Documentary cinema, at its best, does what no other form can: it places the real world under a patient, honest gaze and finds something stranger or more moving than fiction. From Alain Resnais's shattering Night and Fog to the quiet intimacy of Pictures of the Old World, the range here is enormous. Dig into Macca's reviews below.
Rating: 1.0★
Twenty minutes. That's all it asks of you. And yet somehow, Candomblé in Togo still manages to feel like an imposition. Directed by José Agripino de Paula, this 1972 short is, by any honest measure, barely a film. What you get is handheld footage of traditional Candomblé dancing,
Rating: 3.0★
There's a particular kind of documentary that doesn't try to dazzle you, doesn't reach for a grand rhetorical flourish, and doesn't resolve into a satisfying conclusion. Island Soldier is that kind of film, and I mean that as both a compliment and
Rating: 4.0★
What does it mean to want to be seen? That's the question humming underneath every frame of Salaam Cinema, and it's one I haven't been able to shake since watching it. Mohsen Makhmalbaf turns a simple premise, open auditions for a film in Tehran,
2010s
There is a moment in Amazing Grace where Aretha Franklin closes her eyes, draws a breath, and does something that no amount of studio polish could ever fully capture. The room holds with her. You hold with her. And then she opens her mouth and reminds you exactly why the
1980s
There's a moment somewhere in the middle of Homework where you realise Kiarostami isn't going to give you anything else. No music swells. No narrator arrives to contextualise what you're watching. No edit sharpens the rhythm. He's just going to keep sitting
2010s
There's a particular kind of discomfort that comes from watching someone else's home movies. Birthday cakes, family gatherings, a child's first steps, all of it flickering on grainy VHS tape, intimate in a way that feels almost intrusive. Agustina Comedi's documentary Silence
2010s
Here's the honest truth about Shakedown: if you were there, inside that underground lesbian strip club scene in early-2000s Los Angeles, this film probably feels like someone cracked open a time capsule and handed it straight to you. If you weren't, you're going
Genre Documentary
Letter from Siberia (1957)
Genre Documentary
Here and Elsewhere (1976)
Genre Music
Style Wars (1983)
Genre War
Lessons of Darkness (1992)
Genre Documentary
★★½ — Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (1980)
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