PRESIDENT (B) - This is a solid tick-tock of the 2018 presidential election in Zimbabwe, in which a young opposition candidate takes on the establishment in the first election without Robert Mugabe around in four decades. The main problem is that, despite being compelling at times, it doesn't quite warrant a full two hours.
Despite overstaying its "Frontline"-style welcome, the film gets a jolt every time the upstart politician Nelson Chamisa reappears, exuding Obama energy and connecting with crowds of people yearning to break free from the oppression of the previous generations. Camilla Nielsson, who last studied Zimbabwe in the transition from Mugabe in 2014's "Democrats," obtains incredible access into Chamisa's campaign.
Hope builds, but doom hangs in the air, especially once the electoral commission starts counting the votes but refuses to declare a winner as hours drag into days. Is the fix in? If you don't know, let this documentary play out like more of a thriller. Patience will pay off.
LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF (2003/2014) (B) - With a flair as moody and smoldering as any film noir, Thom Anderson uses vintage movie clips of Los Angeles to explore grander themes -- or perhaps to just air a series of grievances. Here is a succinct recap from IMDb:
Of the cities in the world, few are depicted in and mythologized more in film and television than the city of Los Angeles. In this documentary, Thom Andersen examines in detail the ways the city has been depicted, both when it is meant to be anonymous and when itself is the focus. Along the way, he illustrates his concerns of how the real city and its people are misrepresented and distorted through the prism of popular film culture. Furthermore, he also chronicles the real stories of the city's modern history behind the notorious accounts of the great conspiracies that ravaged his city that reveal a more open and yet darker past than the casual viewer would suspect.
Anderson scripted the thoughtful, meandering essay that accompanies the barrage of clips from movies spanning from the silent era to the turn of the millennium. And he hired the obscure Encke King to narrate in a flat monotone (though not as robotic as Joe Friday in "Dragnet," which is featured extensively here).
Be warned that this is nearly three hours long. You might consume it in two or three sittings, like a miniseries. (It naturally splits in two parts halfway through.) In addition to just having fun showing us famous locations and buildings (most notably the cavernous Bradbury Building (below), which starred in "D.O.A." and "Blade Runner," among many others), Anderson delves deeply into the history of the city in order to highlight the mercantilism and politics that favored the rich and held down the poor. (He returns several times to 1961's "The Exiles," as the epitome of a cinema verite that chronicles underclass immigrants.) There is a vague thematic connection to the reveries of "Dawson City: Frozen in Time."
Anderson's knowledge of Los Angeles is encyclopedic. He digs up newspaper clips of key inflection points in the city's history, including a deep dive into a failed attempt decades ago to bring public transportation to the city core. A main point is that Hollywood distorts our perception of Los Angeles, and the two should not be confused. Anderson is hyper-sensitive to references to the real Los Angeles -- or at least his perceived version of it -- to the point of railing at those who commi the sacrilege of abbreviating it as L.A.
There are enough radiant shots of obscure movies -- I never knew James Garner played Phillip Marlowe in 1969 -- to maintain the interest of those who just want to pass the time viewing cool clips of L.A. from back in the day.
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