Life in a Day (2011)

What do you get when you ask the people of the world to chronicle a single day in their lives? You get 80,000 submissions, 4500 hours of footage, from 192 countries. Kevin Macdonald has taken this raw material, all shot on July 24, 2010, and created a 90-minute paean to what it means to be human in the world today. (IMdB)

Life in a Day (2011) is a montage of film clips from a variety of filmmakers who depict what it was like to be alive on July 24, 2010 all over the world. The film styles range from the ephemeral to the didactic. Some of the stories are told in a personal tone, narrated by either the filmmaker or by the people who are being filmed. Other clips are more about the place that's being filmed. In one case, a grand mountain landscape is film with the sun rising on the horizon. The film is then edited to portray a variety of people sleeping around the world and waking up. Some are in beds, some in tents, some are even on park benches. Even the basic rituals of the day are depicted in a reverent manner with orchestral music indicating a transcendent beauty of the beginning of a day. Before long, the film moves to a more mundane day of a Japanese family, an Eastern European family, and a range of other families.

The perspectives of each of these clips is fascinating and so mundane that it takes on a certain beauty when seen in this light. I have often wondered how people around the world live and I found these clips entertaining and enlightening as I became a bit of a voyeur into the lives of so many people. I particularly love how these very different stories were edited in such a way to form one beautiful mosaic of life of what it means to be a human being.

Some of my favorite clips include a father talking his 15 year old son through his first shave, nicks and all. I had to laugh at the clip of a father and son come to wake up their mom who has just come home from the hospital. The young boy who was maybe 6 or 7 was energetic and wanted to get his mommy up. Her face reminds me of the conversations I have with my son early in the morning. I also liked the clips from Bali. Hearing the sounds of roosters and Bahasa Indonesian and watching the ritual of preparing the incense brought me back to one of my favorite places on earth. I felt I could actually smell the smells.

This film helped me celebrate the art of being human and reminded me that no matter how boring or ordinary or even bad my life may be, there are thousands of people who share equally mundane lives but who find unexpected sources of joy in these every day moments. I could see showing clips of this film to classes and discussion groups and my family. Overall, it was a fine film and worthy of a second viewing.

1. Storytelling: 9/10

2. Cinematography: 9/10

3. Deeper Meaning: 9/10

4. Targeted Audience: Probably just about anyone, really

5. Connections to other works and/or ideas: other stories on life: Modern Family, Parenthood, Austen, Steinbeck, even Hemingway.

6. Quality of Research: 8/10

Comic Book Confidential (1988)

Comic Book Confidential (1988)

As one who has recently become fascinated with the literary possibilities of graphic novels, this dated film on the history of comic books was fascinating to me on many levels. Noteworthy comic artists such as Art Spiegelman, Robert Crumb, and Frank Miller narrate parts of their strips and discuss the role comics have played in American history. They note how fearful the public was about these art forms as they were seen as leading to juvenile delinquency. Listening to the overly dramatic fear mongering, I had to chuckle at people's misunderstanding of the power of this visual storytelling. I also found it interesting the ways superheroes developed in response to the American political scene. When people felt they could trust their president (Kennedy), their superheroes also were trustworthy and the opposite was true when we lost our confidence in them (Nixon).

As fascinating as this documentary was to me for its content, I had trouble being drawn into the way the story was told. At times it seemed choppy and even neurotic. Some of the people interviewed seemed a bit out of touch and saw comics as a way to be subversive and push the limits. They objected to being categorized as only for children. I must admit, though, as I listened to the uphill battle these early artists faced in order to legitimize comics. Today, as comics and their successors, graphic novels are gaining popularity, I am grateful for these pioneers and the sacrifices they made for the art.

People who know comics may get distracted at some of the film's flaws and spotty coverage but it is a good overview of the history of a growing and important medium. This film is informative and interesting and at times entertaining.

1. Storytelling: 8/10

2. Cinematography: 8/10

3. Deeper Meaning: 7.5/10

4. Targeted Audience: Those who are interested in comics

5. Connections to other works and/or ideas: work by Eisner, Spiegelman, and Crumb as well as other graphic artists

6. Quality of Research: 7/10

The Devil's Playground

The Devil's Playground (2002)

Devil's Playground explores the Amish ritual of Rumspringa, a coming-of-age "time for decision" presented to Amish youth when they must decide which path they will follow as adults... 16th century religious scripture or 21st century pleasure. "Sensitive, revealing and at times heart-wrenching." --Ad Crable, Lancaster New Era

As one who has lived around the Amish for most of my life, I am ashamed at how little I actually know about them. They are secretive and private and their 16th Century lifestyles are a mystery to me. I even have a good friend who used to be Amish and yet I find it way too easy to over generalize my peace loving neighbors.

It was with great interest that I first watched Devil's Playground and have since used it multiple times in classes. Like many documentaries, it takes us behind the scenes and shows an aspect of Amish life that we may hear about but of which we know little: Rumspringa, the time when Amish teens are given permission to run wild before they decide to either join the church or leave and be shunned.

Filmmaker Lucy Walker uses a grainy, shadowy style of filming to create an air of mystery to a two year case study of several Amish teens who are in different stages of this phase of their lives. We never see the director, yet we occasionally hear her earnest questions. The eerie music and straightforward interviews help the viewer connect to each teen and to anguish with them in their decision making and shifts from a wild life to the tame adult responsibilities some of them choose.

We are shocked by the wild parties (sex, drugs, and so much more...) We sympathize with their plight of wanting to be with their families and yet enjoying a much more decadent lifestyle. The filming is sensitive and revealing and it opens up lots of discussion.

As with any documentary, it is important to consider the other sides of this story. Truth is, less than 10% of Amish youth leave the church and, though these wild parties do occur, they do not occur as often as it may seem from this film. This film raises lots of questions about how prevalent these depicted activities are. It also makes one wonder how effective this practice is in keeping Amish adults faithful to their church. It also brings up the issues of shunning and shaming that are at the core of this church's practice. I also wonder just how long these practices will continue.

Students enjoy the story and the way its told. They get fired up and love to discuss the rules their parents give them and ways they rebel and yet how they often come around to their parents' decisions in the end. They really get the search for identity that they see these Amish teens struggle with. I think they are surprised with how wild the Amish teens can be and see how tame their own lives are in comparison. It leads to all sorts of engaging conversations about ways we develop our identities that do or do not include our families.

Documentary Ratings:

1. Storytelling: 9/10

2. Cinematography 8/10

3. Deeper Meaning 9/10

4. Targeted Audience: Teens and Young Adults or anyone curious about the Amish

5. Connections to other works and/or ideas: Coming of Age, Identity, Could connect this with Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible or Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.

6. Quality of Research 8/10

What Makes a Good Documentary?

Documentaries have been around for a long time to record our "true" stories, whether they were newsreels of world events or scientific accounts of life. In schools they were often associated with boring accounts of animals mating or black and white, fuzzy filming. Those days are over! With state-of-the art editing and storytelling, documentaries can now be as suspenseful and riveting as many fiction films and because they are at least based on a true story, they can grab the viewer even more as they attempt to make sense of the veracity of these events.

As I review a range of documentaries, I will hold the lens of truth telling to these texts in an attempt to understand alternative perspectives and in order to discuss the ways editing and filming can alter our sense of reality. I will review both standard and cutting edge films and will examine how useable these films could be for secondary schools as well as other audiences.

Every week I will review a documentary and will rate it on it the following criteria:

1. Storytelling

2. Cinematography

3. Deeper Meaning

4. Targeted Audience

5. Connections to other works and/or ideas

6. Quality of Research

I invite you to participate in lively conversations about these films and to recommend a few of your own. I look forward to the adventure!