Noteworthy documentary news was few and far between this past week, yet word that PBS’s Independent Lens revealed its fall/winter lineup was cause for celebration. Added to its schedule was DAWNLAND on November 5th, THE JUDGE on November 12th, MAN ON FIRE on December 17th, and RUMBLE on January 28th.
In lieu of actual doc news, there was an abundance of dandy pieces on new and recent releases, including Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui’s MCQUEEN, a bio “of designer Alexander McQueen, whose extraordinary gifts, dark preoccupations and tragic death make for a completely engrossing, compulsively watchable film,” writes Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. At RogerEbert.com Odie Henderson had similar thoughts, “This documentary is as welcoming to intense fashionistas as it is to gauche fools like me…it is drop-dead gorgeous to look at, so see it on the biggest screen you can endure.” Co-director Ian Bonhôte appeared at The Talkhouse in a piece discussing what he sees at the biggest challenges filmmakers face today, while in The New York Times, Roslyn Sulcas wrote about three recent fashion docs that aren’t necessarily about fashion itself.
David Edelstein launched into an excellent take on FAR FROM THE TREE at Vulture, “It takes a beat or so to register the audacity of the title FAR FROM THE TREE, a phrase that’s normally presented in a negative context, as in ‘One look at Eric and Don Jr. and you know the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’ (Nor do the worms, apparently.) Andrew Solomon’s stupendous 2012 tome and Rachel Dretzin’s boundlessly empathetic documentary (co-produced by Solomon) home in on the exceptions: children whose very existence leaves their parents wondering what happened between conception and birth.” Meanwhile at RogerEbert.com, Glenn Kenny concludes, “In a world that seems in many respects to be headed to hell in a handbasket, that’s a fact worth celebrating, and this movie does so in an appropriately humane manner.”