Uprising (2021) | Directed by Steve McQueen and James Rogan

 5/5

Steve McQueen and James Rogan’s Uprising is a stellar three-part documentary that weaves together important events from 1981 to paint a portrait of the Black experience in Britain through the ‘70s and ‘80s. There’s an incredible wealth of archival material on display – capturing the beats and rhythms of the interviews with found footage that matches to an almost uncanny degree, alongside news reports from the day and stunning photographs that round out the visual narrative. The interviews are phenomenal and come from a wide range of experiences they all provide essential context for the events covered throughout the film. There are sublime and powerfully moving moments threaded throughout the film – especially the ways it cuts back to the black-and-white photographs of the Black children who died in the horrific New Cross house fire at key moments in the film, reminding us of the lives that were cut short and white British society’s indifference to their death. And, of course, the use of music is exquisite and the perfect approach to highlighting the joys and sorrows of the Black British community, as well as the subsequent call to rise up against oppression. It’s an exceptional documentary, one that has relevance for anyone living in a nation with a legacy of colonialism and racist oppression.

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Rocks (2019) | Directed by Sarah Gavron

 4.5/5

Sarah Gavron’s Rocks is a powerful, deeply moving film that walks a delicate line in depicting the struggles a teenage girl and her young brother face after their mother abandons them. This is an honest, raw, and painful film that never becomes exploitive or veers into melodrama. Much of the film’s strength comes from the outstanding performances of the young, untrained actors. There’s a depth and honesty in all of these performances – especially in the two central roles – that is stunning. The film’s loose, handheld camera helps create a raw, unfiltered intimacy that brings us in close to the characters and embeds us in the narrative, which wisely avoids giving us too much exposition or explaining too much of the family backstory. In a film like this, it’s tempting to push the story further and further into miserablism, inflicting greater and greater trials and suffering on the protagonist up until the very end, but the film becomes a story of resilience and community, a tale of the ways that friendship can help you weather life’s difficulties – even if there are no easy solutions.

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The Rescue (2021) | Directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin

 4.5/5

In Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s The Rescue, the documentary filmmakers take the techniques they honed and perfected in Free Solo and apply them to the much more compelling and emotionally resonant subject matter of the underwater cave rescue of the Thai soccer team. Even though most viewers will already know the narrative’s ultimate outcome, Vasarhelyi and Chin manage to create an almost unbearable tension through their deliberate pacing and careful recounting of the unique challenges faced in mounting this rescue. Stunningly crafted re-enactments are seamlessly combined with archival materials, and the computer graphics used to visualize the cave helps orient us to the space and gives a real sense of just how difficult the rescue really was. The interviews are all compelling, and it’s essential to get into the motivations that drive individuals to dive into caves during their leisure time – though as with Free Solo, Vasarhelyi and Chin only seem to be able to draw out surface-level reflections from their subjects. Still, it’s refreshing to see how frank and honest the film is about the divers’ reluctance to take on such a difficult rescue, and ultimately, why this group of volunteer divers were the only people in the world with the skill set to attempt such a daring and unprecedented rescue. It’s a remarkable and compelling film that is deeply moving.

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Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021) | Directed by Josh Greenbaum

 4.5/5

Josh Greenbaum’s Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar is an outrageously delightful treat from beginning to end – from the precisely composed and sublimely delightful opening credit sequence, to the multiple musical numbers and the joyous conclusion. Everything about the film’s world is just slightly heightened and off-kilter – creating a charming and awkward comedy that will either click for you or that you’ll find totally off-putting. The film functions as a loving parody of the midlife crisis comedy – usually given over to male protagonists – and by putting two women at its center, it playfully interrogates the things we expect single women in their 40s to want out of life. Greenbaum’s use of visual repetition throughout the film to show Barb and Star’s co-dependence is delightful, setting them on their journey of self-discovery. The spy subplot is a bit over-the-top and unnecessary, but it does give us the delightful performance from Jamie Dornan. With equally wonderful performances from the film’s co-writers, Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, it’s one of the best (and silliest) comedies of the year.

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Downstream to Kinshasa (2020) | Directed by Dieudo Hamadi

 4.5/5

Dieudo Hamadi’s Downstream to Kinshasa is a riveting and gut-wrenching documentary that follows a group of disabled Congolese civilians seeking reparations for atrocities committed by Rwanda and Uganda which left over 1,000 Congolese civilians dead and more than 3,000 wounded. Since their own government has done nothing for more than 20 years to seeking justice on behalf of the victims, the survivors decide to make the long trek to Kinshasa to make their case in person. This is among the best of what cinéma vérité has to offer, Hamadi’s patient camera observing the survivors and their struggle for justice without any showy editorializing or maudlin romanticizing of their disabilities. The film is frank and honest, but there is also a warmth and empathy throughout. We see it in the little moments of connection between the survivors that a film focused solely on the issues might be tempted to leave on the cutting room floor. By cutting to scenes of a theatrical production that the survivors have created to educate others about their situation, Hamadi is also able give us the interiority and background that you’re normally only able able to achieve through the use of talking head interviews or direct addresses to the camera. It’s a really nice touch that allows the survivors to tell their stories as they would like them told. Along with some of Hamadi’s other documentary work, he’s begun to create an essential portrait of the Democratic Republic of Congo through cinema. Hamadi is a masterful documentarian whose work deserves to be more widely known.

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In the Same Breath (2021) | Directed by Nanfu Wang

 5/5

Nanfu Wang’s In the Same Breath continues the filmmaker’s probing inquiries into Chinese society, this time exploring the ways the government refused to cooperate with the rest of the world at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Wang’s primary focus is on China’s propaganda efforts at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and she traces how, while lockdown efforts may have done a better job of containing the virus than here in the US, the state propaganda machine exacerbated the crisis and led to things being much worse for the entire world. She also draws an uncomfortable line between propaganda in China and that misinformation that runs rampant here in the US, showing that Americans don’t have the moral high ground either. There are so many candid and powerful interviews from inside Wuhan, so many striking images and heartbreaking moments that we just haven’t seen much of yet from the COVID-19 crisis. The film’s ending sneaks up you, presenting a vision of how many lives could have been saved in the past year if there had been better transparency and cooperation between China and the US (especially if we hadn’t had a US president at the time so devoted to disinformation and propaganda designed to make himself look better). It’s an incredible work from one of our great documentary filmmakers, wrestling with important questions.

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Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) | Directed by Shaka King

 4.5/5

Shaka King’s Judas and the Black Messiah is a thoroughly compelling biopic told through the structure of a political thriller, giving us a more nuanced, complicated, and honest look at the Black Panther Party than most mainstream narrative films have been willing to attempt. In splitting the narrative’s focus between Fred Hampton’s work with Black Panther Party and Bill O’Neill’s work with the FBI to surveil Hampton, King and his screenwriters have almost created two separate films that overlap and merge as the characters’ lives becomes more intertwined. It’s a technique that works surprisingly well, giving us the tender and powerful moments of a Hampton biopic while we watch him form the Rainbow Coalition and fall in love. And in O’Neill’s story, we’re given the beats of a political thriller as we watch a young man in over his head, manipulated and coerced by his handlers to make choices that will haunt him the rest of his life. The two central performances are stellar – Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield each bring such a different and unique energy to their respective roles that keeps us fully invested in both characters’ arcs. King’s use of archival material at the beginning of the film is highly effective, especially in the way it transitions us into the main plot, showing the ways that images of Black solidarity are immediately threatening to white authorities. Like a few other films that have been released in the last few years, the film’s depiction of police racism and brutality is a necessary corrective to Hollywood’s near-constant glorification of the profession. There’s also a timeliness in the way the film shows how uncomfortable it is for the established powers that be (as well as white, paternalistic liberals) when the Black community (or any BIPOC community) demands equality rather than waiting to be granted equality out of beneficence. It’s a powerful film – hopefully just one of many necessary correctives to decades of popular cinema’s demonization of the Black Panthers and the Black Power movement.