Rowan Sullivan, Author at FilmRoot

The Fabulous Ones – Outfest Los Angeles 2023

The Fabulous Ones is a warm home-made story featuring real friends reuniting to relive their memories from 30 years ago. The drama comes from a fictionalized will of one of their old friends, but the personal, real stories provide the substance for this docufiction.

From the tone of the film, it feels like most of this film is a documentary. The characters all get along too closely for it to feel fictionalized. However, the director uses different film types to blur the past and present, and also reality and fiction. Sepia-tinted film makes some shots feel old – as if shot 30 years ago in the character’s past – and these are edited alongside clearer shots to indicate the present. Some scenes also alternate between these two types of film to make it unclear what is fictionalized and true to reality, such as the seance and re-enactment of their ‘dead’ friend. The blurring of reality and fiction and past and present through the type of film also fictionalizes their pre-transition lives. Home footage and photos of the characters pre-transition, look like the scenes of the seance, making their pasts feel less real than the present.

Whilst their pre-transition lives are made to feel like the fictionalized parts of this documentary, The Fabulous Ones doesn’t shy away from sharing the characters’ real experiences as Trans-women. Throughout their reunion, the camera focuses on each character to hear their queer coming of age experience and how their individual families and the society around them reacted. These scenes draws you closer to the characters by sharing their more intimate experiences, and in doing so, holds the film back from going full happy-dream with the fictionalized elements of the film. These moments ground the film in the unfortunate reality that not everyone is able to be who they are without prejudice.

If you’re looking for a quirky docufiction that lightly explores some heavy personal experiences through a fictionalized will left by a ‘dead’ friend, this film is for you.

Pornomelancholia – Outfest Los Angeles 2023

Pornomelancholia is a slow paced character study of a up-and-coming porn star navigating the Mexican porn industry. It has plenty of dry humor and an underlying commentary on social media culture.

The film starts with a mid-range shot of Lalo standing alone by a busy street in the city. People walk past him and cars pass behind him as we watch him peer around. It seems like he’s waiting for someone or taking a breather in a chaotic day. However, before the shot lingers further, Lalo breaks down into a soft sob as the title credits pop up: Pornomelancholia. It’s a prelude for the critique of superficial influencer-culture that Lalo uses to make his way into the porn industry.

Lalo is portrayed as a lonely man parading as a popular sex icon. His Instagram videos hide the fact that he works in a small factory with two other people that he hardly talks to. His confidence in his sexuality online contradicts his inability to come out to his family – shown in the rehearsed voice messages he can’t bring himself to send to his mother. It follows films such as Sweat in showing that the digital lives promoted by influencers don’t always reflect reality.

Despite the underlying commentary, there is dry humor in Pornomelancholia. This is probably the only film that you can watch that is built around a Zapata led Mexican revolution porn film. It also probably runs on for too much of the film, but the pornographic shots, which linger for more than expected are designed to make you awkwardly uncomfortable (like Lalo himself). The sex scenes are provocative, but not as outrightly as another Mexican festival film – Battle in Heaven.

Overall, if you’re looking for a slow-paced festival film that follows a gay man working his way into the porn industry, Pornomelancholia is worth a watch. Whilst the culture fostered by the industry and Lalo is portrayed as fake, his journey feels unique, real and believable.

Nauru: The Forgotten Children – Refugees Imprisoned on Island

Nauru: The Forgotten CHildren Film Difficulty Ranking: 1

A made-for-Australian-TV documentary that covers Australia’s refugee crisis that it brought to Nauruan shores. The lack of an indigenous perspective makes Nauru: The Forgotten Children problematic.

From: Nauru, Australasia
Watch: YouTube
Next: Limbo, Sitting in Limbo, Between Fences

Nauru: The Forgotten Children Breakdown

Ultimately, this isn’t really a Nauruan film. It’s a made for TV documentary about the residents of the Nauru Regional Processing Facility, aka the offshore detention facility, that Australia uses on the island. The documentary itself is produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV network and the subjects of the documentary are either refugees from Asia or Australian charity workers. However, we’re using this TV documentary as a proxy as we couldn’t find any films of any length that were made by Nauruans. This could be because they’re not readily available to watch, or perhaps because they don’t exist yet (Nauru is one of the smallest countries in the world, hosting a population of just 12,000 people). Please let us know if you can share any films from Nauru.

Despite being set in Nauru, this documentary does not interview any Nauruans for the film. This is problematic as the documentary emphasizes their ‘violent nature’ without attempting to present their perspective. Instead it chooses to show us second-hand footage of violent fights between Nauruans as evidence to back up the comments on their violent nature made by the non-native refugees and Australian charity workers. Without an indigenous perspective, the documentary encourages us to accept a stereotype that Nauruans are violent and unwelcoming. The lack of a Nauruan perspective also dehumanizes the native people, placing the pseudo-colonizers (in this case the Australian charity workers) and the Asian refugees as more respectable than the natives that have been displaced by both through recent and current history. Perhaps, as this is an Australian documentary made by Australian national television, dehumanizing the Nauruans makes the Australian use of the island as a detention center more palatable.

Unfortunately, the lacking indigenous perspective detracts from what is otherwise an interesting documentary of the refugees detained on the island by the Australian government. It conveys Australia’s disregard for legitimate refugees and their neighbors (in throwing their problems onto other countries to avoid dealing with them), as well as the sad personal experiences of some of the refugees.

What to Watch Next

For more films showcasing how ‘the West’ poorly treats their refugees, check out:

Limbo (U.K.) where refugees are sent to remote Scotland instead of Nauru
Split at the Root (U.S.) where children are split from their parents when seeking asylum
Between Fences (Israel) where African refugees are detained in the Israeli desert

Plus, you don’t even have to be a refugee for the West to treat you badly. Sitting in Limbo dramatizes one man’s experience during the U.K.’s Windrush scandal.

Hulhudhaan (Maldives) – Family Drama on Perils of Addiction

Hulhudhaan Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

Hulhudhaan is a family drama that focuses on the perils of drug addiction. It features a recently retired father and his drug-addicted daughter that comes to him for money.

From: Maldives, Asia
Watch: YouTube, IMDb
Next: Hand of Fate, Where I Come From, Cargo

Hulhudhaan – Breakdown

Social issue cinema can be problematic. Focusing on trauma and suffering to generate a base emotional response is exploitative, especially without character development or context in the plot. When this happens in film, it resembles charity commercials, which show malnourished kids to emotionally exploit viewers into donating. It also simplifies complex issues into a quick fix problem + solution equations.

In the case of Hulhudhaan the social problem is Sama’s drug addiction, and the solution is her father’s love and forgiveness. Sama took up drugs because she didn’t get enough of her father’s attention in childhood, and she’s addicted because she doesn’t realize her father still loves her. This presents a happy and dangerously easy solution: love can overcome addiction. The problem with this is the simplification of the issue and solution. Not all addiction is due to a lack of love, and love isn’t the silver bullet for drug addiction.

The depiction of the two main characters is also a little problematic. Manik, the father, is portrayed humbly whilst his daughter, Sama, is shown to be fragile and in need of help. Manik’s respectability is shown through his work ethic (he remains at work throughout the day as other employees come in and out), his tidy apartment, and his religious devotion (he faithfully wakes up through the night for prayer). He appears to be trustworthy and honorable. As Sama doesn’t receive a similar level of character development, the audience naturally sympathizes with Manik, the more complete character. This makes it easy for the film to deliver the love as cure for addiction solution – particularly led by the trustworthy Manik in saving his fallen daughter. It feels like it’s directed at men to take care of their women (especially considering the happy ending).

What to Watch Next

If you liked Hulhudhaan and want to watch more films which deal with social problems, try Hand of Fate (arranged marriage), Cargo (immigration), Where I Come From (poverty).

Or for other films that depict drug addiction, try the entertaining world of Trainspotting or the brutally real world of In Vanda’s Room.

The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived (Oman) – Feminist Revolution

The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

The Hour of Liberation has Arrived is the only first-hand account of the democratic, feminist Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf. Enabled by recent advances in film technology, the film gave voices to the voiceless to create one of the most direct revolutionary documentaries from the Arab world and beyond.

From: Oman, Asia
Watch: YouTube
Next: Battle of Algiers, Flame, Mortu Nega

Why Watch The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived?

For one of the best examples of a revolutionary documentary film, helped by recent technological advances to film equipment
It broke boundaries – it was the first film directed by an Arab woman that was screened at Cannes (in 1974)
It’s the only first-hand account of the democratic, feminist guerrilla movement against the British backed Sultanate of Oman

The Breakdown

The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived offers the only glimpse of the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf, a secular, democratic, feminist revolutionary movement that managed to liberate one third of the Sultanate of Oman. In the region they liberated, the Front launched an extensive program of social reforms, captured in this revolutionary documentary, the most radical being affirmative action for women.

Filmed in 1971, The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived was made possible due to advances in film technology. It brought voices to the voiceless through synch sound (sound recorded at the time of filming). Whilst synch sound had been around since the birth of sound movies, it had only recently become more portable with new hand-held filming equipment that could record sound and video by itself, without a separate sound recorder. Without this advance in technology, this film wouldn’t have been made, as the 800 kilometers that Heiny Srour and her Team had to walk to reach the Front (under the bombing of the British Royal Air Force) would have been dauntingly arduous. The advance in synch sound technology allowed filmmakers, particularly documentary filmmakers, to capture otherwise inaccessible locations. The less intrusive equipment also allowed filmmakers to capture more authentic representations of reality – a truckload of equipment, lighting, and larger crews make people act different to one person filming with a small camera.

The film pieces together stock and live footage, photography, maps, and voice-over narration to create both a first-hand account of the movement, as well as a revolutionary manifesto. The photography and live footage provide the first-hand account of the revolutionaries and their day to day activities, whilst the stock footage, maps, and voice-over narration provide the anti-imperialist impetus that drives them. Its use of a range of media to tell its message looks raw, like a modern, student-made essay film, but this gives the documentary an authenticity that studio-made movies couldn’t replicate. Free from the ties to corporations/companies, governments and heavy, expensive film equipment, Srour could make whatever film she wanted. This is revolutionary cinema at its most direct.

What to Watch Next

You don’t have to turn far to watch more revolutionary cinema. For the big budget films, turn to the brilliant Cuban films sponsored by the USSR such as I Am Cuba and Lucia or Pontecorvo’s docu-drama of the Algerian fight for independence in Battle of Algiers. You can also find gold in lower budget third cinema films such as Flame, Mortu Nega, and Sambizanga.

To see how further technological advances have enabled filmmakers to get even closer to the revolution, check out some films enabled by the digital revolution, such as The Square, Winter on Fire, and The Edge of Democracy.