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      ‘The Mission’ Review: Blinded by the Light

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      A documentary tries to bring context to the actions of John Allen Chau, an American missionary who was killed in 2018.The simplest way to look at the actions of John Allen Chau, an American who was killed in 2018 trying to introduce Christianity to the inhabitants of a remote island in the Indian Ocean, is that they were reckless and arrogant.Nothing in “The Mission,” a documentary from Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, proves inconsistent with that assessment. But the movie strives to add context to what one interviewee calls Chau’s “horse-blinder focus,” which apparently let him think that he could convert the people who lived on North Sentinel Island in the Andaman Sea. The islanders had long resisted outside contact.The film paints Chau, who died at 26, as a young man who had absorbed colonial fantasies. He didn’t act alone; at crucial points, he received help from others who shared his beliefs. Some of Chau’s friends and associates still speak of him with admiration.In voice-over, actors read excerpts from Chau’s writing and from a letter that his father, Patrick Chau, a psychiatrist, shared with the filmmakers. That the North Sentinelese’s perspective is absent is not lost on the directors. (“We’re telling a story about us, not about them,” cautions Adam Goodheart, a historian who has written about North Sentinel Island, near the end.) The most barbed aspect of the movie, a National Geographic release, is its acknowledgment of the role that National Geographic itself has played in exoticizing groups like the North Sentinelese.Some of this background comes off like making excuses for Chau’s fanaticism. More helpful is Dan Everett, a linguist who spent years trying to convert the Pirahã people of Brazil and ultimately changed his perspective. Chillingly, Everett notes that Chau’s supporters were simultaneously saddened and elated by the death. “He will become famous in the church,” Everett says. That could be bad news for the North Sentinelese.The MissionRated PG-13 for exoticized nudity. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘No Accident’ Review: Putting White Supremacists on Trial

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      A documentary chronicles the lawsuit filed against the leaders of the violent 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va.Kristi Jacobson’s legal documentary “No Accident” opens with footage of the “Unite the Right” rally in August 2017 in Charlottesville, Va.: White supremacists march with tiki torches and shout slurs such as “Jews will not replace us.” The grotesque gathering remains unsettling and infuriating to watch, but plunging us into the proceedings has a way of stating the ugly facts upfront.Some participants in the two-day rally faced criminal charges, but Jacobson documents the steps in a civil case filed that October in an attempt to hold rally leaders responsible for conspiring to commit violence. Tracking the litigation led by the attorneys Roberta Kaplan and Karen Dunn, Jacobson’s civil rights procedural delves into both the legal work and the emotional strain involved in a case like this one.Kaplan and Dunn’s team draws on damning excerpts from Discord, the social media site used by rally planners, and evasive, insulting depositions by conspirators such as Richard Spencer and Christopher Cantwell, who represented themselves in court. Jacobson shows the toll on some of the lawsuit’s nine plaintiffs, who recall the rally and the peaceful counterprotests on Aug. 12, when James Fields Jr. murdered Heather Heyer and injured dozens of others by driving his car into a crowd of protesters.The movie, which feels constrained by the trial’s pandemic-related restrictions, maintains a civilized tone throughout. But it’s hard to keep calm at the spectacle of white nationalists preaching hatred and violence one moment, then attempting to squirm out of responsibility and court the jury’s sympathy. Jacobson’s account does the necessary work of restating the facts and showing that people can be held accountable for fomenting this kind of terror and harm.No AccidentNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Watch on HBO platforms. More

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      ‘Last Stop Larrimah’ Review: The Unusual Suspects

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      This true-crime documentary investigates a murder case in a tiny Australian town, showcasing its brash inhabitants.You might think that a murder case in a one-horse town of 11 people would be a little easier to solve. You would be wrong when it comes to the remote Australian outpost of “Last Stop Larrimah,” a true-crime documentary which gives free rein to the gossip and bickering of its mutually suspicious inhabitants.Fran the meat-pie queen, her pub-owning rival, Barry, and his dog-loving bartender, Richard, are among those holding forth on the mystery of Paddy Moriarty — a “larrikin” (in Aussie parlance) who sounds less and less endearing. Paddy and his dog disappeared one night shortly before Christmas in 2017. The sometimes entertaining residents of Larrimah spin theories about each other for the film’s director, Thomas Tancred, who adds their past incautious interviews for television.Tancred finds initial charm in the Australian embrace of big personalities like these sunbaked veterans of the Northern Territory. But the movie resembles reality shows that string together insinuations and trash-talk without knowing when to quit. The convoluted structure feels like overworked dough, with some dubious song cues and oddly dismissive treatment of police investigators. (As a murder mystery, the movie also games the system by postponing crucial information.)The bloat saps the fun and intrigue from the film, which can’t navigate between playing up eccentricity and committing to the notion that hell can be other people (even in a one-time refuge). The infighting seems quaint in the first hour, but by the second, you just want to get out of town.Last Stop LarrimahNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 58 minutes. Watch on HBO platforms. More

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      Errol Morris Did Not Like This Q&A About His le Carré Film

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      John le Carré’s spy novels traffic in the philosophical, emotional and practical ambiguities complicating concepts like truth, deceit and self-awareness. Which makes their author, who died in 2020 at 89 and whose real name was David Cornwell, an ideal foil for the legendary documentary director Errol Morris, himself an artist compelled toward questions about those […] More

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      ‘Colette and Justin’ Review: The Colonized Speak Up

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      In a new documentary, a filmmaker turns his lens on his grandparents during a pivotal moment in the history of the Democratic Republic of Congo.In “Colette and Justin,” directed by Alain Kassanda, the French-Congolese filmmaker uncovers a tangled and pivotal era in Congolese history and the central role his grandfather had in the country’s path toward independence in 1960.The titular protagonists are Kassanda’s grandparents, Colette Mujinga and Justin Kassanda, both born and raised in Zaire, what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, under Belgian rule. In the film, which relies heavily on photographs and footage created by the Belgians, Kassanda asks: “How do you make a film from the oppressor’s archives?” And his answer in the film both complicates and deepens our understanding of the way history is documented.Kassanda interweaves interviews with his grandparents and archival footage and images, often superimposing his own thoughts on colonization, migration and family. At one point, they watch clips from colonial propaganda that paints the local people as savages, scantily clad with bows and arrows, acting out tribal disputes with “witch doctors.” But as his grandparents point out, it was the Belgian film crew orchestrating these scenes. This interview technique reveals elements that might not have come up otherwise: the exclusion of women from French education, for instance, and the divisions the Belgian government manufactured between the Baluba and Lulua ethnic groups.Later, when the country achieved independence, Justin joined its nascent government as a senator and participated in a secession movement, leaving Kassanda to reconcile his respect for his grandfather with his admiration for the opposition leader, Patrice Lumumba, who became the country’s first prime minister. The result is a film both intimate and political; informative and profound. It highlights the deep and far-reaching wounds of colonization and offers a balm for its scars.Colette and JustinNot rated. In Lingala and French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Joan Baez I Am a Noise’ Review: Fountain of Nostalgia

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      A new documentary about the folk singer and activist Joan Baez contains a gold mine of archival materials.In a letter to her parents, the singer Joan Baez describes the work of recalling repressed memories of being abused by her father as “the bone-shattering task of remembering.”Her account of that experience, which she says her parents denied, is shown in the new documentary “Joan Baez I Am a Noise.” In the wistfully immersive film — directed by Karen O’Connor, Miri Navasky and Maeve O’Boyle — Baez reveals these “bone-shattering” secrets while winding down her 60-year career as a musician and political activist.At 82, Baez seems to have processed her struggles. She is plain-spoken about her early fame and her devotion to Bob Dylan, and does not let herself off the hook when her son admits to feeling her absence while she was “busy saving the world.”The documentary has a gold mine of material: drawings and journal entries, concert footage, family videos and vintage photographs. Included in the mix is audio from one of her therapy tapes, setting the stage for her unflinching confessional about abuse.As Baez rediscovers many of these items in her mother’s storage unit, her memories come alive, as if we are with her on this journey. O’Connor, Navasky and O’Boyle make imaginative visual choices to give Baez a full cinematic dimensionality, such as animating her sometimes haunting sketches.There is ultimately a sense of resolve for Baez in “I Am a Noise.” And for the rest of us, the documentary is an eloquent meditation on making peace with the past.Joan Baez I Am a NoiseNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 53 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Mister Organ’ Review: Antiques Sideshow

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      A documentarian’s investigation into peculiar events outside a New Zealand antiques shop turns into a horror story.When the New Zealand journalist David Farrier began investigating a peculiar series of events happening in a car park outside an antiques store in a town he likens to the antipodean equivalent of Beverly Hills, he most likely had no idea he’d wind up being haunted for life. Farrier directed and co-stars in an account of those events that can rightly be called a documentary horror film. If its title, “Mister Organ,” initially strikes you as humorous, you won’t be laughing long.In 2016, Farrier happens on a local interest story in Ponsonby, a suburb of Auckland. On evenings outside the emporium, Bashford Antiques, a bearded fellow with a van is clamping cars parked without permission, and charging extortionate rates to free up the vehicles. As local legislatures move to change the laws allowing this practice, Farrier recognizes the bearded man, Michael Organ (or, as he sometimes signs his name, Michael Organe), as a self-proclaimed royal who, years before, had served time for a yacht-snatching scheme.Further investigations, including unusual and sometimes impromptu interviews with Organ, reveal him as a man of many moods — one who soon tells Farrier that “somebody” has given him, Organ, the key to Farrier’s house. Further creepiness ensues.Organ is a terrifying type: the sociopathic con artist who doesn’t so much work on discrete schemes as lead an entire sham existence, with no specific aim besides gaslighting and controlling others. A free-floating malefactor who can expound on any topic for hours, a master of sophistry. In one interview, Organ tells Farrier, with great confidence, “There’s a difference between you not being able to prove something as true and me being able to prove that it’s false.”Not one psychiatrist or potential diagnostician is interviewed. Explaining Organ might blunt the impact of experiencing the man through Farrier’s eyes — the movie’s unsettling journey ends at an abandoned mental institution.Mister OrganNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters. More

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      How Tupac Shakur Remained a Defining Rap Figure After His Death

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      A star during his lifetime, he became an almost mythical figure in the decades since his 1996 killing.Tupac Shakur has been dead for longer than the 25 years he lived. During his lifetime, he rose to levels of stardom matched by few other rappers, rocketing quickly from a Digital Underground backup dancer to a chart-topper and movie star, all while courting controversy with law enforcement and presidential administrations. In the decades since his 1996 murder in Las Vegas, he has endured as one of the genre’s defining figures, in no small part because of the mystery surrounding his death.The Friday arrest of Duane Keith Davis in connection with Shakur’s killing — he was indicted on a murder charge — is a step in solving one of hip-hop’s greatest tragedies and longest mysteries. Nearly two years before his death, Shakur had been ambushed and shot in New York. The assault instigated a visceral feud between Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G., a New York rapper who was slain nearly six months after Shakur, forever linking the rivals and the coastal feud that hung over ’90s hip-hop.Shakur’s breadth as a rapper included enduring anthems like “Dear Mama,” “Keep Ya Head Up” and “California Love,” while also featuring songs laced with misogyny and vengeance. He poignantly rapped about social activism and the oppression of Black Americans, which helps his music resonate just as strong today as it did in the ’90s.“His death caused people to really magnify what he was doing musically and when they saw it, they were like, ‘Oh my Lord,’” said Greg Mack, a radio programmer who helped bring hip-hop music into the mainstream on the West Coast. “We didn’t know that’s who we had.”Shakur at the MTV Video Music Awards just days before his death in 1996. ReutersPart of Shakur’s staying power is because his murder investigation stayed open longer than he lived, allowing fans to offer up theories about what may have happened. Almost immediately after his Sept. 13, 1996, death was announced, rumors circulated that Shakur was actually alive and well, recording in solitude on some far-off island. These wild theories continued with regularity over the years.(In one 2011 example, hackers gained access to the PBS website and wrote that Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. were living together in a small New Zealand town. The story spread quickly on social media even after PBS removed it.)Shakur often prophesied an early death in lyrics and interviews. He recorded a trove of music during his lifetime, and much of that material saw the light of day after his death. Over the course of a decade, Shakur’s estate released several albums that culminated with 2006’s “Pac’s Life.”His posthumous output extends beyond his own albums. A holographic image of Shakur memorably performed at 2012’s Coachella festival. Kendrick Lamar used excerpts from a rare 1994 Shakur interview for the two to engage in a conversation on his influential album “To Pimp a Butterfly.” In June, Shakur received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Actors including Anthony Mackie and Demetrius Shipp Jr. have portrayed him in films.More than a dozen documentaries, plays and books have been shot, acted and written to display and dissect Shakur’s short life, including 2003’s “Tupac: Resurrection,” which earned an Academy Award nomination for best documentary feature.This year, the director Allen Hughes released “Dear Mama: The Saga of Afeni and Tupac Shakur,” a five-part docuseries that examines Shakur’s relationship with his mother, Afeni Shakur. (Tupac Shakur once assaulted Hughes for firing him from the movie “Menace II Society.”) Next month, Staci Robinson, who knew Shakur in high school, will publish the first estate-approved biography on Shakur, a book she worked on for more than 20 years.“Tupac Shakur no longer belongs to Tupac Shakur,” Neil Strauss of The New York Times wrote in 2001. “Soon he won’t even belong to Afeni Shakur. He will belong to playwrights, filmmakers, novelists, television executives and other modern-day mythmakers. ” That prediction has largely rung true. More