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2:42

me today is my co-host, Glenn Weldon.

2:44

Hi, Glenn. Hey, Linda. It's

2:46

always good to be here together in

2:48

Oscar season. So the

2:51

Oscars documentary category, I think,

2:53

has a reputation of

2:55

always being really heavy,

2:57

really sad, but that's actually not

3:00

always true. Summer of Soul won

3:02

in this category, 20 feet

3:04

from stardom won in this category, Free

3:06

Solo won. So there really

3:08

are often some more upbeat films that are nominated,

3:11

and that is all as sort of wind up

3:13

to say, this year, I'm not going to lie,

3:15

they are all pretty heavy, but

3:18

I found them all really

3:20

gripping to watch and not

3:22

kind of dutifully, but really for

3:25

what strong films they are. So

3:27

I want to jump right in.

3:29

First up is Bobby Wine, The

3:32

People's President. It's directed by Christopher

3:34

Sharp and Moses Boao, and it

3:36

tells the story of Bobby Wine,

3:39

a popular musician in Uganda who

3:41

was elected to a parliamentary seat

3:43

and ultimately ran against the longtime

3:45

president, tried to unite opposition groups

3:48

to dislodge him from power. This

3:51

is a film that is streaming on Disney

3:53

Plus and Hulu. We are really in the

3:55

era of these things kind of being available,

3:57

at least a lot of them the

4:00

Oscars happen. What did you think of this one? Well,

4:03

my notes here say heartbreaking, but

4:05

that doesn't say anything because that word

4:07

appears in my notes for always

4:09

films. This is the story of a

4:11

man who suffered so greatly for

4:13

coming as close as anyone has to

4:16

ending a really brutal decades long authoritarian

4:18

regime. It ends up

4:20

being a pretty chilling portrait of

4:22

how the tools of the state

4:24

can and in fact are used

4:27

to prevent change from happening. Some

4:30

would say chilling portrait, somebody else might say handy

4:32

how to guide. And for that reason, it

4:34

doesn't feel like it might've felt if you

4:36

watch this 10, 15 years ago, because this

4:39

is a National Geographic film. So it might

4:41

feel like cultural anthropology. Look at how those

4:43

systems, those institutions over there aren't

4:45

sufficient. No, there is a tremendous urgency

4:48

and immediacy and really depressing quality of

4:50

this film because these filmmakers

4:53

are on hand as things literally explode

4:55

as people get shot. So

4:57

you don't come away from this with a

4:59

view of the world that's particularly heartening and

5:01

also not for nothing. I

5:03

worry that this is going to be to this

5:05

year what Navalny was last year,

5:07

which is a portrait of a very brave activist

5:10

who should keep his head on a swivel. Yeah.

5:12

I appreciated very much the fact and maybe this

5:15

is my perspective as much as anything else.

5:17

But like you said, if

5:19

you are one of the many people around the world

5:21

who is worrying about the state of your own democracy

5:25

and what it potentially looks like when officially

5:27

you have one, but in practice you don't,

5:30

it looks like this. Not just

5:32

the fact that nobody has any confidence in the

5:35

voting and the ballot counting, but also the imprisoning

5:37

of activists

5:39

and the manipulation

5:41

of other parts of government by whoever

5:43

the leader happens to be. So,

5:46

you know, it is a very depressing film.

5:48

At the same time, I also

5:51

really enjoyed this portrait of him.

5:53

He's very charismatic, not surprising. He's

5:55

a musician. I like

5:58

the fact that this... is

6:00

a portrait of kind of accepting

6:02

very earnest protest music, which I

6:04

think is something that a lot

6:07

of people struggle with. If

6:09

you actually were to put out a song that was about,

6:11

you know, we are fighting for freedom as he does,

6:14

that people would find it kind of corny and

6:16

cheesy. And in this film, it's a

6:18

really effective piece of protest

6:20

music. Galvanizing, yeah. We are fighting

6:22

for freedom. What you

6:24

do, baby? I'm on my move. We

6:27

are fighting for freedom. And

6:30

I also really think this

6:32

is an example of how you show the

6:34

partner of a central

6:36

figure in a documentary and give

6:40

them kind of respect because his wife,

6:42

whose name is Barbie, so it's Bobby

6:44

and Barbie, she is

6:46

such an interesting person to me

6:48

because their relationship is obviously really

6:50

strong and very loving, but nobody

6:52

shies away from the fact that she has

6:55

a big part to play in this. And

6:57

it wasn't necessarily something she chose in the same

6:59

way that he did. I was a big fan

7:01

of this one. And when I think about this

7:03

movie, I find myself thinking like, oh, yeah, you

7:05

know, maybe this is the one that ought to

7:07

win. So that's where I come down. I felt that

7:09

way about each one of them in turn. I was just going

7:12

to say that's kind of going to be my bit here. I think

7:14

when I get to the end of all these, it's going to be,

7:16

yeah, this is the one that I think ought to win. So

7:19

that's Bobby Wine, the People's President,

7:21

which is streaming on Disney Plus

7:23

and Hulu. Next up

7:25

is The Eternal Memory, which

7:27

is the story of Chilean

7:29

journalist Augusto Góngora and

7:31

his wife, Paulie, and their relationship

7:33

in the years after he was

7:36

diagnosed with Alzheimer's. There

7:38

aren't interviews in this movie. It's

7:40

just footage of them that

7:42

the director, Maita Alberti, collected

7:45

over this period of years. And Alberti,

7:47

by the way, directed the Mole Agent,

7:49

which was nominated in this category a

7:51

few years ago. The Eternal Memory

7:53

is streaming on Paramount Plus. Well,

7:58

Glenn. A tough

8:00

watch, yes? A tough watch, yeah. I mean,

8:02

we talked about this. Both of us have

8:04

experience with this disease in our

8:06

families, and so I've had one

8:09

experience to hollow me out for enough for a

8:11

lifetime, so, you know, I wasn't looking for another.

8:13

And also, you know, for me anyway, there have

8:15

been plenty of Oscar docs and shorts, the traffic,

8:17

and a kind of cheery uplift imposing this,

8:19

you know, you take a messy human life and

8:22

you try to impose a narrative on it, and you try

8:24

to give it an ending that people can walk

8:26

out of the theater feeling good about. That always rubs me the

8:28

wrong way. So for many reasons, this was the last one I

8:30

watched because I just wasn't ready for it. It was the one

8:32

that I found most charming,

8:35

heartbreaking, yeah, but also heartwarming. This

8:37

couple is so charismatic and warm.

8:39

This, the love between them is

8:41

palpable. There's a tenderness there. There

8:43

is an emotional availability

8:46

of that. It wasn't part of

8:48

my experience with this disease. I mean, and

8:51

that affected how I watched it because about halfway in,

8:53

I was like, people with this disease have good and

8:55

bad days, and all we're seeing are the good days.

8:57

That's not true to the experience. And then about halfway

8:59

through the bad days start happening. And

9:02

they were very familiar just to

9:04

see her, how determined she

9:07

is, how, you know, I don't want

9:09

to call it cheerfulness or positivity, because that really

9:11

diminishes it. This is something bigger. This is like

9:13

a selflessness that is so,

9:15

I don't know, it borders on the divine.

9:17

It is just, you wonder how

9:20

she can keep going. And

9:23

then the film captures these moments that I

9:25

know very well of just lucidity and connection. And

9:27

there's this one moment where he fangs her

9:29

and it's like, Oh, well, there,

9:31

that's another, he just bought himself another

9:33

what month? Yeah. Like there,

9:35

that's how you keep going. And in fact,

9:37

there's one moment where he is in one

9:39

of those better days or moments where he's

9:42

more lucid. And she's telling

9:44

him how difficult it's been.

9:46

And she's telling him, you haven't remembered

9:48

me all day. You

9:50

haven't remembered me. You haven't recognized me.

9:52

And she's crying. And

9:54

he's comforting her just like any

9:57

spouse of any person would. comfort

10:00

them in a difficult moment. And

10:03

I also saved it for last year. My

10:05

experience is not specifically with Alzheimer's. It's

10:07

more with dementia and changes over

10:09

time. But I

10:12

think if you've ever been through that, like you said, it's

10:14

just there are these moments where you're like, I

10:17

agree with you, her ability to find

10:19

ways through it, particularly in those early scenes

10:21

where he, you know, he's having more, more

10:23

of the good days. But she

10:25

will tell him like, what would you like to

10:27

hear about? And he'll say something about us. And

10:29

she'll tell him a story that

10:31

he doesn't remember. Yeah. And

10:33

he reacts with delight to these stories

10:36

of his life that he doesn't remember.

10:38

I also saved this one for last.

10:40

It's not easy. But it's

10:42

not a wallow. Yeah. And it's realistic. Because

10:44

like you said, this is not one

10:46

you can set up for the will there suddenly be

10:48

an improvement in his condition

10:50

or something like that? Because again, like you

10:52

don't impose a narrative here. There's only one narrative.

10:55

This story can only end one way as the

10:57

disease progresses. Let me ask you

10:59

something. There is an attempt on the filmmakers

11:01

part to widen out and find echoes

11:04

of this experience in what I guess

11:06

you'd call the Chilean national identity, you

11:08

know, this refusal to acknowledge the fact

11:10

that over 1000 people disappeared during

11:12

the Pinochet regime. And I see exactly why they

11:14

tried to do that. He was a journalist who

11:16

covered that regime. But

11:18

I don't I thought those moments in the film

11:20

were not clumsy, exactly, because nothing about this

11:23

film is clumsy, but inessential, like an add

11:25

on because this film has a startling intimacy.

11:27

And every time we started to widen away

11:29

from that, I felt like the filmmakers were

11:31

not understanding how precious this thing they were

11:33

focused on was. I agree with you that

11:35

it was not the most engaging part of the film

11:37

for me, which is always when you're with the two

11:40

of them together. But I do

11:42

think that they are also trying to tell

11:44

you a broader story of his vibrancy

11:47

and his accomplishments. And

11:49

what this film is at

11:51

its best when it is the two of them

11:54

talking to each other. And for those of you who are listening,

11:56

you know, Glenn and I aren't always going to Come

11:58

together and tell you that something isn't A. There anything we

12:00

get a full less. Flurries but term but

12:02

it is. He really is. so

12:04

that the eternal memory and it's

12:07

streaming on Paramount. Plus Next up,

12:09

we have four daughters. It's streaming

12:11

now on Netflix and miss. It

12:13

is probably the most formally experimental

12:15

of these films. The Director of

12:17

Health or Ban Honey at tells

12:19

the story of Offer, a Tunisian

12:22

woman who tells us early on

12:24

that she had four daughters but

12:26

two of them are gone To

12:28

them are still with her. but

12:30

the device. that the director use

12:32

as as as she films reenactments

12:35

of important moments in their story,

12:37

using to actresses to play the

12:39

missing older. Daughter's law the two younger daughter

12:42

to play. Themselves There's also an actress

12:44

who plays all fi in some

12:46

scenes although sometimes awful place herself.

12:48

So the real documentary subjects hobbies,

12:50

very interesting interactions with the women

12:52

who are playing them as you

12:55

watch what kind of a it

12:57

starts to sound so matter and

12:59

it's not as weird as it

13:01

sounds. But a is almost a

13:03

making of documentary about making these

13:05

reenactments and I promise you if

13:07

you sit down and watch it,

13:10

it's less awkward. Didn't send I'm

13:12

making. A sound. The agree. Sir. Absolutely. And

13:14

but it is reenactment, right? And if I

13:16

I grew up at a time when reenactment

13:18

meant unsolved mystery method midseason. As and so

13:20

I went in with my arms crossed. buds

13:23

few. you nailed it. The way it handled

13:25

when the subjects interact with the actress who

13:27

are portraying them or between the siblings, giving

13:29

them pointers, commenting on how a laker a

13:32

muddle like they are from the Per Prisoner

13:34

Pretend that it's fascinating armed affects. The two

13:36

young daughters, as you mentioned, are playing themselves.

13:38

So of course it didn't occur to me

13:40

until I saw it. but many scenes will

13:43

be com. You know if you react to

13:45

be seemed is going to become be trying to

13:47

reenact but the take place in therapy and the

13:49

diplomats I have read some reviews that try to

13:51

make the case of this never really answers the

13:54

question of why the two older daughters became radicalized

13:56

or as if it ever could write as if

13:58

like there's one explanation that on why the everything.

14:01

What? I think his movie is really about

14:03

is not the why of radicalization, but the

14:05

sheer heavy fact of it, What it does

14:07

to families, friends, and then the performance aspect

14:10

as still another layer like one ofer he's

14:12

describing and then subsequently reenacting. You know how

14:14

an exchange between her and her husband went

14:17

well with just heard here? Now her husband's

14:19

on around. So how the hell do we

14:21

know that she's telling us the truth? And

14:23

does it matter if she's telling us the

14:26

truth or what really matters is that it's

14:28

important to her to assert that that's how

14:30

it went. Down, it is so messy I

14:32

like to come steers into that messing us

14:34

as if trying to pretend it doesn't exist.

14:37

That's how you use reenactment, I think. Yeah,

14:39

I think it's such an interesting way to

14:41

tell the story ends. One of the things

14:43

that I really like about it also is

14:45

that many begin the so me kind of

14:47

feel like maybe. You're going to see

14:49

a story as noble author and

14:51

the terrible losses that she suffered.

14:53

Because to the forgot our has sort of banished

14:55

from her life. You. Don't

14:57

get that. I. It is nothing here.

14:59

Also describe things about her own parenting.

15:02

And her experiences with her daughters and you

15:04

started L. A Now wait a

15:06

minute. You know nobody is blaming her

15:08

for the ultimate fate of the family,

15:11

but at the same time. It's

15:13

like wait a minute. You. Know her

15:15

own behavior, Towards. Her

15:18

daughter's sometimes seems very

15:20

regrettable. Bordering. On

15:22

abuses and her two daughters

15:24

who are. Are in the film.

15:27

Feel very sorry to tell the

15:29

truth about their experiences with their

15:31

mom which are not always entirely

15:33

Pause it is so you're not

15:36

getting a story of. Purely.

15:38

Alpha As a person suffering, you're

15:41

also seeing the complexity of her

15:43

story and the complexity of her

15:45

least or relationship with the daughter's

15:47

But there are these moments where.

15:50

You. See. The. Two

15:52

daughters and the to actresses

15:54

and all far and you

15:57

realize how heavy that feeling

15:59

all of them for their

16:01

to be again. This.

16:03

Woman and the four daughters. In

16:06

L R, I just think this is

16:08

completely fascinating flagrant. All right. So that

16:10

is four daughters and it's streaming on

16:12

Netflix. Up next to Kill a Tiger

16:14

To Kill A Tiger is about sexual

16:17

assault, so be aware of that. It

16:19

was directed by Nice Up a Hoosier

16:21

and it follows a farmer named Run

16:23

Eat who lives in a village in

16:25

India and is trying to get justice

16:28

for his daughter who was sexually assaulted

16:30

by three men when she was thirteen.

16:33

He comes under a tremendous amount of

16:35

pressure from community leaders from his neighbors

16:37

to compromise as they put it and

16:39

not insist on pursuing a case of

16:41

the police. But he also has a

16:43

group of activists and attorneys who are

16:45

supporting him working with him to see

16:47

that the perpetrators are punished. It is

16:49

worth noting I think that there has

16:51

been some pushback about this film for

16:54

a few reasons. The film maker is

16:56

based in Canada, which means it's a

16:58

sort. Of outsider perspective on this very

17:00

small. Community in India and also you

17:02

do see runs his daughter who

17:04

was a minor when the interviews with

17:06

her or filmed and when these

17:08

events were happening. She is over eighteen

17:11

now She made the decision after. She

17:13

turned eighteen to go ahead with appearing.

17:15

In the cell. But I think those are

17:17

all concerns that are good to keep in

17:20

mind of a killer tiger. Is streaming starting

17:22

tomorrow on Netflix. Glenn What you think of

17:24

this one? I'm well, I understand the

17:26

cameo. It's It's not as if the

17:28

film is trying to pretend like it

17:30

is an insider's perspective frame. We see

17:32

the camera go into the village. We

17:34

see how everyone in the village regards

17:36

the camera warily. We see that they've

17:39

got their guard up. We see that

17:41

in the beginning they say the things

17:43

to the camera that they think the

17:45

camera wants to hear. But the thing

17:47

is you spend enough time with people

17:49

and they will start to say the

17:51

things that they feel. They will demonstrate

17:53

the thesis of the film, which is.

17:55

that there are systems in place here

17:57

that keep things like this happening and

17:59

these systems are not imposed from above.

18:01

They are systems that everyone buys into.

18:04

And I admire the way that when the

18:06

making of the documentary begins to

18:08

affect the events it's seeking to capture, when

18:11

the villagers start to perceive how they're gonna

18:13

keep trading, they're not idiots. They're gonna, they

18:15

understand what this eye

18:17

on their village is going

18:19

to bring about if it gets out in

18:21

the world. They challenge the documentarians. And

18:24

in many documentaries, it might end there, but

18:26

because the hostility of the filmmakers have

18:28

stirred up is going to affect the case because

18:30

it means it can be harder for witness to

18:32

step forward, the filmmakers

18:34

go further and we see them telling

18:37

the activists and the legal team that

18:39

this happened in the village and

18:42

they make it part of the story, right?

18:44

And the legal team says, you just made

18:46

our jobs much, much harder. And that's part

18:48

of the documentary. It strikes me as the

18:51

most ethical transparent way to

18:53

make a very complicated film. Right, I agree with

18:56

that. And I think there are

18:58

questions here about that kind of outsider

19:01

or exoticized kind of lens on a

19:03

story like this that I would not

19:05

presume to

19:08

pass judgment on. But I do think

19:10

that for what it is, as we

19:12

said about Bobby Wine, I think, this

19:14

doesn't make me think like, oh,

19:17

look at this. Thank goodness this

19:19

could never happen anywhere that I

19:21

live. Because if you've ever heard

19:23

how people will speak to survivors

19:25

of sexual violence about what

19:28

you're gonna do to the reputation

19:30

and life of the person who

19:32

committed the offense, you

19:34

know that this happens in many places. And that

19:36

there are just as many people who worry about

19:38

the reputation of a town or a school

19:40

or a college as there

19:43

are who worry about the reputation of

19:45

a village or any other

19:47

kind of community. You

19:49

never can control how people receive something.

19:51

So there is always a danger of

19:53

it being received as kind of, well,

19:56

look at this. Look how unfortunately,

19:58

you know, behind. The times

20:00

this community is, I didn't feel

20:02

that way about it. I felt like you could see a

20:05

lot of familiar elements from sexual

20:08

assault cases that I have followed much closer

20:10

to home. It is a gripping

20:13

story. And that's to

20:15

Kill a Tiger and it's coming to

20:18

Netflix starting tomorrow. The final

20:21

film on our list is 20 Days

20:23

in Marjubal. It's assembled

20:25

from footage that was shot

20:27

by a team of AP

20:29

journalists led by Mstislav Chernov

20:31

during the Russian invasion of

20:33

Ukraine. It's a joint project

20:35

of the AP and front line, good old

20:37

front line. And

20:40

the focus is really on hospitals and attempts

20:42

to treat the injured. So you see a

20:44

lot of footage of ambulances and doctors and

20:47

also just ordinary people trying to

20:49

survive this horrible situation. There

20:52

were not a lot of journalists, particularly international

20:54

journalists who were able to remain

20:56

in operation in Marjubal as all

20:59

this was going on. So this is footage that was

21:02

widely used by news organizations.

21:05

Seeing it in this form makes for a really

21:08

harrowing hour and a half or so.

21:10

What did you think? Yeah, I mean, this is, I

21:12

mean, let's not sugarcoat it. This is hell on earth.

21:15

This is a grim and unrelenting film that,

21:18

like you mentioned with To Kill a Tiger,

21:20

in the beginning, before

21:23

the invasion really starts happening, there's this

21:25

shot of an empty street at night

21:27

with the traffic lights sort of flashing

21:30

orange. And you're thinking, oh, this

21:32

is a haunting image. And then things get much,

21:35

much worse. And the narration, I

21:38

think importantly, does not pretend towards

21:40

some kind of disingenuous

21:43

J school notion of objectivity. It

21:46

is coming out and it's reminding you, okay, these bodies

21:48

that you're seeing right now that we're throwing in this

21:50

mass grave. These are the kids that

21:52

we filmed playing soccer three days ago.

21:56

The citizens make direct appeals to the camera.

21:59

It shows you that you can... the

22:01

document in event I'm not cut off

22:03

a human. Experience and you

22:05

can document and yvette with empathy and

22:07

with horror and with fear and with

22:09

helplessness and with anger. Moments that lights

22:11

in any other context in the world

22:13

would provide you a glimpse of hope.

22:15

Like the birth of a child. We

22:17

see the birth of a child here

22:19

and all you're watching that you just

22:21

filled with dread cause what's gonna happen

22:23

to that kid and also the kind

22:25

of a stealth subject of this film

22:27

is how all this kids packaged right.

22:29

We see the raw chaos. Then we

22:31

get a video package on scene and

22:33

a two minute video. Package on Cnn and

22:35

then we also see of course with russian media

22:37

does with it which is accusing everybody of being

22:39

actors. And with all that.

22:42

It. Feels so glib and vacuous to talk

22:44

about it's chances to win an Oscar right?

22:46

Biceps? It's what it's gonna get. an oscar

22:48

know? Yeah, I think it's going to win

22:51

in a walk. And I'm glad for

22:53

that because I think more people will see it in

22:55

and this needs to be seeing. Yeah, I

22:57

agree with you and I think

22:59

what you put your finger on

23:01

about those sequences were you'll see.

23:04

Generally. A long sequence following

23:06

a particular patient, for example. and

23:08

then you will see the news

23:10

package that keeps a little tiny

23:13

snippet of that's and uses it

23:15

as no part of explaining the

23:17

story. and there's nothing inherently wrong

23:19

with that. I don't think that's

23:22

kind of what their job as,

23:24

but you do realize how much

23:26

is because you accept that clip

23:29

of that Cnn. Package or whenever

23:31

the Bbc or however this. And you

23:33

just think oh but the for this

23:35

there with that whole like this you

23:37

know what the family with like when

23:39

the person coming in and what happened

23:41

on the person was brought in and

23:43

what happened to the workers who brought

23:45

the person and and i think having

23:47

that context and also having that kind

23:49

of his background of. Like. odd

23:51

moments of normal see that it's

23:53

not normalcy but it's like there's

23:55

a sort of everybody trying to

23:57

get their phones to charge at

23:59

one point of as think that

24:01

broader context that isn't exclusively focused

24:03

on the most horrible moment

24:06

in any sequence, that

24:08

like background, I think is

24:10

really helpful in understanding

24:13

this on a more, when

24:16

I say on a more human level,

24:18

it sounds terrible, but that's kind of

24:20

what I mean. And I will also

24:22

say, as with Olfa in Four Daughters,

24:24

I really appreciated the fact that the

24:27

story of this is not exclusively, everybody

24:29

in this city was heroic as this

24:31

was happening. You know, emergency situations

24:33

tend to bring out the person

24:36

that you already are. So

24:38

if you're generous, you become more generous.

24:40

If you're dishonest, you become more dishonest.

24:43

It's really powerful. And again, I think

24:45

the editing and the choices

24:47

that they make in terms of the filmmaking,

24:49

first of all, I can't imagine how they

24:51

took the amount of footage they must have

24:54

had, which was really

24:56

rare and in demand footage and

24:59

got it down to an hour and a

25:01

half. I just think that's kind of shocking

25:03

and quite an accomplishment. So again, that is

25:05

20 days in Marjubal, which is streaming on

25:08

PBS. And you can also find it on

25:10

the frontline YouTube channel. I suspect

25:12

this one's gonna win. I feel like this

25:14

one's gonna win. Yeah, but me too.

25:16

There is not a single film on

25:18

this list, where if it wins, I'm

25:21

gonna go, Okay, no matter

25:23

what it is, I can't wait to

25:25

see the winning

25:28

like team talk about it. They are tough

25:30

to watch. But please

25:32

believe us when we say they are well

25:34

worth watching anyway, man, I'm glad I saw each and every

25:36

one of these films. Yeah, absolutely. We

25:39

want to know what you think about

25:41

this year's Oscar nominees for documentary feature

25:43

film, find us at facebook.com/pch. That brings

25:45

us to the end of our show.

25:48

Glenn, thank you so much for going

25:51

for the docs this year and

25:53

for being here. Thank you. This

25:55

episode is produced by Liz Messker and

25:57

edited by Mike Cassis, our supervising producer.

26:00

is Jessica Reedy, and Hello Come In

26:02

provides R&B music. Thanks for listening to

26:04

Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm

26:07

Linda Holmes, and we'll see you all tomorrow.

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