pingnick

This documentary didn't click for me immediately. Except for a few screens of text the narrative is related entirely by the charcoal people and landscape. The situation the film conveys is stark and simple on a factual level - The World demands iron and Brazil's expendable labor force and vast forests provide the charcoal needed to extract it from the ore. However, to tell the story in a meaningful way the film makers deliberately take us on a slow tour of the harsh reality of life in Brazil's charcoal producing regions.

We watch extremely hard working people bake in the tropical sunlight and smoky charcoal fires. They tell us about their lives while beautiful cinematography shows us their dreary yet visually poetic daily duties. One subject mentioned multiple times is the possibility that literacy and formal education might spare their children from their own fate.

The charcoal people aren't the only humans suffering on Earth right now. Nevertheless, after seeing this film you'll think more specifically about their plight. We all lose as they're forced to tear down more precious forest land to produce iron for the rest of us and feed themselves.

If propaganda is your thing you'll love this movie. Although I succumb to propaganda in really well done movies like I Am Cuba I wasn't sucked in much by Aerograd. Therefore, all I really liked about this pro "manifest destiny" piece for the Soviet Union were the beautiful landscape and airscape vignettes. Russia's Far East sure looks like a place worthy of conquest so I feel the movie is at least somewhat successful in that. If you're a historian you may also be interested to see how the interwar Soviet propaganda machine rails against Japan and other Asian countries in 1935.

Juliette grew up in England and was formally educated as a veterinarian. Unfortunately, she discovered that her training didn't teach her how to cure animals of many ailments she encountered. So, she rekindled her semitic and nomadic ancestry and travelled the mediterranean and later the world learning from others how to care for herself, her family and the animals of the world.

She wrote books about her herbal treatments (rosemary is her favorite) for ailments which western allopathic veterinary science didn't cure. The movie becomes an inspiring story about what you can do with your life but also propaganda for leading a vegetarian and simple existence. The thing that bothered me most was the narration which biased me against Juliette (because it was automatically preachy and aggrandizing) until she could speak for herself.

Well, if you are looking for an inspiring documentary you don't have to look further!

This film portrays a few interesting weeks in the life of a suburban New York slacker. Any five minutes taken out of context would lead one to believe the movie is full of mundane humor. However, this movie as a whole asks some deep questions and believably portrays members of the suburban working class. At the end of it you're left wondering how close you've come to the predicaments Buscemi's character invites. Or perhaps you empathize more with people you've know who are like him and others in the film.

The only other documentary I've seen that is comparable is Gates of Heaven. I love both and I hope more documentaries are available that go beyond the obvious and "documentable" as these do. The voice of god narration and the feeling that you the viewer are being patronized cheapens even most well composed documentaries for me.

I&I Rastafari!

After seeing the restored print I understand why Woody Allen cites this film when he talks about his insecurities. His Annie Hall is a great movie but the romantic relationship between men and women is but a small facet of this great Renoir film. Renoir's inventive use of the Great War to tell this great tale of humanity in the early 20th century is unsurpassed.