Documentary Films and Programs

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      ‘Sabbath Queen’ Review: Capturing the Act of Questioning

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      Sandi DuBowski’s documentary about Rabbi Amichai Lau-Levie observes the making of a Jewish identity.When Amichai Lau-Lavie was ordained a rabbi, in 2016, he joined a family tradition that had been going on uninterrupted since the 11th century. And yet this had been a fraught process for Lau-Lavie, an Israel-born gay man who just a few years before entering New York’s Jewish Theological Seminary had been a pillar of a “God-optional” community. How he went from the Radical Faeries’ joyous, transgressive vision of queerness — which led to creating his drag alter ego, Rebbetzin Hadassah Gross — to embracing Conservative Judaism is the subject of Sandi DuBowski’s fascinating look at the act of questioning yourself and your family, your surroundings and your decisions.Shortly after completing his acclaimed documentary “Trembling Before G-d” (2001), about gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews, DuBowski started filming Lau-Lavie. He kept at it for the next 21 years, which gives “Sabbath Queen” the rare opportunity to capture its subject in flight, so to speak.Yes, Lau-Lavie reflects on his family’s history during World War II, as well as key points from his own past, like being outed in his 20s. But we also watch him talk about many events, like becoming a father or cofounding the aforementioned experimental Lab/Shul initiative, while he is still in the middle of experiencing them, rather than speaking with the benefit of hindsight.After Lau-Lavie makes a big decision that goes against his recent commitment to the Conservative movement, it becomes obvious that his restlessness has not abated, and his questing days may never be over. He understands all too well that life is just not that neat.Sabbath QueenNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Porcelain War’ Review: A Defiant Dispatch From Ukraine

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      A new documentary follows artists in wartime, on and off the battlefield.The latest documentary dispatch from Ukraine, “Porcelain War,” brings a message of hope rooted in art. Making art does feel like an act of resistance during the Russian invasion, when Kremlin propaganda attacks the very existence of Ukrainian culture. But what’s intriguing is that the directors, Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev, also celebrate Ukraine’s military defense, making for a jangly mix of idyll and warfare.Slava, who appears in the film, is both a ceramist and a member of a Ukraine special forces unit who gives weapons training to civilians turned soldiers. His partner, Anya, paints the whimsical figurines he creates, and the irrepressible couple weather the war in bombed-out Kharkiv with their more anxious pal Andrey, a painter and cameraman.Anya and Slava find some refuge in their house, and saccharine sequences show off tranquil fields and their cute dog. Some lovely animated moments set Anya’s finely wrought porcelain painting into motion; singing by the Ukrainian quartet DakhaBrakha rings out on the soundtrack.But then the focus shifts decisively to Slava’s army unit on the battlefield. Drone shots track bombs falling on Russian tanks and soldiers; Slava’s comrades hustle through ravaged buildings, equipped with GoPro cameras that give a first-person feel. Elsewhere, Andrey anguishes over spiriting his daughters away to Poland.Impressively, nearly everything was shot by the documentary’s subjects. Yet although their double duty is an awful fact of life in Ukraine, the film lurches between its varying components and tones. As the filmmakers repeatedly tie an inspirational bow on art and beauty, the good intentions yield cold comfort.Porcelain WarRated R for language and images of death. In Ukrainian, Russian and English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Ernest Cole: Lost and Found’ Review: Chronicling Apartheid and Beyond

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      Raoul Peck looks at the compelling South African photographer, who died in 1990, whose work gets a second life onscreen.Ernest Cole, the groundbreaking South African chronicler of apartheid, died in 1990 in Manhattan. He was 49 and had been in exile since 1966. A new documentary directed by Raoul Peck, “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” revives interest in the photographer, who trained his gaze on fellow Black South Africans living with the daily outrages and violent outbursts of a system that controlled their movements but not their meaning.In 2017, a trove of Cole’s work was found in a safe deposit box in Sweden. Amid that cache were the black-and-white images that were featured in his acclaimed photo book “House of Bondage.” First published in 1967, the book guaranteed the then-26-year-old’s banishment from his homeland.Peck makes use of keen observations excerpted from Cole’s writings and moves fluidly between stills (compassionate toward their subjects, damning of the subjugators) as well as quietly captivating photos he took of street life in Harlem and rural life during a road trip to the South in the 1960s and ’70s. The result is an elegantly wrought documentary that pulls off the trick of leaving viewers sated yet also craving more.Like Peck’s James Baldwin film, “I Am Not Your Negro,” this documentary also mixes the subject’s words with the filmmaker’s musings. “The total man does not live one experience,” the actor LaKeith Stanfield says in voice-over, quoting Cole. With its aching recognition of Cole’s creative triumphs and travails (he was, for a while, homeless), Peck’s film stands as a requisite biography, but also a personal homage: The response of one politically conscious artist to the call of another.Ernest Cole: Lost and FoundNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Bread & Roses’ Review: A Spirit of Resistance

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      Three Afghan women struggle for rights in Sahra Mani’s documentary of life under Taliban rule today.When the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan three years ago, one of the group’s first orders of business was to systematically erase women’s rights. Girls’ schools shuttered, women were barred from public spaces and female professionals were told not to return to work.“Bread & Roses,” which follows the lives of three Afghan women in the wake of the Taliban’s return to power, does not communicate these prohibitions in voice-over or title cards. Instead, the director, Sahra Mani, makes the deliberate choice to clear the way for her subjects to reach the audience directly, in their own words.Through cellphone footage captured on the fly, the documentary zeros in on three subjects defying their loss of freedom: Sharifa, a former government employee stuck at home because of restrictions to being out in public; Zahra, a dentist taken by the Taliban after protesting for her rights; and Taranom, an activist sheltering in a safe house in Pakistan. Intercutting among scenes of these experiences, the film illustrates the effective options for women living under Taliban rule: house arrest, prison or exile.As the three stories veer off in different directions, the film struggles to coalesce around a clean narrative. It doesn’t help that we often only receive snippets of episodes, with the contexts hazy and the relations among those onscreen uncertain. But while the immediacy of the storytelling may blur out precise details, it excels at building stakes. When, in one memorable scene, young girls address the camera to demand brighter futures, the movie’s message and ongoing mission are thrown into sharp relief.Bread & RosesNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Watch on Apple TV+. More

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      The Best True Crime to Stream: The Fame Monster

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      Across television, film and podcasting, here are four picks that explore lesser-discussed crimes involving celebrities.There is an absolute glut of true crime content that involves the rich and famous. These stories also tend to be rehashed and retread because fame breeds fascination, of course, and name recognition helps when seeking the eyes and ears of an audience. But there are plenty of stories involving stars that are just as compelling even if they haven’t gotten the same attention. Here are four of them across television, podcast and film.Documentary film“Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara”The harsh realities of toxic fan culture have gotten more attention in 2024, with pop stars like Chappell Roan and Billie Eilish speaking more openly about the ubiquitousness of harassment and obsession that accompany fame.For this new documentary, the director Erin Lee Carr (“Mommy Dead and Dearest,” “At The Heart of Gold”) weaves together two sides of a shocking story that turned the lives of Tegan and Sara Quin, twin sisters who are the queer folk-pop duo Tegan and Sara, upside down.In the 1990s and 2000s, the sisters had a knack for building community at shows and online, with Tegan in particular feeling a responsibility to their fans. When this familiarity dovetailed with a catfishing scheme, Tegan and many fans became ensnared in a sophisticated identity theft operation that lasted over 15 years. “Fake Tegan systematically destroyed my life,” Tegan says at one point.As layers are peeled back, a more complex picture comes into focus. Unfortunately, the end brings little comfort, only underscoring the magnitude of the discoveries made along the way.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ Is a Humanizing Look Into a Great Mind

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      Beyond the appropriate awe, this two-part PBS documentary, co-directed by Ken Burns, adds human texture to the hagiography.“Leonardo da Vinci,” a four-hour, two-part documentary airing on PBS on Monday and Tuesday at 8 p.m. (check local listings), is a thorough and engrossing biography that can’t help but feel incomplete, so vast and unusual is its subject. “Leonardo, for his time, possesses the most knowledge in the world,” one expert explains.Narrated by Keith David and directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon, this is a straightforward but still lyrical analysis. We learn about da Vinci’s early life, family, education and lovers, and the doc does an admirable job of explaining not just excellence but innovation. Enumerating the areas of his curiosity alone could take four hours, so the focus here is more on his output, whose scope and impact are singular even now. (Though maybe we could revive a few more aspects of his influence: Painting is cool, but why are there so few weddings in which performers dressed as Greek gods bless the union and cavort around a giant gilded half-egg? Something to consider, party planners; da Vinci orchestrated one such event in 1490.)“For the first time in the history of Western culture, the process becomes the interesting aspect of how art is made,” another expert points out, and “Leonardo da Vinci” follows that path, too.But beyond the appropriate awe, there’s a through line here of half-starts, dead drafts and lemons — flying machines that can never work, hydroarchitecture that fails completely, paintings never realized for reasons unknown. Those efforts are presented here with an endearing “well, nobody bats a thousand” shrug, adding human texture to the hagiography. One of the greatest minds in human history trails off in one of his final mathematic exegeses because, he writes, “the soup is getting cold.” Geniuses: They’re just like us.Also this weekFrom left, Gracie Lawrence, Alyah Chanelle Scott, Pauline Chalamet and Amrit Kaur in a scene from Season 3 of “The Sex Lives of College Girls.”Tina Thorpe/Max“Interior Chinatown,” based on the novel by Charles Yu, arrives Tuesday, on Hulu.“Our Oceans,” narrated by Barack Obama, arrives Wednesday, on Netflix.After many failed attempts over the years, a TV adaptation of “Cruel Intentions” finally arrives Thursday, on Amazon Prime Video.In the vein of “Floor Is Lava” comes “Human vs. Hamster,” a doofy obstacle course series arriving Thursday, on Max.Season 3 of “The Sex Lives of College Girls” begins Thursday at 9 p.m., on Max. More

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      Allee Willis Documentary Sheds Light on Songwriter for Earth, Wind & Fire and ‘Friends’

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      ‘The World According to Allee Willis’ shines a light on a musical artist whose creative spirit wasn’t limited to one genre or even to music.“I’m the world’s best-kept secret,” Allee Willis says at the start of a new documentary about her. Willis, a songwriter and artist, is being hyperbolic, but only a little: Unless you’re a music trivia hound, Willis’s remarkable career may have escaped your notice.I, for one, didn’t know until I watched “The World According to Allee Willis” (directed by Alexis Manya Spraic and in theaters starting Friday) that the same woman was a co-writer of Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September,” the Pointer Sisters’ “Neutron Dance” and the Rembrandts’ “I’ll Be There for You,” better known as the “Friends” theme song. She wrote dozens more hits, too — sometimes lyrics, sometimes music — and occasionally produced them as well. She even contributed music and lyrics to the Broadway version of “The Color Purple.”It’s unfair but axiomatic that the most influential people are often the ones who fly under the radar, and that’s Willis, who died in 2019 at 72. Spraic’s approach is two-pronged. There are interviews with Willis’s many friends and collaborators, so many that I couldn’t jot them all down, but here are just a few: Lily Tomlin, Pamela Adlon, Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, the comedian Bruce Vilanch, the singer-songwriter Brenda Russell and Paul Reubens, a.k.a. Pee-wee Herman, one of Willis’s closest friends.Somewhat unexpectedly, the mogul Mark Cuban appears a lot in the film, speaking warmly and earnestly of Willis’s expansive imagination. She spent much of the 1990s, in the still-nascent days of the internet, developing a collaborative social network and story-driven interactive platform called Willisville, and Cuban was her business partner.A lot of this was captured on video by Willis, who turned on a camera as a girl in Detroit in the 1950s and filmed constantly throughout her life. That is the other prong of Spraic’s film: There is a lot of Willis’s footage, which fills in details of her life, the ups along with the downs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes’ Review: The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of

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      A new documentary traces Humphrey Bogart’s development from stage actor to the embodiment of brooding cinematic cool.Produced in cooperation with Humphrey Bogart’s estate, the documentary “Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes” is an official portrait that nevertheless offers some insights into how one of Hollywood’s most recognizable and irreplaceable star personas evolved.Directed by Kathryn Ferguson, the film traces Bogart’s development from stage and backlot workhorse to timeless avatar of brooding cool. Louise Brooks, the great silent-screen star who died in 1985, is one of many Bogart friends whose recollections are featured in the film. She suggested that the reason Bogart could bring such complexity to Dixon Steele, the violent-tempered screenwriter he played in Nicholas Ray’s “In a Lonely Place” (1950), was because of how much he and Dix had in common.Bogart is portrayed in “Life Comes in Flashes” as a product of cold parenting. (His mother, Maud Humphrey, was an accomplished illustrator apparently dismissed by her son as a “housewife” on her death certificate, according to one interview subject.) He married three actresses — Helen Menken, Mary Philips and Mayo Methot — before Lauren Bacall. Each one is shown to have sharpened Bogart, even as his fame eclipsed theirs, to varying degrees.Words attributed to Bogart are read by Kerry Shale, an actor whose voice is dissimilar enough from Bogart’s to qualify as a distraction, at least initially. But Bogart’s own memories, and the way they’re illustrated with film clips, give the documentary a certain mystique. And it’s tough to resist gossip about Bogart’s friction with the film executive Jack Warner or even well-worn tales of the adventurer’s attitude that the director John Huston brought to the set of “The African Queen.” The two men drank so much, Bogart says in a much-cited quip that the movie repeats, “Whenever a fly bit Huston or me, it dropped dead.”Bogart: Life Comes in FlashesNot rated. 1 hour 39 minutes. In theaters. More