In the form-expanding documentaries of Robert Greene, the artifice of performance clears a path with higher emotional truth waiting at its summit. Still, the distance between the two has varied. Early works such as “Fake It So Real” and “Kati With an I” extended a relatively straightforward portraiture to people in Greene’s orbit — his wrestler cousin, his teenage stepsister — whose outward-facing lives spoke to his curiosity about how images and personae can be constructed and shown. Name-making successes like “Actress” and “Kate Plays Christine” continued this inquest through more experimental means; the brief staged interludes massaging insights on nonfiction methods and ethics out from the creative process. The latter film and Greene’s last feature, “Bisbee ’17,” both attended to tragic footnotes from the past through dramatic reenactment. In each case, a deep yet imperfect vein of compassion guides what could otherwise be solipsistic intellectual exercises, honed by Greene’s unwavering focus on what he owes to his collaborators and subjects. When he falls short of their needs, they let him know.
READ MORE: Telluride 2021 Preview: 10 Must-See Films To Watch
His latest film, the devastating Telluride selection “Procession,” draws on all his experiences for the most high-stakes project of an eclectic career. The preoccupation with authenticity and its limits, the trials with cinematic contrivance, and the recent push for social justice all converge in his sensitive facilitation of a group therapy program for six survivors of trauma. With the assistance of trained drama therapist Monica Phinney and Greene’s crew, the middle-aged men write and produce stylized short scenes reenacting their memories of sexual abuse endured at the hands of Catholic priests in the Kansas City area. As they share their pain in hopes that it could prevent someone else’s, their astonishing candor eliminates the cerebral gap in Greene’s technique. The element of thoughtful interpretation involved when an actor channels a person or time removed from themselves has been replaced by a shattering immediacy. Its directness is perhaps simpler but altogether more potent. Though these resilient souls forge through repression decades old, both the violence and healing are ongoing.
READ MORE: Fall 2021 Movie Preview: 60+ Must-See Films
Greene holds the title of director, but the “film by” credit signaling creative authorship goes to Joel Eldred, Mike Foreman, Ed Gavagan, Dan Laurine, Michael Sandridge, and Tom Viviano. In the variety of this makeshift “cast,” we see that there’s no wrong way to cope; even if soft-voiced Tom can’t do a scene of his own with his case still open, he lends his kindly gait to everyone else’s, whereas F-bomb-dropper Mike has held fast to the scorching anger inside. For some, close-ups of fidgety hands tacitly express currents of anxiety and fear too overwhelming to be articulated. Whatever their disposition, the men are all united in their vulnerability, a sacred pact with the filmmakers poignantly echoing the violated trust in a church that would close ranks to protect evil.
The Best Documentaries Of The Decade [the 2010s]
Their short films combine chilling, detailed specificity with surrealism, glowing green eyes, and unnerving all-white interiors capturing the dreamlike quality of old recollections. The most powerful sections cross-cut between these written scenes and their creators, breaking down just offscreen. (Those moved by “The Act of Killing” may find their reaction even stronger, the dictators’ remorselessness traded for cathartic redemption.) While they and the stories they’ve come to share hold the foreground, Greene recognizes that to deny his own mediating influence would be disingenuous. A bungled location scouting drives Michael to lash out at the filmmakers; his tone is not just let down but wounded, illustrating how delicately this material must be handled. Theirs is shown to be a nurturing dynamic; however, as suggested by the handful of shots in which we can see Greene comfort a struggling participant with a supportive hug.
READ MORE: The 20 Best Documentaries Of 2020
Before things get started, Ed states his distaste for sappiness and his refusal to be another blubbering guy. Like everyone else, he soon finds that a certain measure of the maudlin can’t be avoided with subject matter like this. A man tearfully assuring his younger self that it’s not his fault may be a cliché, but it’s also a reminder that clichés only form because some things happen a lot. A brave young man named Terrick Trobough, the child actor who plays the survivors in their boyhood years, provides them with that external representation of their lost innocence. In doing so, he also doubles as a sign of hope for a safer, more understanding future, his face coming to stand in for the boys spared this horror. His presence underscores a newfound urgency of purpose to Greene’s output, the theoretical pondering of his filmography now applied to a person-to-person act of good. After one particularly intense shoot, Trobough says of the scene’s writer, “I believe him.” After all this, who wouldn’t? [A-]
Follow along with our full coverage from the 2021 Telluride Film Festival here.
