Highlights from DOC NYC – Pt. 2

Festivals

Published on November 3rd, 2011 | by Daniel J. Scott

Editor’s Note:

DOC NYC, now entering its second year, began its run November 2, and ends on November 10. The festival, which hit the ground running last year, scoring films by no less than Herzog and Morris (to name some documentary rock stars), promises to be just as impressive if not more so this year. To help you in your perusal we have contributors Melissa Silvestri and Daniel James Scott reviewing some choice films from this year’s DOC NYC selection, plus an interview with the filmmakers of ‘Fightville,’ Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein, which you can find under our ‘Interviews’ section. From the rock stars to more under-the-radar choices we hope you’ll be inspired to go out and discover at this year’s DOC NYC.

The second out of two parts of our coverage, with featured reviews by Daniel James Scott, includes reviews of: “Perdida,” “Flat Daddy,” “Calvet” and “Eames: The Architect and the Painter.” For tickets and more information go to: docnyc.net.

“Flat Daddy” – (Nara Garber & Betsy Nagler; U.S.A.)

In the corpus of documentaries that have come out about the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the majority of them have taken pains to capture the violence and intensity that take place on the battlefield. “Flat Daddy,” directed by Nara Garber and Betsy Nagler, sets itself apart from these by focusing on the war efforts going on at home. Interweaving the stories of four military families throughout the U.S., the documentary explores the ways in which each of them copes with the absence of their loved ones—particularly, their use of “Flat Daddies” or “Heroes on a Stick”. These life-sized, cardboard cutouts serve as mementos for families with members touring abroad. For the Stephens family in New York, the Winter family in Minnesota and the Bugbee family in Maine, Flat Daddies serve as transitional tools to help children remember their parents once they return from their deployments. For the Ramirez-Vance family in Nevada, they unfortunately serve a more lasting reminder of a son killed in combat.

Directors Nara Garber and Besty Nagler drift in and out of the families’ lives with compassion. Accompanying them throughout periods of separation and reunion, they capture the lesser-told stories of everyday Americans undergoing the trials and tribulations that come with defending their country.

“Calvet” – (Dominic Allan; U.K.)

“Calvet” offers an unsettling portrait of a man who paints by necessity. French artist Jean Marc Calvet refers to his craft as his “life raft.” For a man with a history like his, this is no exaggeration. Before he taught himself how to paint at the age of 38, Jean Marc Calvet was a bodyguard working in Miami for a wealthy American. Seduced by the promise of a lavish lifestyle, he left his family behind in France for the opportunity. Unfortunately, his boss turned out to be a mafia-connected scheister with no intention of filling his end of the agreement. So Calvet robbed him of $50,000 and fled to Central America with the money. Proceeding down a path of drugs and criminality, he bottomed off in an empty house in Nicaragua, nearly psychotic on the drugs he was on. If not for the paint cans that he discovered there, he might have killed himself.

Directed by Dominic Allan, “Calvet” traces the artist’s rocky path from chaos to redemption. Jumping from locations in France to Miami to Nicaragua, the film sets us firmly in Calvet’s past. However, it creates a remarkable present-ness through visceral recreations and a feverish editing pace. Jean Marc Calvet opens himself entirely before the camera, giving us insight into the explosive works that he creates. The end result is an exploration of the cathartic value of art and the possibility of reconciliation.

“Eames: The Architect and the Painter” – (Jason Cohn & Bill Jersey; U.S.A.)

Few people can define an era. Fewer people can do it with joy. This was the case for Charles and Ray Eames, the husband and wife design team whose artistic legacy spanned the fields of architecture, technology and film. In the documentary “Eames: The Architect and the Painter,” directors Jason Cohn and Bill Jersey chronicle the couple’s career with an passion worthy of their subjects.

Charles and Ray Eames rose to prominence in postwar America, applying the plywood-moulding technology they developed for wartime splints to household furniture. The innovation that triggered their success was the Eames Lounge Chair, a form-fitting chair that inspired numerous imitations ubiquitous today. Aesthetically striking, cost-efficient, and physically comfortable, the chair provided the basis for their working philosophy: “The best for the most for the least.” Charles and Ray Eames defied notions of what art could be, leaving behind unmistakable expressions of themselves wherever they went. Their house in the Pacific Palisades (Case Study House No. 8) is a hallmark of 20th century modernist architecture. The films they made for the techno-giant IBM first enamored the public to the idea of the computer. Their traveling exhibition “The World of Franklin and Jefferson” foreshadowed the interconnected nature of the internet. To the extent that they progressed attitudes about architecture and industrial design, they progressed attitudes about the modern American family. The Eames took care to craft their public image, Charles saying at one point, “Anything I can do she can do better.”

“Eames: The Architect and Painter” weaves together the couple’s private and public life with lightness and sensitivity. James Franco narrates the story to archival material, footage from their films, and interviews from a melange of subjects including art historians, film critics, family members and former collaborators.

“Perdida” – (Viviana García Besné; Mexico)

In the history of Mexican cinema, Calderón is a family name that evokes a mixed response. On the one hand, it was responsible for Mexico’s first grand movie palaces that played its first commercial hits. On the other, it evokes the scandalous, cabaret-set films (known as ficheras) that arguably tarnished the Mexican film industry. In “Perdida” (“Lost in Time”), director Viviana García Besné explores her distant relation to the family of entrepreneurs without whom she—and possibly other Mexican filmmakers—wouldn’t be making movies. Besné’s great-uncle was José Luis Calderón, a passionate moviegoer whose love of cinema catapulted him to the forefront of the Mexican film industry. At a time when the film centers of the United States, France and Britain were proliferating war films to promote the effort against the Germans, Calderón seized the opportunity to fill the void with dazzling movie spectacles aiming to suggest a distinctly Mexican cinema. Under the banner of Azteca Films, he produced upwards of 30 films that reached levels of success hitherto unknown among independent producers. Incidentally, they all relied on the ingredients present-day Hollywood spectacles are guilty of to turn a profit—female nudity, violence, pop music, etc. But turn a profit they did. And so was born the world of Aztec mummies, naked actresses and masked wrestlers that comprise the backdrop of “Perdida.”

Director Viviana García Besné takes us through a melange of lost film reels, peeling photographs and dusty letters that make up the missing parts of her family history. As she comes to understand the Calderón Family, we get to experience a period in Mexican film history too good to ignore.

Tags: Calvet, DOC NYC, Eames: The Architect and the Painter, featured, Flat Daddy, full-image, Perdida

About the Author

Daniel J. Scott is a freelance filmmaker and critic. Based in Brooklyn, he also contributes articles, reviews, and interviews to Filmmaker Magazine, Documentary Magazine, and other publications.