Doc Watch

FIVE BROKEN CAMERAS (B+) - West Bank resident Emad Burnat spent the second half of the past decade filming the resistance to Israel's building of settlements on Palestinian lands, capturing the brutality and futility along with the humanity of the people of Bil'in.

Beginning with the infancy of his fourth son, Gibreel, in 2005, Burnat transforms himself from farmer to journalist, persistent in his documentation of the peaceful demonstrations at a key barrier, where locals meet up with heavily armed soldiers. He burns through five cameras, as advertised, most knocked out by bullets and tear-gas canisters.

Burnat narrates in a matter-of-fact monotone, creating a plain, simple film that finds the joys and horrors of life under a militarized invasion of one's homeland. He turns his focus on two of his friends and the most colorful and charismatic of the protesters, Adeeb and Phil (that latter labeled "El-Phil," which means "elephant"), introducing them in such a way that you fear that one or both won't survive to the end.

Burnat's other major theme is his sons, particularly little Gibreel, who grows up before our eyes. He goes from cradle to the front lines before his fifth birthday. Burnat's various cameras peer straight into Gibreel's big brown eyes, trying to calculate the toll the regular violence has taken on the boy. (In one scene, the boy sits calmly as he watches men slaughter a sheep.) Those eyes don't reveal much. At one point the boy asks his father why he doesn't just use a knife to kill the soldiers. "Because they have guns," Burnat glumly answers.

Burnat himself is injured at one point and spends a month in a Tel Aviv hospital (if he'd gone to a Palestinian hospital, he reckons, he would have died). Toward the end, when he insists on continuing his filming under the threat of arrest, his long-suffering wife gives him an earful about taking care of his family.

The footage at times seems repetitive, but that seems to be the point. (To quote Ann Magnuson, it's remarkably unremarkable.) The camera doesn't blink, and the oppression of a people by a faceless government through its thugs is documented in very human terms, in the struggles, year after year, and in the fraternity of a people. The protests continue weekly, with various strategic moves that eventually budge the Israeli government. It's hard to tell whether that's a small victory or a huge one. 

It's just another day on the West Bank. 

AFTERNOON OF A FAUN: TANAQUIL LE CLERCQ (C) - A bland disappointment. In the 1950s, the tall, leggy Tanaquil Le Clercq was the new face of ballet, the muse of the legendary George Balanchine. Sadly, she was felled by polio, harshly ending her career.

Writer/director Nancy Buirski (2011's "The Loving Story") is hampered by stale archival footage and drab source material. What might have made a Lifetime dramatic blockbuster sits lifeless as a documentary. Actors give voice to Le Clercq and others, such as choreographer Jerome Robbins, mostly reading from long tedious letters from a day when people wrote earnest missives.

"Tanny," unfortunately, just isn't that interesting of a subject, despite the personal horror she suffered. She managed to live to a ripe old age. Was she a tortured soul? Did she live a fulfilling life? Buirski gives it a workmanlike effort here, but she's either not up to the task, or no one could make an interesting documentary about the ballerina who was robbed of the chance to be one of the all-time greats of the stage.

Maybe Hollywood could do better. Is Greta Gerwig free?

"Afternoon of a Faun" is streaming at PBS.org.

BONUS TRACK
Magnuson's duo Bongwater with "Nick Cave Dolls":