DOC VS. HOLLYWOOD
Is it truth? Is it fiction? Hot Docs films find Hollywood counterparts
Pre-Crime, one of the buzzed-about documentaries at Hot Docs 2017, opens with a reference to Steven Spielberg’s Minority
Report, a fictional 2002 movie about invasive police methods.
And well it might. Pre-Crime, by Germany’s Matthias Heeder and Monika Hielscher, takes its title and theme from the sinister mind-reading technique called “Precrime” in Spielberg’s film. Cops use it to arrest people before they break the law, privacy rights and due process be damned.
The scary thing is that while Spielberg’s movie — adapted from a 1956 Phillip K. Dick short story — was science fiction set in years to come, Pre-Crime is science fact set in the here and now. Police worldwide are now busily using computer algorithms to stalk not just potential criminals but also past victims of crime, with outcomes both good and bad.
The divide between documentary fact and dramatic fiction has never seemed flimsier, especially at this year’s Hot Docs festival, now on. Parallels between real life and classic Hollywood narratives can be drawn in multiple instances, sometimes worrisomely so.
Pre-Crime vs. Minority Report
Doc: The future is now in Pre
Crime’s awesomely alarming canvass of police agencies around the globe that use advanced satellite surveillance, closed-circuit cameras and computer algorithms to calculate potential crime zones and the people associated with them. Chicago has its “Heat List,” Hamburg has a software program called “Beware” and London goes full sci-fi with its “Matrix” system. We also learn how the FBI and other covert agencies count “likes” on social media to suss out prejudices.
All are designed to spot trouble before it happens, and it seems on the surface to be entirely altruistic — who wouldn’t want to stop a budding terrorist? But privacy and civil right advocates warn of abuse, which is already occurring: Pre
Crime interviews two men, one in the U.S. and one in England, whose lives have been made hell by police surveillance. There’s a huge potential for computers misidentifying people and misreading intentions because, as one expert puts it, “code doesn’t have a conscience.”
Hollywood: In Spielberg’s neo-noir thriller Minority Report, set in the Washington, D.C. of 2054, Tom Cruise heads up a police Precrime unit that uses psychics (called “precogs”) to predict future criminals, who are then apprehended with the aid of advanced computer and 3Dmapping technology. But when Cruise’s character is named by the precogs as a future murderer, possibly due to system tampering, he’s forced to flee and fight to prove his innocence of a crime that hasn’t even happened.
The Last Animals vs. Children of Men
Doc: As a photojournalist, Kate Brooks has travelled to war zones and other global hot spots. For her feature directing debut, she aims her probing lens at humanity’s ultimate act of violence: extinction of an entire species. Brooks visits scientists, conservationists and park rangers who are heroically attempting to stop poachers and crime syndicates from causing the threatened demise of the world’s elephants and rhinos — especially the Northern White Rhino, now down to a handful as rescue hopes dim.
With wild herds dwindling from the relentless combination of climate change, land encroachment and poaching, the world is heading toward the serious possibility that humans will one day be the last animals on Earth. Hollywood: Dystopian scenarios are a staple of popular fiction, from Hunger Games to the upcoming TV miniseries The Handmaid’s Tale. But one dark standard really resonates: Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men from 2006, which envisioned a planet so drained of natural vitality that women are unable to conceive children. Humans face extinction, just like all the other animals they recklessly eliminated.
Becoming Bond vs. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Doc: James Bond may be the most freewheeling of fictional heroes with his “licence to kill,” sexual romps and other entitlements. But the actor who plays him can feel like a prisoner, constrained to live the role off the camera as well as on. That’s the beef in Josh Greenbaum’s film of one-off 007 George Lazenby, the Aussie actor who walked away from a seven-picture deal and $1-million signing bonus after being James Bond in 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. With a younger actor playing him in flashbacks, admitted fabulist Lazenby spins the amusing yarn of a lifelong rebel who serendipitously succeeded Sean Connery as Bond and immediately chafed at the role’s many rules of conduct. Hollywood: Lazenby’s James Bond is every bit the rule-breaker on screen as Lazenby was off it. He defies 007 convention and director Peter Hunt’s wishes right off the top of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service by dropping to one knee in the opening gun-barrel shooting sequence. And following some early fisticuffs with thugs, Lazenby jokingly breaks the fourth wall by looking to the camera and recalling his predecessor Connery: “This never happened to the other fellow.” This is also the only film in the series where Bond marries for real (not as part of a deception) and the first where 007 openly weeps.
Critics applauded: many rank On Her Majesty’s Secret Service among the best of the 007 series.
Mermaids vs. Splash
Doc: They call it “mergasm”: a euphoric feeling when a woman slips on the carefully constructed tail that transforms her from ordinary human to figure of aquatic legend. Seems like a curious hobby on the surface, but the film dives deep into the psychology behind this real-life fish story, interviewing some fascinating subjects. Among them: mom and daughter mermaids, an older mermaid who once swam for a delighted Elvis and a transgender mermaid whose new passion assists her lifelong identity quest. Hollywood: Ron Howard had a hit in 1984 with the rom-com fantasy Splash, referenced in the doc Mermaids, where Darryl Hannah plays the girl of Tom Hanks’ dreams. Problem is she’s a mermaid, and the twain aren’t supposed to meet, much less fall in love. But when Hannah’s Madison assumes human form to track down Hanks’ Allen in New York City, Cupid might be persuaded to make an exception. The film speaks to the same kind of watery wish-fulfilment that prompts women to dress as mermaids in the Ali Weinstein doc.
Spookers vs. House of a 1,000 Corpses
Doc: Imagine if the lurching, drooling and dancing zombies of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video opened their own theme park. It’s like the strange scene in Florian Habicht’s Spookers, a commercial fright fest on the grounds of a shuttered psychiatric hospital near Auckland, New Zealand. The place is run by a non-scary Kiwi couple and eagerly staffed by young recruits who are working out personal issues or just letting their freak flags fly. The pants-wetting (and worse) horror is convincing — the makeup is great. Hollywood: So many horror movies to choose from in the busy subgenre of murderous freaky households, from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Insidious. But I’d argue that Rob Zombie’s 2003 splatter flick House of 1,000 Corpses probably gets closest to the serial insanity of Spookers, although not in a good way.
When I reviewed House of 1,000 Corpses, which stars Karen Black and ’70s cult creep Sid Haig as psycho kidnappers and killers operating a roadside freak museum, I observed that it “quickly devolves into the worst kind of drive-in drivel.” Spookers is better by keeping it real (sort of ). Hot Docs runs until May 7. Go to hotdocs.ca for screening times and tickets. Peter Howell is the Star’s movie critic. His column usually runs Fridays.