July 2024 documentary review 10-pack: 'Hummingbirds,' 'I Am: Celine Dion,' DVF, 'I’m Just Here For the Riot' and more
Reviewing ten new documentaries this month, including looks at the WNBA, a fashion icon, a rock climber, and democracy in Alaska.
Happy 4th, and welcome to my monthly roundup of capsule reviews of documentary films that have arrived in recent weeks. This month: A lyric doc about a pair of young people along the border and multiple new films about athletes, celebrities, and more.
Here we go:
Hummingbirds
Immigration policy is often discussed, especially during election season, but human stories are often ignored. That’s not the case with Hummingbirds, a beautiful documentary that played festivals last year and aired last week as part of PBS’ POV series (you can watch it on the PBS app).
The film's subjects are Estefanía ’Beba’ Contreras and Silvia Del Carmen Castaños, and both live in the border town of Laredo, Tex., with precarious immigration statuses. It may touch on immigration, abortion, and gender identity, but Hummingbirds isn’t a social issue documentary; it’s more a character study- and the twist is that the two subjects are also the filmmakers after the producers discovered a short that one of them made.
What follows is a slice-of-life documentary filled with beautiful shot compositions and a humanizing look at a subject — “the border” — too often discussed in sneers and slurs.
I Am: Celine Dion
Each month’s streaming release schedule is full of music documentaries, usually produced by the subject’s own operation. These documentaries do little but extoll the subject while summarizing their Wikipedia entry.
That’s not the case here, with Irene Taylor’s look at the famed Canadian diva, especially her recent battle with the rare disease, Stiff Person Syndome. There’s some archival footage about her rise and most famous moments. Not many music docs leave in a scene where the subject suffers a seizure, but this one does.
Overall, it’s an extraordinary look at the veteran diva, her career, and her struggles. You can stream it now on Prime Video.
The Power of the Dream
“The Power of the Dream” is the name of a song by Celine Dion, and it’s also the name of a new documentary about the WNBA, and specifically the activism engaged in by the league’s players during the COVID period and shortly after the killing of George Floyd.
The doc was directed by veteran documentarian Dawn Porter, and it arrives amid the rise of Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, the discovery by many non-skeptics that the WNBA is way more interesting than they knew, and a large coterie of top male sportswriters who have acted like absolute buffoons about it.
Porter’s documentary finds fascinating interview subjects like Layshia Clarendon and journalist Holly Rowe. Overall, it makes a fine corollary to the pretend version of the WNBA that many sports media voices have created in their heads.
Federer: Twelve Final Days
In recent years, tennis has lent itself well to great sports documentaries. At least two have already been made about John McEnroe alone.
The latest is about the recently retired great Roger Federer. The filmmakers, Asif Kapadia and Joe Sabia had close access to the final twelve days of Federer’s career, between his retirement announcement and his participation in the 2022 Laver Cup, a tournament that Federer himself had a hand in creating.
This is probably going to mean a lot to anyone who watched and followed Federer’s entire career, but nothing jumped off the screen for me. This one, as well, is streaming on Prime Video.
Diane von Fürstenberg: Woman in Charge
I’m far from an expert or connoisseur regarding women’s fashion. Still, I was intrigued by this documentary, directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Trish Dalton, about the life and career of the woman known as “DVF.” The doc is now streaming on Hulu.
The daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Diane von Fürstenberg, created the wrap dress. She was part of the New York celebrity scene in the 1970s and resurfaced in the ‘90s when her style returned to fashion.
She also had something of a colorful, romantic life, dating a variety of famous people. Her first husband, the German princeling Prince Egon von Furstenberg, was somewhat openly bisexual, and the film is impressively cagey and euphemistic about the exact circumstances of her current marriage to longtime mogul Barry Diller.
I’m Just Here For the Riot
This recent ESPN 30 For 30 entry looks back at the 2011 Vancouver Stanley Cup riot. It gets the story wrong from both directions- it treats the riot like January 6, when it wasn’t that, and also allows riot participants to portray themselves as misunderstood victims.
It doesn’t touch a couple of the more interesting aspects of the story. Most of the people involved were white or Asian, and there’s a clear double standard between this and other situations in which Black people are at the center of social unrest.
Also, where is the Kissing Couple? It’s the thing I remember most about that episode. Why are they not even mentioned?
Crisis on Campus
To some people, the series of protests and encampments, related to the war in Gaza on American college campuses in the spring of 2024 was the biggest story ever. Now, it’s the subject of an episode of PBS’s “Frontline” series, Crisis on Campus, which can be viewed on PBS’ website and app.
Directed by James Jacoby, the documentary is relatively balanced and nuanced. But at 57 minutes, it’s way too short for such a weighty subject. And it was likely produced way too quickly to provide a clear grasp of the situation.
And besides- I imagine most people who are strident about Israel/Palestine, on one side or the other, will find things to quibble with, if not accuse the filmmakers of biased and hateful motives.
Majority Rules
This documentary about politics does two things, one very well and the other very badly, in telling the story of how Alaska got rid of party primaries and adopted ranked-choice voting for some political races. Directed by AJ Schnack, the film starts with some earnest pablum about the evils of the two-party system, including some Schoolhouse Rock-level political analysis.
Later, however, it became much more interesting when it focused on Alaska's unique and highly colorful political culture. Remember that folksy dolt Sarah Palin? The film is about her comeback when she ran for Congress against a group of characters, one of whom, Democrat Mary Peltola, got elected (we see plenty of Peltola’s husband Eugene, known as “Buzzy,” who has since tragically died in a plane crash.)
We’re also introduced to the state’s late longtime Congressman Don Young, who also perished in a plane crash, which is unquestionably the leading cause of death of Alaskan political figures. However, only one of them, Ted Stevens, got the airport named after him. Majority Rules has a slow theatrical rollout throughout the coming weeks.
Satisfied
This documentary debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival this spring. It takes an intimate look at the actress Renee Elise Goldsberry through her home movies from the period when she was auditioning for and starring in Hamilton.
Directed by Chris Bolan and Melissa Haizlip, it finds a compelling subject in the actress, who originated the role of Angelica Schuyler, performed the documentary’s title track, and has since become even more of a Broadway stalwart. At the same time, she details her pregnancies and miscarriages, some of which took place while she was starring in the Broadway hit.
Satisfied does not appear to have yet secured distribution, so it probably won’t be available to the public for a while. Still, it’s an absolute must for fans of Goldsberry and Hamilton.
Here to Climb
As documentaries about top mountain climbers go, Here to Climb seems destined to be compared to Free Solo, the Oscar-winning doc about Alex Honnold.
Sasha DiGiulian, the subject of Here to Climb, uses harnesses for one thing. And it’s not that her compelling career arc, which started when she was a child, is lacking. The doc itself, which is now available to stream on Max, is relatively conventional.
The film is more impressive when DiGiulian is sharing her struggles, whether with injuries or past incidents of cyberbulling.