Heineman, Matthew

Subterms

    Latest story

    63 Shares159 Views

    ‘American Symphony’ Review: Intimate Harmony

    by

    This portrait of the musician Jon Batiste and the author Suleika Jaouad follows an artistic couple through ambition and adversity.Partway through “American Symphony,” the musician Jon Batiste pokes gentle fun at the coverage he received in advance of the 2022 Grammys. The breadth of his 11 nominations, which bridged pop, jazz and classical categories, made him tough to label. He ultimately fended off Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish to win album of the year.This documentary, directed by Matthew Heineman, is likewise deceptively tricky to peg. In the broad strokes, it is a process film, following Batiste, who grew up in the New Orleans area and trained at Juilliard, as he prepares a wildly original symphony that shares a title with the movie. “My ambition for composing this symphony is massive,” he says. “I’m trying to expand the canon of symphonic music, break through long-gatekept spaces.”(Ben Sisario, writing in The New York Times, described the piece, which premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2022, as a “Whitmanesque canvas of funk, Dixieland jazz, operatic vocals and Native American drums.”)But this is also a movie about two artists, their love, their creative attitudes and how, as a couple, they approach living a “life of contrasts.” That description comes from the writer Suleika Jaouad, Batiste’s partner (they marry during the film), whose best-selling memoir, “Between Two Kingdoms,” was published in 2021 and who, before college, studied at Juilliard herself, with a specialization in double bass.As Batiste gets ready for his Grammy and Carnegie Hall coups, Jaouad undergoes a bone marrow transplant after a recurrence of cancer. (She received her first leukemia diagnosis at 22, and from 2012 to 2015 wrote in The Times about her experiences.)While some of the backstage material has an official feel (Batiste and Jaouad are listed among the many executive producers, along with Barack and Michelle Obama), the documentary does not shy from showing private moments. It captures Batiste hiding his head under a pillow as he talks on the phone with his therapist and sits in with the couple as a doctor discusses the open-ended course of chemotherapy he is recommending. When it comes to the music, too, the film is unafraid to dwell on a drawn-out silence or phrase.American SymphonyRated PG-13 Potentially upsetting medical scenes. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

    More stories

    • 88 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Retrograde’ Review: The U.S. Withdrawal From Afghanistan

      by

      This documentary follows one Afghan general, Sami Sadat, to tell an emotional story.Matthew Heineman’s latest documentary, “Retrograde,” wisely does not attempt to provide a comprehensive account of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Shot over the nine months following the confirmation of the U.S. withdrawal in early 2021, the shrewdly observant film sticks with one Afghan general, Sami Sadat, to tell an emotional story that feels as significant as any analysis of troop numbers.At first, Sadat and his men receive training from the Green Berets. But when the Americans must leave, the Afghans soon feel overwhelmed — their fragile-looking flag speaks volumes — and are increasingly besieged by Taliban forces. The notably youthful Sadat does his best to solve whatever comes his way, whether it’s a matter of arranging military strikes, helping ebbing morale or working on equipment shortfalls. There’s cockpit footage from helicopters, and Sadat makes a harrowing convoy trip.But this isn’t a profile or a battlefield documentary. The slide into defeat is expressed through faces at Sadat’s command posts more than with blood on the front lines. The filmmakers single out potent vérité scenes of vulnerability, fear and sheer nerves, like when Sadat keeps waving off an underling who warns of worsening battle conditions. When he and his men later hole up at a governor’s compound as Taliban fire crackles nearby, the desperation is palpable.The attention to detail conveys these feelings without coming across as polemical (though the depiction of helpful U.S. soldiers rings a tad effortful). A lingering shot of a dazed Afghan woman at Kabul’s airport during the August chaos around the Taliban takeover suggests a reply to the famous 1984 National Geographic cover — as if history is repeating itself with fresh suffering.RetrogradeNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The First Wave’ Review: How to Fight a Virus

      by

      The documentary tracks the first four months of the novel coronavirus in March 2020, as it overwhelms works at a hospital in Queens.The documentary “The First Wave,” an intimate portrait of the first four months of the coronavirus pandemic in New York City, goes inside the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, as doctors, nurses and patients attempt to fight a surge that threatens to overwhelm the hospital’s capacity.The director Matthew Heineman (“Cartel Land,” “A Private War”) prefers a fly-on-the-wall style as he observes the scenes in the hospital. It’s clear he was granted a remarkable degree of access to make this documentary. The camera watches from the bedside of flat-lining patients as their doctors try to resuscitate them.Heineman pans close to intubated faces, and the audience sees the desperation of patients who try until their last breaths to expel fluid from their lungs.In the scenes that follow, the film’s central figure, Dr. Nathalie Dougé, is overwhelmed by a new disease that doesn’t follow familiar patterns. It’s agonizing to witness the degree of suffering that this movie documents, all the more so because the pandemic is still ongoing.Heineman doesn’t include talking heads to contextualize the images that are presented, preferring to allow doctors and nurses to explain the chaos surrounding them. The deliberate lack of an external perspective adds to the crushing atmosphere at the hospital. This is not a comprehensive portrait of diagnostics, treatment plans or even the political circumstances that produced such a deadly first surge. But the film succeeds in presenting an on-the-ground view of what it felt like to be inside a hospital in the spring of 2020. It was harrowing, death was everywhere and there was no end in sight.The First WaveRated R for graphic images, medical gore and language. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Boy From Medellín’ Review: A Dizzying Week in J Balvin’s World

      by

      A documentary about the reggaeton star from Colombia is a relatively sophisticated form of celebrity publicity.The year is 2019 and protests in Colombia — the largest the country has seen in decades — have erupted against the government of President Iván Duque. The killing of 18-year-old Dilan Cruz by a police projectile makes its way into the reggaeton star J Balvin’s Instagram feed, which exacerbates his individual crisis.It seems Balvin wasn’t sleeping well. In the days leading up to a sold-out concert on Nov. 30, 2019, in his hometown, Medellín, he begins to consider his responsibilities as a public figure. Social media users criticize his political disengagement, while uprisings in the city threaten to cancel his big night.In “The Boy from Medellín” on Amazon Prime Video, the director Matthew Heineman captures a week in the life of Balvin, the Prince of Reggaeton, a charismatic performer who appears to be privately diffident.Known for his gritty documentaries about international conflicts (“Cartel Land,” “City of Ghosts”), Heineman delivers a relatively sophisticated form of celebrity publicity in this film, armed with stunning concert footage but unoriginal insights into the burdens of modern fame, like the difficulty of balancing the expectations of fans with personal desires.At the very least, attending a J Balvin show looks like it would be great fun.Heineman weaves together clips from Balvin’s youth — his scrappy origins in the local music scene — with snapshots into his chaotic present. As the concert approaches, Balvin seems to be either on the verge of a panic attack or meditating with the help of his spiritual adviser. Destigmatizing mental illness is an important cause for Balvin, for reasons made intimately apparent.Similar recent mythmaking projects like Beyoncé’s “Homecoming” and Taylor Swift’s “Miss Americana” have generated their own publicity by giving access to curated versions of the personal lives of musicians, which makes them seem real and relatable. In “The Boy from Medellín,” this curation is obvious.Before Balvin hits the stage, his manager urges him to speak out and cites the activist roots of the American rap group N.W.A. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the comparison, since the artists responsible for explicit protest anthems probably didn’t need any encouragement to express their opinions. In “getting political,” Balvin risks alienating some fans, but he stands to win some as well — the viewers of this documentary, for instance.The Boy from MedellínRated R for language. In Spanish and English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Streaming on Amazon Prime Video. More