Decade Week: The Top Ten Documentaries
In the day and age of social media, news has never reached us faster. Observations and opinions aren’t just tossed at us; we can freely toss our own back. Instagram stories and snaps are brief documentaries about life, either with a socio-political conscience, or just to share what one’s daily routines are all about. How can documentaries stay relevant nowadays? Well, given the huge increase in popularity due to streaming service reach, documentaries aren’t going anywhere.
Let’s rephrase this question: how can a particular documentary shine out of the packs of many other films? By being inventive. These ten films carve their own path towards superstardom. They dabble in interpretational fiction, present famous life beyond the old, tired ways of the interview format, and even reinvent how documentaries are even pieced together. Whether you have an hour and a half or a whole afternoon available, all ten of these works deserve your attention. Here are the ten best documentaries of the decade.
10. Inside Job
Before The Big Short and Margin Call tried to contextualize the financial crisis of 2008, Inside Job rushed to get many voices out into the world. Okay, this is a sit-down documentary in the conventional sense, but these are people that absolutely need to be heard: the prophets of a recession, and the selfish simpletons that shoved every lower class citizen out of the way for a bigger buck. In 2010, Inside Job was a recovery process. In 2019, it’s a textbook to be referenced. With so many red flags having been triggered yet again, I hate to say it, but we need to revisit Inside Job to know how to coast out of this next short. The financial world is like a different reality, and that makes all of this feel almost unreal (with its lingo, forbidden-city locations and dress codes, and all the lavish lifestyles). Well, Inside Job was the first cinematic presence to shake you and remind you that this is very real.
9. 13th
Ava DuVernay’s strongest film of the 2010’s (and that is saying a lot), 13th is a relentless documentary that presents us with a problem: racism affects the outcomes of the American people. We start off in the prison system: twenty five percent of the world’s incriminated populace are all in the United States. We don’t dwell on this fact. DuVernay digs deeper. When you think you’ve seen it all, you realize you are only twenty minutes in. DuVernay digs deeper. By the end of 13th (named after the amendment used as a means to reinstate slavery through incarceration), you may feel completely speechless. Where do you go after this? What do you do with this much information? You may find yourself skeptical of many bills and laws from here on out, and that’s exactly what DuVernay wanted.
8. Faces Places
There was no better cinematic duo than French New Wave innovator Agnès Varda and street artist JR this decade. All it took was one film to make this true. This pairing seems like it was so impossible, that it was destined to happen. Together, they capture the world, and promote every day life as titanic artwork throughout various small villages in France. Faces Places is narrated by the hilarious banter between a vibrant filmmaking legend and a reserved photographer that always wears shades. Whether you’re craning your neck to view gigantic photographical pieces, or peering in on the more candid conversations Varda and JR have, Faces Places is a celebration of all walks of life in every immeasurable way.
7. Pina
Finally, a modern day home run for Wim Wenders. This success is due to the passionate tribute Wenders vowed to deliver to German choreographer Pina Bausch. Bausch passed away during filming, and Wenders was persuaded to use the power of dance to fill in the gaps. With astonishing 3-D usage (some of the best of the last ten years), Pina comes to life as a testament to the art of movement, as many of Bausch’s best works are brought to life (either through interpretation, or to the city streets of Wuppertal). Whether you are moved by what the world has to say about Bausch, or by Bausch’s actual dances, Pina is a fantastic blending of cinema and the stage, in a way that can only be described as invigorating.
6. Amy
Amy goes right through the life of Amy Winehouse in a conventional way. Sometimes, just sticking to basics is what a subject requires. Winehouse led a roller coaster of a life. She was a revered, industry changing musician, who had various monsters chipping at her heels upon every step: alcoholism and substance abuse, and terrible influences by those close to her. Amy is like watching a flower bloom before its darker moments, and it makes the downfall so much harder to bear. We all saw her terrible live shows shortly before her death, but how many of us cared to look for her confrontational moment in front of her idol Tony Bennett? Winehouse was a victim of the savage media behemoth as well. Asif Kapadia’s Amy — as harrowing as it can be — does an excellent job at humanizing her once more, so she can be remembered properly.
5. Exit Through the Gift Shop
Nearly ten years later, and I still can’t figure out if Banksy was pulling our legs with Exit Through the Gift Shop. There’s one of two possibilities. Either Gift Shop is a fantastic documentary about happenstance (and how serendipity, luck, and a rabbits foot can turn a nobody into an artistic superstar), or it’s a fiction piece on how reluctant we should be to fully be spoon-fed by a biased filmmaker. Either way, we all got punked somehow, and it feels great. Plus, think about it. Has Mr. Brainwash done anything after this film, and his Madonna album artwork? Not really. Maybe his fate ran out. Maybe the jig was up. Something is being said by Bansky here. Not having it spelled out for us makes Exit Through the Gift Shop say so much more.
4. The Look of Silence
A sister film to The Act of Killing, The Look of Silence is Joshua Oppenheimer dialling down his previous experiment without losing any of the hard hitting truth. He allows an anonymous Indonesian man (affected by the 1965 communist purge) to talk to those responsible for the death of his brother. He does so by visiting their homes, and interrogating them while he gives them eye exams. Their vision gets blurry, and they become vulnerable. The man can stare them in the face, without their hateful gaze threatening to glare back. The Look of Silence works on a much smaller scale, but that sacrifices none of its power.
3. Minding the Gap
Shot by the cinephile friend of a skateboarding trio (there's always one of us in every friend group), Minding the Gap is Bing Liu’s attempt to understand the bigger picture. Shot over many years, Gap focuses on all of the domestic issues these three friends have to deal with, either when they were kids, or now that they are adults with families of their own. When abuse at home becomes cyclical (and a survivor begins to inhabit the same problems of their guardian), where does one notice the turning point? As these friends adore the pugnacious activity of skateboarding, they are used to falling down and getting back up again battered and bruised. Minding the Gap is about continuing life despite its pain, and it’s crafted with a keen eye for containing reality in poetic form.
2. O.J.: Made in America
Luckily, the Academy Awards only recently made a new rule that forbids multi-part series from being nominated. Otherwise, O.J.: Made in America wouldn't have been rightfully crowned that year for Best Documentary Feature. There’s something about the notorious O.J. Simpson trial that will never stop being fascinating. Maybe it’s understanding that our idols are human, and some of them are even monsters. Maybe it’s the prolonged court battle that was resolved in minutes by a jury that just wanted to go home. Either way, Ezra Edelman and ESPN use nearly eight hours (yep, you read that right) to discuss this judicial debacle one last time. With every tiny detail about Simpson’s life being juxtaposed with the racial injustices in the American legal system, Made in America criss crosses during the famous trial, and extends further out (Simpson a shattered celebrity-turned-demon, and racism still rampant).
1. The Act of Killing
No documentary comes even close to Joshua Oppenheimer’s concept for The Act of Killing, never mind the actual film’s final result. Various people involved in the 1965 Indonesian genocides (to rid the country of communists) are given a podium to make their own films depicting their “achievements”. They are barred from getting into trouble, and can recreate their massacres in any cinematic way (genres include gangster, musical, and classic Westerns). These murderers (safe from being incriminated for their actions) relish in their crimes, and they go into great, joyful detail about how they did their deeds.
Cinema is the voice of filmmakers, and Oppenheimer says not a word by allowing these subjects to create their own films. Some participants feel absolutely zero affect by partaking in this experiment, but a few rare cases unveil the kind of real grief and guilt that only a film like The Act of Killing can ever capture. It’s a difficult watch, but no one tells the truth more than a gloating arrogant person proud of their actions. The Act of Killing remains — without question — one of the most effective political documentaries of all time.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.