Facts at your fingertips with DocPlay shows
From a story about Jonah Lomu to politics and Hannah Gadsby’s art fascinations, these are the best docos on DocPlay right now.
Anger Within
Jonah Lomu’s life is a singularly cinematic and tragic story.
‘‘A very kind man, soft, who changed dramatically when he got on the football field,’’ 1999 All Blacks coach John Hart says.
Anger Within gets insightful access to the very amiable man who made rugby professional after 1995.
Jonah had a tough upbringing in South Auckland; his uncle was decapitated with a machete. There are moving clips of Jonah’s intense family and medical journey.
‘‘The game is like life,’’ Jonah reflects. Wise talking heads who were there with him between the white chalk lines, Josh Kronfeld and George Gregan, complement the heft.
Jonah’s emotional commitment to the black jersey was such he told World Cup teammates he was prepared to die on the field.
His phenomenal tries, such as the dazzling duo against France during the 1999 Cup semifinal, maintain their mythic visual force.
Still Bill
With poetic masterpieces like
Grandma’s
Hands, Lovely
Day, Lean On Me,
Use Me, and Who is He?, Bill Withers is one of the very greatest soul brothers.
Still Bill is a fascinating record of the dearly departed Withers’ life and music.
He has an inspirational life philosophy, forged growing up in poor, Appalachian coal country: Slab Fork, West Virginia. ‘‘Everyone’s black when you’ve been working down the mines all day, anyway,’’ Withers quips, revisiting his stomping ground.
He overcame a stutter and everything else, walked away at the zenith of his accomplishment, and refused all the offers of megabucks to return with work that didn’t meet his exacting standards.
Unlike trash Hillbilly Elegy, there’s a beautiful vision of commonality and hope here, with a witty edge.
Soul of America
‘‘Why is it so hard to make it in America today?’’ the lovely, late Charles Bradley asked.
Through his music, No Time for Dreaming and Victim of Love, Bradley asked (and answered) big questions with poignancy and verve.
‘‘You know, real music that fits the soul, you’ll never get it out of your heart,’’ he told me.
Before Bradley exploded into Kiwi hearts, he faced childhood abandonment, illness, miserably underpaid jobs, grinding poverty, family tragedy, almost death.
Soul of America sensitively explores this hardscrabble and ultimately uplifting story of a man who only made it in his seventh decade of life.
Scorching live performances – from New York to Wellington – of Love Bug Blues and The World immortalise Bradley. Can’t stop the fire!
The Killing Season
Forget House of Cards or America’s repetitive and enervating politics, the ultimate political drama of recent years is Australian politics, the Kevin
Rudd versus Julia Gillard factions. The Killing Season is a riveting account of these tempestuous years, 2007 to 2013.
ABC journalist Sarah Ferguson investigates and interviews her three-part documentary series tenaciously. She elicits fascinating answers from her cast of political insiders.
Bi-factional minister and union leader Greg Combet is especially illuminating and entertaining (‘‘I thought, ‘f... this’, to be frank about it. I’m sick of it.’’), and deserves a documentary of his own.
The vivid, lively material is heightened by Ferguson’s deft direction and visual panache.
Hannah Gadsby’s Nakedly Nudes
There’s more to brilliant lesbian comedian Hannah Gadsby than specials Nanette and Douglas, y’know.
The sharp art historian is ever engaging in her art documentary, Hannah Gadbsy’s Nakedly Nudes. ‘‘Art stripped bare,’’ the tagline puts it.
Gadsby brings an earthy and stimulating approach and take on the body’s ‘‘bits and bobs’’, as obsessed over through centuries of Western art.
She delivers a full-spectrum defence of Australian photographer Bill Henson, and explains her fondness for his work.
Ergo, the police raid on Henson’s home appears to have been unjustified.
Hannah Gadbsy’s Nakedly Nudes is also very interesting on Ramesh Nithiyendran, William Yang, Brett Whiteley, and the charismatic, subversive Julie Rrap.
‘‘Be curious,’’ Gadsby concludes. ‘‘Ask questions.’’
Citizenfour
With Citizenfour, director Laura Poitras documents the case for Edward Snowden.
During June 2013, Poitras and Glenn Greenwald interviewed Snowden in Hong Kong, where he blew the whistle on mass surveillance by America’s National Security Agency (NSA).
Unlike her Risk subject, the uber-narcissist Julian Assange, Snowden presents personably and impressively.
Whatever you think about Snowden’s game-changing revelations – what and why and how – Citizenfour is gripping. Poitras directs this whiteknuckle thriller coolly and adroitly.