Stranger Than Fiction 2006

As you know, I'm rather fond of documentaries. As you may or may not know, I'm also rather fond of Dublin. When I discovered then that the Irish Film Institute was running a documentary film festival (entitled Stranger Than Fiction) it seemed like a decent idea for a wee holiday - so that's where I was at the weekend.

The festival, although only a few days long, struck a healthy balance between short films and feature length contributions, brand new films and those that you may have missed, and a nice blend of international films and Irish works. Despite allowing myself plenty of time to do tourist-type things, I managed to squeeze in a dozen of the films on offer.

Two that I didn't go to see were ZIDANE: A 21ST CENTURY PORTRAIT and LOUDQUIETLOUD: A FILM ABOUT THE PIXIES - but if you've been paying attention you'll know that it's because I'd seen them the month before at the EIFF. And if you didn't know that, now you do and you can go back and read my series of EIFF posts to read what I thought of them.

One film that I saw at the EIFF which I also saw in Dublin was THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED. That's because it was shown here as their Surprise Documentary, so I didn't know what it was in advance. Okay, so it was one I'd already seen but I didn't mind too much as it was one of the better documentaries I saw at Edinburgh this year.

A film that passed me by when it aired at the EIFF but which I saw in Dublin was the notorious DESTRICTED. For those who haven't heard of it, DESTRICTED is a collection of short films by a bunch of respectable indie film-makers including Matthew Barney, Gaspar Noe and Larry Clark, each film debating at what point the P word becomes art. In case you're wondering why I'm being so cagey about it, it's because I know this gets read by people at work, so I don't want them to run foul of their employer's firewalls. But the P word rhymes with born.

Most of the contributions to the movie (the most explicit ever given an 18 certificate by the BBFC) are either just plain filth or else are pretentious, boring twaddle. Noe's contribution is particularly disappointing and isn't helped by an annyoing strobe effect that renders the whole thing even more of an endurance test.

The film is worth watching however (if you can stomach such things) for Clark's reality TV style contribution. In his segment, he interviews a bunch of young men who like to watch adult movies and gives one of them the chance to perform with one of the stars. Needless to say the winner ends up not only looking very nervous but also discovering it ain't all it's cracked up to be. Funny but not for the fainthearted or prudish.

Another effort that isn't for the fainthearted is the entertaining but disturbing OUR BRAND IS CRISIS. This film documents the attempts by a firm of American spin doctors to help a former leader get re-elected to the Bolivian government. Alas it seems that their brand of democracy isn't so easily exportable to every country and the end result is chaos. It's a lively film but some of the scenes of rioting in the streets are likely to disturb.

Equally disturbing is the interesting but overlong WORKING MAN'S DEATH, which showcases five instances of men from across the world toiling in the most horrible of conditions to earn a poor living, whether it be illegal coal mining in the Ukraine or shipwreckers in Pakistan. Enlightening it may be, but it will take a very strong stomach to put up with the relentless footage of life in a Nigerian meat market. Cow and goat lovers, steer well clear.

BLACK GOLD, due to receive a premier at the London Film Festival this month, is an investigation into the multi-billion dollar coffee industry and how the coffee farmers themselves are ripped off despite soaring profits in the consuming countries - so much so that many farmers are turning to growing narcotics instead because it is far more profitable. Sure to make you angry, and guaranteed to make you think next time you pop into Starbucks - I suspect this one will be getting a lot more coverage shortly.

Another uneasy watch is MONKEY LOVE, a documentary commissioned by Channel 4 (so watch out for it on one of their digital channels soon). It concerns the activities of Harry Harlow, an American scientist who, back in the 1950s, began a series of experiments that set out to prove that monkeys can feel love. His results taught the world a great deal about how to raise children but were the benefits outweighed by the increasingly cruel nature of his experiments?

You're left to make up your own mind. The film doesn't go into all the gruesome detail about his more horrific experiments but tells enough that animal rights enthusiasts are sure to be disturbed. Provocative stuff.

CELTIC - THE IRISH CONNECTION is a documentary examining the Irish roots of the famous Glasgow football team. I should say up front that I am not a fan, but thought the subject would be interesting. Unfortunately the most interesting part of the story (Irish immigrants fleeing the great famine were greeted with hostility by Scots, leading to the formation of a charitable football club to aid them) is covered only briefly in the opening part of the film and from then on the film concentrates more on telling us how wonderful Celtic is.

Don't get me wrong, I expected something along those lines - the film is, after all, clearly not aimed at an audience of people like me so much as it is at Celtic fans - but the vision it presents is a little too unbalanced for my liking. Watching this film, you'd think that Celtic have been the innocent victims of anti-Catholic or anti-Irish bigotry ever since they were founded over a hundred years ago, and that they are being unfairly picked on by the rest of the country right up until today, including the media and the Scottish Football Association. While I admit there is still trouble with bigotry in Scotland, it seems wrong to paint it as universal or as being so one-sided, and this gives the film a faintly paranoid tone in places.

Again, I'd have expected this anyway since it is obviously aimed at Celtic fans, but regardless of who the intended audience is, there is no excuse for one of the comments that follows.

When discussing the persecution faced by Celtic's Neil Lennon when he joined the club (over his decision to play for Northern Ireland), it is correctly pointed out that the treatment he received (including death threats) was shocking. I freely admit that the treatment Lennon received was nothing short of disgraceful. However, one of the contributors to the film then states that when the other teams in Scotland play Celtic and their supporters boo Lennon, they are all booing him for the same reason.

This is a ridiculous accusation and no evidence is given to show that this is the case at all. By leaving such a statement in the film, essentially allowing one of the contributors to brand the rest of Scottish football's supporters as bigots, the director has taken the film from beyond a slight Celtic bias and turns it into what must be, in my humble opinion, an extremely irresponsible example of documentary filmmaking.

I did enjoy many of the other Irish films on offer however.
THE GHOSTS OF DUFFY'S CUT tells the story of 57 Irish settlers who moved to America during the great famine to find work and, within six weeks of arriving, were all dead, buried in an unmarked mass grave. Part documentary, part reconstruction, part ghost story, this tale of bigotry and fear finally tells the story of what happened to the men, a fate that was a mystery until very recently. The film was shot and shown in HD too, so it looked very nice indeed.

Enjoyable but not quite as impressive was THE CONNEMARA MONSTER, a film that details the attempts to locate a monster that is reported to lurk in the depths of a lake in Ireland. The film allows the audience to make up its own mind, but ultimately that's the biggest flaw - you come away from the film without really thinking any differently.

The most impressive of all the Irish films that I saw had to be BLOODY SUNDAY: A DERRY DIARY. This film chronicles (or attempts to chronicle) what happened on that day in 1972 when British paratroopers killed 13 unarmed civilians on a civil rights march in Derry, and charts the aftermath of events as well. The film analyses the original event, the controversial investigation that followed and the eyewitness accounts, building up to the new tribunal that was set up, whose results are expected early next year.

Sure to be controversial, the film is more balanced than I expected it to be. While the finger is still firmly pointed at the British soldiers, there still seems to be an element of doubt over one or two of the civilian eye witness stories too. The film ends by saying that more recordings will be made following the results of the tribunal, but the film is powerful enough as it stands.

The other two films I saw both concerned Africa. DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE wanders about a bit but essentially tells of how an experiment in a lake in Tanzania has resulted in a boom for consumers of fish in the developed world but ruined the ecology and lives of those who dwell there.

More impressive is Thierry Michel's documentary CONGO RIVER. The director follows a boat crew as they travel the length of the river, recounting the country's troubled history as they go along. Colonisation, famine, war, religion, politics... everything from tidal disasters to the excesses of Mobutu are covered by Michel, all the time using the river itself as a metaphorical timeline to explore the country's history and showing how the river itself is inextricably linked to the country's development.

I have no idea as yet if the two highlights, CONGO RIVER and BLOODY SUNDAY have been picked up for theatrical releases but if they are, seek them out. You heard it here first!