When I recommend a documentary, a lot of folks turn a deaf
ear or say that they’re not into that sort of thing. I guess they assume all
non-fiction movies are going to be like the History Channel, or National Geographic or something they were forced to watch in school. I have nothing
against documentary channels, and I find some of their offerings pretty
interesting if I’m in the mood, but I get that their bread and butter fare can
be formulaic, even dull a lot of the time.
Not so with these two recent feature films. They are not at all alike,
but both are well worth seeking out.
Searching For Sugar Man (2012): Unbelievable,
Goose-Bump Inducing and True
The first adjectives you will likely utter after
experiencing this picture will be either “unbelievable” or “amazing”. It’s the
story of a talented American singer-songwriter of the late sixties/early
seventies called Rodriguez, who became a legendary, even mythic, superstar in South Africa, while languishing
in obscurity here in the USA, and pretty much everywhere else. In S.A, his music and lyrics struck a chord
with thousands of youth constrained by a rigid social system and repressive
government. His first album, Cold Fact, became an underground anthem for these
young people. People passed around
bootleg tapes of his songs, and knew every word. Rodriguez was bigger than the
Rolling Stones.
Rodriguez himself was completely unaware of his huge
popularity in an obscure country half-way around the world. After putting out a
couple of albums, he packed up his music career and more or less disappeared.
Rodriguez never saw any royalties. He never got any fan mail. Perhaps this was
because, at that time, South Africa was a pariah country cut off from much of
the western world, due to its apartheid racial policies. Or perhaps it was
because of the rumors about Rodriguez that swirled within the pop-music
subculture over there that Rodriguez was dead, had self-immolated during a
show, or some such.
As the title suggests, the film takes the form of a mystery quest. About twenty years after Rodriguez’ early
retirement from the music business, a few prominent fans in Johannesburg became
interested in finding out what really happened to their hero. Was he alive or
dead? How come no one in the US had ever heard of him? At first the search went
nowhere. The record company had ceased to exist. There was virtually no
published information about Rodriguez. The seekers did not even know where he
came from. Eventually, however his story was pieced together, and they did
find him. And this leads to the payoff moment of this movie.
Searching For Sugar Man just won an Academy Award as
the best documentary feature of 2012. Personally,
I was not particularly impressed with how Swedish writer director Malik
Bedjelloul, structured or edited the movie. (Many of my friends disagree with that criticism.) Nevertheless,
as this incredible story developed, it sucked me in. The soundtrack music,
made up of Rodriguez’ best songs, helped. The enthusiasm of the South African
protagonists in the search, interviewed by Bedjelloul, helped, too. Then, when an incredulous Rodriguez is
persuaded to come to S.A in 1998 to give a series of concerts, I was absolutely
blown away.
Imagine what this must feel like: you’re a guy who tried and failed to make a
career in music, then lived an ordinary life, working construction, raising a
family, etc., only to discover twenty-five years after the fact that there are
hundreds of thousands of fans who idolize you, who are clamoring to see you;
you are offered the opportunity to travel half way around the world to perform
for these fans, who fill a stadium for your first concert, and when your name
is announced, give you a rousing, ecstatic ten minute standing ovation just for
walking out on stage! Then, when you
finally start to sing, this
multitude knows all the words to your
songs and, tears streaming down their faces, sing along with you!
This concert, the culmination of Searching for Sugar Man, is
among the most moving things I have ever witnessed on film. I had tears streaming down
my face too. Search out this movie. Turn up the volume for the concert scenes.
Need
more convincing? Check out this video trailer.
Available On Amazon
Instant Video, Xfinity OnDemand and on DVD or Bluray from Netflix
The Waiting Room (2012): These Folks Deserve a Hand
The Waiting Room did not get a nod from the Academy Awards
(it should have), but it got its share of honors, including the Audience Award
and the Golden Gate Award from the SF Int’l Film Festival.
This passionate, compassionate documentary feature by
Director/Cinematographer, Co-Producer Peter Nicks, is beautifully constructed
and edited in a montage, cinema verité style; it’s engaging from the opening
credits, entertaining throughout, intelligent, eye-openingly informative, and
thought provoking. The Waiting Room vividly
presents a twenty-four hour window onto the operations of the E.R. unit in a
major metropolitan hospital (Oakland’s Highland Hospital), and particularly on
its waiting room, profiling the people who come there for service and the compassionate, professional staff providing it. I saw
this film nearly a year ago, and it is still with me.
There is no narrator, just scenes. There are no stars, just
personalities, all real people. Some of the people and scenes form stories
within the larger panorama. Some of these will linger in your mind long after: The
earnest young guy, accompanied by his young wife, facing possible cancer
surgery, forced from Kaiser to the public hospital; the genial, proud African–American
contractor, who can’t afford insurance, and whose illness threatens his ability
to support his family; the brave little girl with a dangerously high fever,
whose separated parents come together to help her cope with the scary hospital,
and struggle to hold back their own tears; the chronic substance abuser whose
‘lifestyle’ has made him a regular visitor to the E.R., - this time arriving in
a coma - but who has no home to be released to; and on and on. Then there’s the
magnificent, humane, hard-working medical staff struggling to cope with too
many patients, not enough space, not enough money, and an uninsured population on
the verge of overwhelming the entire system. 
The Waiting Room is not preachy or didactic, but in it’s
quiet way it does deliver a point of view. We have to find a better way to deliver essential care to
the multitude of uninsured people in our society. These people are not
“others”, they are us. One of the triumphs of The Waiting Room is
the unobtrusive way it conveys this simple truth. Another is
this: you will leave this movie with a new and profound respect for the medical
doctors, nurses, and staff who go to work everyday in what is often an
impossibly difficult environment, and devote themselves to healing, to helping,
to making the best of this often grim situation, and who treat the unfortunates
who come through their doors with dignity, kindness and respect. Everyday presents hard choices, and somehow
they cope.
As a society, we have some hard choices to make, too, about health
care access Seeing this heartwarming and sobering movie may help.
Here’s a preview.
The Waiting Room is available streaming from Vudu, GooglePlay and YouTube (pay per view - $3.99); also on DVD from Netflix.
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