/B-/B+/C/B-
And now
for some documentaries with something to talk about…
Garrett
Scott’s Cul De Sac: A Suburban War Story
(2002) builds its tale of the rise and fall of industrial military production
in San Diego, California on a more recent story of a man
who dug a tunnel looking for gold in his home.
Bored with this, he stole a military tank, drove down the highway and
was killed by authorities trying to stop him.
It’s 57 minutes tries to tie this event with the decline of the working
class in this country, in San Diego and Clairemont, California in particular
and also tries to critique America in general, but it is so patchy that it
never adds up to any big statement and anything I was able to connect either
did not work or I did not agree with it.
New
interviews are cut together with footage of the tank rampage and stock footage
of the area at its peak growing with no end in sight. It is also an early look at poor white
suburbia as the rich (and those who could move) moved to new growing
areas. This may have some problems in
how it has aged to, so I want to give Scott credit for trying to make this
work, but ideas about methamphetamines come out of nowhere and should have
either had more exposition here or been part of a separate work. The included extra helps to update things.
Rupert
Murray’s The End Of The Line (2009)
is a solid work about how the fishing industry and serious misassumptions that
fish can endlessly replenish themselves has backfired to the point that we may
be fishing the world’s waterways to death.
Ted Danson narrated this National Geographic OceanNow co-production
about how this happened, why it is happening, how it is being underreported and
how we can reverse this extremely fatal trend.
Even if you do not eat fish, they are a very key part of the ecosystem
so this is not just a reactionary work, but a very smart one pointing out how
dire the situation is. It runs 83 minutes and not a moment is wasted.
Justin
Coupe and Palmer Taylor that same year made Rivers Of A Lost Coast, which tells the same story in a specific
way about the rise of fly fishing and how it took a very popular Russian River
and surrounding areas and how they have been nearly permanently damaged by
their success since the 1940s and 1950s, with the troubles starting to surface
as early as the 1970s. Tom Skerritt
narrates the 86 minutes program which includes legends of fishing and much
more.
Marcel
Ophuls’ massive documentary Hotel Terminus:
The Life & Times Of Klaus Barbie (1988) is back on DVD and it continues
to hold as much of its power as can be expected nearly a quarter century later,
relevant as ever, even with so much revealed, said and done of the subject of
The Holocaust. With all the injustices
in the world and new sanctions for torture and genocide by those who should
know better, it is as relevant as ever.
Still
shocking today, Barbie was known as The
Butcher Of Lyon and though many Nazis and other Axis killers were brought
to justice, many escaped and lived a long time, some of them dying in freedom
and never paying for their horrendous crimes.
However, Barbie was among those being protected by no less than the U.S.
Government, kept alive for valuable information to find other Nazis, fight the Soviet Union and even because of anti-Semitism within the
government. When this became known, many
were rightly shocked and furious, leading to Barbie being sent to and tried in Lyon, France.
At 267
minutes, this was considered a landmark documentary at a time when they were
not considered commercially viable at all and had a very limited audience, but
this one was so significant that it played many movie theaters worldwide and to
larger audiences than you might expect. It
rightly won the Academy Award for Best Documentary and its journalistic success
is inarguable. Ophuls (The Sorrow & The Pity) is amazing
conducting interviews that let the subjects show where they stand, even when
they do not realize it. It is a classic
and a must see.
Finally
we have Oliver Stone’s mixed Looking For
Fidel (2011) that plays like a less successful flipside to South Of The Border as Stone talks with
Castro about politics, his integrity, and why he executed three political
dissidents (and blamed the U.S. for this) for a hijacking to escape Cuba. It is sometimes disturbing, Castro tries to
justify himself with supposed beliefs, Stone gets to interview other dissidents
and we get information on the side including more about CIA attempts to
assassinate Castro from Castro. He is at
his worst when he says the CIA is really behind all the hijackings, as if no
one ever wanted to escape his dictatorship.
So much for that revolution of his.
The 1.33
X 1 image on Cul and Terminus tend
to be soft, but Terminus was filmed
and does not suffer as much, though the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 on Coast should look the best of all, it
is as soft as Cul and the
letterboxed 1.78 X 1 on Fidel with even the newest footage being softer than it
should be. That leaves the anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X 1 on Line looking
just very, very slightly better than Terminus. All have Dolby Digital 2.0 Sound that is
simple stereo at best and sometimes features older monophonic sound or flat
newer sound with occasional dropouts.
Extras from
Cul includes a 12-page booklet with
more information inside the DVD case, Line
includes 5 minutes of Webisodes, a minute with Danson on Line, text filmmaker bio, text on Docurama, Docurama trailers, Coral Triangle: Nursery Of The Seas
featurette on the disc and Seafood Watch pocket guide inside the case making
recommendation on how to help save the seas and its inhabitants, down to food
choices. This one is from January 2010,
but you can learn more at:
www.endoftheline.com
Terminus also includes a 12-page booklet
with more information inside the DVD case, Fidel has no extras at all and River oddly has none of its extras
listed on the case, but includes Bill Schaadt Sketches in 1:45 minutes clip,
three Deleted Scenes and five Extras Clips.
You can find out more about River
at this link:
www.riversofalostcoast.com
- Nicholas Sheffo