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    ‘The Hidden Life of Trees’ Review: Magic Kingdom

    Jörg Adolph uses the sensorial capacities of cinema to thrillingly visualize a German forester’s contention that trees are social, sentient beings.In his best-selling book, “The Hidden Life of Trees,” the German forester Peter Wohlleben drew in millions of readers with a tantalizing hypothesis: that trees are social, sentient beings, who talk to each other, feed and nurse their young, sense pain and have personalities. While Wohlleben’s anthropomorphic language and seductive blend of science and speculation rankled some professionals, this was precisely the selling point for lay readers: an opportunity to see how trees share some of our own traits, and are worthy of our empathy and care.Directed by Jörg Adolph, the documentary “The Hidden Life of Trees” uses the sensorial capacities of cinema to thrillingly visualize Wohlleben’s observations. Jan Haft’s camera peers deep into tree bark, and the entire universes of organisms therein; it captures the blooming of plant life in rapturous time-lapse shots; it lovingly traces the outlines of rustling, sun-kissed canopies. All the while, the voice-over reads snippets from Wohlleben’s book, letting us into the secrets of nature that lie beyond human vision and temporality.These scenes are interspersed with Wohlleben’s field trips and lectures, and as in the book, his accessible style and infectious passion is the main draw here. What the film successfully imparts is not so much scientific certainty as an affecting sense of curiosity and reverence, which Wohlleben deploys to a pragmatic end: to argue for the ecological management of forests, which would ensure their communal health and longevity, and therefore that of humankind. Crouching next to a 10,000-year-old spruce, Wohlleben reminds us of man’s comparative insignificance as well as power. “The only thing it cannot withstand,” he says of the spindly tree, “is a chain saw.”The Hidden Life of TreesRated PG. In German, Korean and English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. In theaters. More

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    Andrea Arnold Has Directed A-Listers. Her Latest Star? This Cow

    Arnold’s new documentary, “Cow,” is one of the most moving films at Cannes. “A few times, I’ve just burst into tears about it,” she says.CANNES, France — Andrea Arnold waved her hands in front of her face, trying to keep her composure. “I’m a bit pathetic today, sorry,” the British director said, tearing up.Arnold hadn’t expected to cry during our interview, just as I hadn’t expected to be so moved by her new film, “Cow,” which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival this week. On the face of it, “Cow” hardly sounds like a tear-jerker: It simply chronicles the day-to-day life of Luma, a cow on a dairy farm. She moos, she is milked, she mates and she gives birth.But maybe those black-and-white patterns on a cow’s hide form a sort of Rorschach blot, because as I watched Luma lick her newborn calf or endure the indignity of a milking machine, I began to ponder all sorts of weighty concepts: love, nature, dehumanization and death. Arnold lets her camera linger for a while and as you’re staring into Luma’s enormous eyes, you may start to wonder if it’s the cow you’re recognizing or something within yourself.Previously known for directing “American Honey” and the second season of “Big Little Lies,” the 60-year-old Arnold welcomed the change of pace that “Cow” afforded, and filming (shot on a farm just outside London) stretched for years. Arnold told me she had long wanted to make a documentary about an animal, but she was unprepared for the cinematic and emotional connection she ended up forging with her star.Andrea Arnold in Cannes. She had been working on “Cow” in between projects like “Big Little Lies.”Caroline Blumberg/EPA, via ShutterstockHere are edited excerpts from our conversation.Did you always know you wanted a cow as your subject?I considered all the animals, of course, and I thought about a chicken because chickens usually live for about 90 days and they’ve got amazing personalities. But for some reason, I just kept coming back to the cow. Dairy cows work so hard and they have such a busy life, I thought that would be interesting to look at.How much experience did you have with cows before?When I was about 18, I met my first herd of cows. I was with a boyfriend walking in the countryside, and we just walked to a field of cows and they all came and sat around me. I remember it really vividly because I was just amazed at how huge and gentle they were. Actually, they were all licking me as well.Really? Were you putting your hand out?The natural thing I did was sit down so I didn’t seem threatening, and I guess they were like, “Who are you? What are you?” They’ve got these huge tongues and they were licking my clothes and my hands. At that point, it had a profound effect on me.So once you decided it would be a cow, what’s the first step? How do you cast a documentary subject like that?I wasn’t sure whether we’d need a cow that you could pick out in a crowd. Luma had a very distinct white head, with this sort of black eyeliner around her eyes. She also was described as having some attitude and I loved the sound of that. All the people I spoke to who look after cows say that they do have quite distinct personalities.You can sense that personality, though I couldn’t help but wonder if that’s part of the empathy and projection that’s created when you watch a movie. When you were on the ground observing Luma, could you feel that personality, too?Very much so. I was saying the other day to somebody that I find it very moving when she … [Arnold pauses, tearing up.] I can’t say it, almost. I find it moving now, telling you. A few times, I’ve just burst into tears about it.What is it she did that you found so moving?I always said early on that if the cows are aware of the camera, just let it be honest. We can’t pretend we’re not there and our presence is going to have an impact on the way she behaves. Sometimes, she did get sort of angry with us and head-butt the camera, but I really felt over time that she felt seen. I don’t know if I’m right, but it feels very profound, because the whole point was to see her.Some of the looks she gave us when I was there, I thought, “She’s really looking at me and I’m really looking at her and we see each other.” Obviously, she doesn’t know what this thing is that is filming her, but she could certainly feel that we are focusing on her. I think she felt the gaze. When we were editing, I kept feeling like, “I see you Lu, I see you.”It must have been an interesting thing to return to this in between projects.And I did “Big Little Lies” in the middle of that.A very different production.Very different. This was a project from a very true place in myself, so it was always like a touchstone to go back to it.Would the farm give you a heads up when anything significant was happening with Luma?We were in touch all the time because that’s their lives: Having calves and making milk is what they do, and that’s incredibly hard. They start really early and they work so hard on the farm and they just do it every day. I’d be absolutely exhausted, and I was full of admiration for them at the end of it.And it made me think about our own lives, too.I’m having so much of that reaction from people, which is really interesting. I kind of hoped for that, actually. I’m getting stopped on the street and people are telling me very interesting takes on how they found it and what it brought up for them.What are they telling you?All kinds of things. Some people think it’s really feminist, some people think that it’s about being discarded, some people think it’s about systems. I’m quite enjoying that actually, hearing people’s take on things.As the maker of this film, what surprised you about the final film you’ve made?I hadn’t seen it on the big screen, and that was like seeing it anew. I guess what I found surprising is that I thought, “Gosh, this is tough.” And I’m used to it! I know the story and I’m very realistic about their lives and how it is and … [She tears up again.] It’s so weird! Talking about it really gets me.I never wanted to explain this film, I just wanted to show it and allow people to have their own experience. I knew I was being bold, but I’m not deliberately being bold, I’m just trying to do something that’s pure. I genuinely wanted to know if you followed her around enough, would you connect and see her? I feel like in the world, we don’t see each other. We don’t see other living things.Not in that way.Not in that way. If we could, then things would be different, maybe. More

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    ‘Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters’ Review: Still Making Waves

    A striking new documentary explores the enduring legacy of a dance piece created by Bill T. Jones at the height of the AIDS crisis.What happens to a work of art when time displaces it from its original context, and from the impetus that inspired it? That’s a question that can elicit dry theories. But in “Can You Bring It?: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters,” a new documentary directed by Tom Hurwitz and Rosalynde LeBlanc Loo, the answer is passionate and moving.Jones is the co-founder of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, a modern dance troupe. It grew out of the performing duo that Jones formed with his partner Zane, who wasn’t a dancer when they met in the early 1970s.Zane died of AIDS-related lymphoma in 1988. The movie gives a moving précis of their work-life collaboration before addressing the decisions Jones made in the aftermath of Zane’s death. One of those decisions took the form of the piece “D-Man in the Waters.”The dance was inspired by a series of group improvisations. It was a reflection of the troupe’s experiences, its struggles and its losses. As a piece of choreography, it’s since been performed by dozens of collegiate and professional companies. “Can you bring it?” is what Jones asks a group of dancers at Loyola Marymount College in 2016 as they prepare the piece under the direction of Loo, a former Jones/Zane company member.These students have little knowledge of AIDS, so Jones and Loo ask them to find points of struggle in their lives, as part of a student community and otherwise. The intercutting between vintage footage of the Jones/Zane company and the student production, as well as footage from another contemporary production of the piece — shot with an onstage intimacy that recalls the in-the-ring segments of Martin Scorsese’s “Raging Bull” — make for an unusually lively documentary experience.Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the WatersNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain’ Review: Salt, Sugar and No Fat

    Morgan Neville’s sharp and vividly compelling documentary tries to pin down a brilliant, troubled man.There’s scarcely a dry eye in the frame at the conclusion of Morgan Neville’s vivid, jam-packed documentary, “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain,” but this isn’t a hagiography. Bourdain, who died almost exactly three years ago at the age of 61, was many things — chef, sensualist, addict, world traveler — any one of which could have served as the movie’s lodestar. Yet it was as a writer that he found renown, and it is around his words that “Roadrunner” constructs its ominous, uneasy shape.Those words, punchy and aromatic, spill from Bourdain’s books, his television shows and multiple public appearances as Neville wrangles a personality, and archive footage, that’s almost too much for one film to corral. Having attained in midlife a fame he distrusted and a title — celebrity chef — he despised, Bourdain wavered between euphoric family man and fretful workaholic. Though free of heroin and cocaine since the late 1980s, he was also without the punishing restaurant routines he had relied on to stave off his demons.With immense perceptiveness, Neville shows us both the empath and the narcissist: The man who refused to turn the suffering he saw in war zones into a bland televisual package, and the one who would betray longtime colleagues to please a new lover.“You know, something was missing in me, some part of me wanted to be a dope fiend,” he confesses in one clip. That dark awareness looms over interviews crammed with frisky anecdotes and fond remembrances, helping explain a death that seemed to many inexplicable. The once miserable, angry child had grown into a brilliant man who suspected his talent and his pain were inextricably linked. “Roadrunner” recognizes that he was probably right.Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony BourdainRated R for raw profanity. Running time: 1 hour 58 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘No Ordinary Man’ Review: The Life and Death of Billy Tipton

    This documentary sheds light on a prominent jazz musician whose death became a spectacle when it was discovered he was transgender.The documentary “No Ordinary Man” examines the life and death of Billy Tipton, a jazz musician who came into prominence in the 1930s, and whose career lasted for over 40 years. Billy was described by his friends as a consummate gentleman, and he cherished his family, with three children he adopted with his partner, Kitty. Billy lived his life quietly, but his death in 1989 became a nationwide spectacle after it became clear during funeral preparations that he was transgender. Members of his family made appearances on talk shows, including “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” where they attested they did not know Billy was transgender.The directors Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt use a variety of strategies to present a reconsideration of Billy’s life and memory. In interviews, transgender historians share their knowledge of his career, and they place the chaos that ensued after his death in the broader context of transgender representation in media. The filmmakers also script imagined scenes from Billy’s life, employing transgender actors to perform the role of Billy. The actors are asked to reflect upon their impression of Billy, and how his experience relates to their own. Most movingly, Billy’s son, Billy Tipton Jr., discusses his memories of his father.This is a respectful tribute that is a shade too morally and cinematically safe in its execution. It feels as if any revelation or assumption made about Billy among its speakers could rattle the private — and absent — person at the film’s center. The result is a movie that feels bittersweet, a collection of impressions for a man who may have never been fully known.No Ordinary ManNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Fin’ Review: Eli Roth Wants to Save the Sharks

    The first documentary from the “Hostel” director uses a little expert advice and a lot of pathos to advocate against damaging commercial fishing practices.Eli Roth really, really loves sharks. That’s the newest information available in his first feature documentary, “Fin,” a screed against shark fishing that borrows its most galling stats and images primarily from other places and fills in the gaps with footage of Roth being upset.There is little here that was not already tackled in Rob Stewart’s 2007 documentary “Sharkwater,” nor in the more recent, less artful “Seaspiracy.” Though where Stewart painstakingly explained the beauty, intelligence and importance of sharks, Roth would rather that we love these animals simply because he does. This presents a challenge for anyone prone to find Roth, the director of exploitative horror films like “Hostel” and “The Green Inferno,” unsympathetic.The fishing practices shown in “Fin” are harming our oceans, to be sure, but Roth seems more comfortable painting East Asian people as savages for eating shark fin soup than he does explaining marine biology. (He spends a good half of this documentary doing the former, and very little time on the latter.) In one scene, as he sits down to try the delicacy, he compares what he is about to do with his own film, the cannibal horror movie “The Green Inferno,” in which a cartoonish Amazonian tribe butchers a group of American college students.Roth stands in for the outraged viewer for the duration of “Fin,” his indignation apparent as he repeatedly condemns the shark fishing he witnesses as crazy and pointless. Roth calls a shark clubbing the worst thing he’s ever seen. He passionately pushes for the maternal rights of a felled pregnant shark. He snidely condemns women who wear cosmetics, which can be made with shark liver oil. These words — coming from a director who helped coin “torture porn,” and whose fiction work consistently and degradingly compares makeup-caked bombshells to animals — feel disingenuous at best.There are passionate, knowledgeable experts at the margins of this film: ecologists, activists and divers. Why Roth had to be its focal point is anybody’s guess.FinNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes. Watch on Discovery+. More

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    Plane Crash Complicates HBO Max Documentary on Diet-Inspired Church

    On May 29, a single-pilot jet plane crashed into a lake near Nashville, killing all seven people on board. Among them were Gwen Shamblin Lara, a weight-loss guru and the founder of the Remnant Fellowship Church of Brentwood, Tenn., and her husband, William Lara, who was known as Joe and had once portrayed Tarzan in both a television series and the movie “Tarzan in Manhattan.”The leader of a midsize congregation, Ms. Lara, 66, had for the past several years been the main subject of a documentary project that sought to get beyond the gilded veneer of the Remnant Fellowship and investigate its inner workings. Set to debut on HBO Max in the fall, the multi-episode project, “The Way Down,” details the church’s origin in Ms. Lara’s religious-based weight-loss program, the Weigh Down Workshop.The diet program brought Ms. Lara fame — through appearances on popular shows like “Larry King Live” — and fortune, thanks to best-selling books touting her strategies to lose weight. But it also made her a controversial figure, with critics saying Weigh Down focused more on unconventional theology than on healthy eating habits. The documentary examines those issues, along with allegations that the church shunned and even harassed members who wanted to leave and that it functions more as a cult than a traditional religious institution.Ms. Lara in 2011. Her church grew out of the Weigh Down Workshop, a religious-based diet program she started in 1986.Sanford Myers/The Tennessean, via ImagnAt the time of the crash, the finishing touches were being put on the series. Suddenly, the filmmakers were faced with a new set of questions. What was the extent of Mr. Lara’s flying experience (he was operating the aircraft), and were his medical records up to date? What would happen to the church now that its founder and leader was dead? (A day after the crash, the church released a statement saying Ms. Lara’s daughter and son “intend to continue the dream that Gwen Shamblin Lara had of helping people find a relationship with God.”)And what would happen in the bitter custody case, involving Mr. Lara’s daughter with his ex-wife, which formed a crucial story line in the documentary?The filmmakers also said that since the crash, they had found that more people were eager to speak to them — former congregants who said they had previously been unwilling to go against the church publicly because they still had family members who are affiliated, and relatives of those killed in the crash who were skeptical of the church and now felt compelled to share their stories.On May 29, a single-pilot jet plane crashed into a lake near Nashville, killing all seven people on board including Ms. Lara.George Walker IV/The Tennessean, via Imagn“Within 24 hours I had heard from every single source, and the first thing everyone said was ‘I don’t want to be disrespectful, but please tell me this doesn’t change anything,’” regarding the documentary, said the producer Nile Cappello, an investigative journalist who started researching Remnant Fellowship in 2018.Ms. Cappello added that for those who had already spoken out against the church, some at great personal sacrifice, what she heard most frequently was worry the documentary would be curtailed in some way, “that we have opened up these wounds for nothing.”Though archival footage of Ms. Lara preaching and making media appearances is shown in the documentary, neither she nor any representatives from Remnant Fellowship were interviewed on camera by the filmmakers.“I never thought she would give us an interview,” the series director, Marina Zenovich, said of Ms. Lara. “Never.”Remnant Fellowship did not return calls seeking comment about the series for this article.While the filmmakers scrambled to incorporate news of the crash and its aftermath into the documentary, HBO Max altered its plans too. Now, rather than release a four-part series at the end of September, the first three episodes of “The Way Down,” will become available on Sept. 30, concluding with a “To Be Continued” message. The final two episodes will debut in early 2022, giving the filmmakers time to deal with the new footage. The documentary now begins with local news coverage of the crash.Marina Zenovich directed “The Way Down,” which will conclude early next year with two episodes that can incorporate new footage.Coley Brown for The New York Times“There is a fuller story to be told,” said Lizzie Fox, senior vice president of nonfiction at HBO Max. “We just want to make sure that we can allow enough time for the story to progress and the investigation to pursue some answers and give us time to interview all the subjects. With a limited docu-series, if there’s ever a chance to have a second part, I think it’s something that people tend to get excited about.”Ms. Zenovich is a documentarian who has spent most of her career focusing on men like Roman Polanski, Lance Armstrong and Robin Williams. But the world of evangelical religion was new terrain, one she decided to embark on because of the compelling character at the story’s center.“It’s deeply upsetting,” she said. “But I decided to do it because I was fascinated by Gwen.”Ms. Lara, who trained as a dietitian, began her Weigh Down Workshop in 1986. It was a diet plan that set aside common health guidelines and instead focused on a reliance on God, urging members that in order to understand true hunger they should eat only when their stomach growled. By the mid-2000s, her advice had become very popular within religious communities, and Ms. Lara’s books sold millions of copies. She parlayed that success into Remnant Fellowship, a church she founded in 1999 with her husband at the time, David Shamblin, after splitting with the Church of Christ. The Weigh Down philosophies remained a central tenet of her new congregation.Nile Cappello, right, the producer of the documentary, started researching Remnant Fellowship in 2018.Coley Brown for The New York TimesAs ex-members describe it in the documentary, the church was less a place of worship and more an all-encompassing power that took over every aspect of their lives, from where they worked and how they dressed to whom they married. Body image and appearances were central components, and the documentary chronicles Ms. Lara’s own transformation, from a bubbly young dietitian with girl-next-door looks into a very thin, heavily made-up avatar whose hair seemed to grow in height in relation to her power.Ms. Lara’s broader popularity eventually began to wane in part because of her rejection of the Holy Trinity, views that prompted a Christian publisher to cancel her upcoming book and others to stop promoting her weight loss program.“Gwen’s whole control is using misogyny against other women,” Ms. Cappello said, adding that Ms. Lara was one of the few female religious leaders in the evangelical Christian movement but had an entirely male leadership team. Ms. Lara also demanded that her congregants adhere to traditional familial gender roles in order to maintain their standing in the church.Among the allegations raised in “The Way Down” are accusations that individuals unable to lose weight were marginalized by the church community and that members were encouraged by Remnant leadership to stop taking prescribed medication including birth control and psychiatric drugs.Now the filmmakers are scrambling to tell a more comprehensive story of the church, its founding and its impact on Brentwood.“It was never about not continuing,” said Ms. Zenovich, who is particularly compelled by the stories of those who left the church. “It’s about shifting how we were going to tell the story.” More

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    ‘We Intend to Cause Havoc’ Review: Zambia Rock, Rediscovered

    This new documentary takes its title from the acronym of WITCH, a once-popular Zambian combo.“Zamrock” is the tag applied to the music of several rock bands from Zambia dating from the early 1970s into the ’80s. Once known as Northern Rhodesia, the country in southern Africa achieved its independence in 1964. Zambian rockers applied British Invasion psychedelic accents to infectious rhythms derived from both their own continent’s musical traditions and James Brown.A new documentary directed by Gio Arlotta, “We Intend to Cause Havoc,” takes its title from the acronym of WITCH, a once-popular Zambian combo. Arlotta, who is from Italy, came upon the band’s music by happenstance, then conducted a pilgrimage to find its makers. In the footage here, he travels with a couple of European musicians, Jacco Gardner and Nic Mauskovic, who visit archives and studios and hook up with the only surviving member of the original group, the charismatic singer and songwriter Emmanuel Chanda, whose stage name was Jagari (after, yes, Mick Jagger).Chanda is now a fervent Christian who works at a private gemstone mine, hoping to earn not necessarily riches but sustenance for his family. The music business in the United States was never a picnic for artists, but in Zambia “distribution” was practically synonymous with getting ripped off by pirates. Chanda is not bitter; nor is the guitarist Victor Kasoma, once of the band The Oscillators. Both men are eager to jam with the enthusiastic and slightly callow visiting Europeans.The movie picks up when the narration shifts from Arlotta’s to tag-team Chanda and the knowledgeable Eothen Alapatt, the head of a label that reissues Zamrock. The music itself is exciting enough that it washes out some of the unpleasant taste of the film’s early “white people discovering stuff” tone. And Chanda himself is incredibly winning, especially when he takes the stage.We Intend to Cause HavocNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV and Altavod. More