The 20 Best Documentaries Of 2020 - Page 3 of 4

10. “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets” (d. Bill and Turner Ross) – available in virtual cinemas and On-Demand
The Roaring 20s, a dive bar on the outskirts of Las Vegas, is closing down. Inside, there’s an atmosphere of pre-apocalyptic revelry, a revolving rota of characterful, craggy-faced regulars and a rather large elephant in the room: in truth, there is no Roaring 20s, we’re not in Las Vegas at all, and the patrons here were cast from barrooms and pubs across several states. If this fact bothers you – and it makes the film’s taxonomy as a documentary deal-breakingly misleading for some – allow me to step into a state that you are free to consider it an extremely accurate documentary reconstruction of everything I personally miss about bars: the camaraderie, the bullshit, the potential for unexpected collision and most of all the endless, rambling chatter, that ranges from the drunkenly profound to the soul-baringly personal to the blindingly inane, often across a single skein of conversation. That it achieves all this within the construct of one last bacchanal before the shutters come down forever, only adds extra poignancy from a pandemic-era perspective. If you want to reject the film on the basis of its fictions, that’s your business, but you’re only disinviting yourself from a great, boozily bittersweet party. 

9. “A Thousand Cuts” (d. Ramona S. Diaz) – available in virtual cinemas now; on PBS January 2021
In a non-fiction year not short on docs extolling the value of investigative journalism, Ramona S. Diaz’s portrait of trailblazing Philippines-born, New Jersey-raised Rappler founder, editor, and reporter Maria Ressa, would still stand out. Partly that’s due to Diaz’s unusually rich craftsmanship, which gives what could be a straightforward biodoc the look and feel of a noir thriller. Partly it’s due to the breathtaking clarity with which Diaz draws parallels between the rise of Filipino strongman Rodrigo Duterte and that of Trump and other emergent autocrats – Duterte’s ascent to power is where the media manipulation/Facebook-assisted election interference handbook was written. But mostly it’s down to Ressa herself, a small, bespectacled, smiley presence whose disarmingly approachable appearance conceals a lacerating intelligence and an acute sense of journalistic mission, along with the tenacity to follow through on her exposure of high-level corruption and malfeasance, and to champion and inspire her equally dogged Rappler team, in the face of increasingly overt threats to her personal safety. She’s undoubtedly a paragon, but she’s also, as portrayed in this fantastically smart and energizing doc, a charming, funny, slightly dorky personality whose defiant humanness is exactly what makes her such a treasure. 

8. “Dick Johnson Is Dead” (d. Kirsten Johnson)currently on Netflix
It takes an unusual kind of person to put herself through multiple iterations of her beloved father’s death in order to vaccinate herself against that actual eventuality; it takes an even more unusual Dad to agree to participate. But if Kirsten Johnson’s singular documentary is death-obsessed, with a series of cartoonish ACME-explosives-style accidents befalling the genial Dick in between more serious segments of discussion and doctors visits, as well as surreal interludes in an imagined glittery afterlife, it’s also a powerful statement of filial affection that is, in a skewed way, as life-affirming a film as you will see this year. Partly that’s down to the meta-textual reality of the film’s shoot, which enabled father and daughter to spend precious days and weeks together colluding on a project which by its nature forced a minute examination and an endless mutual confirmation of their bond. But it’s also because of Dick himself, a presence so expansively charming, witty, and smart, even in the early stages of dementia, that we fall in love with him a bit too. The film is the beginning of a heartbreaking farewell; one hopes that just as love multiplies the more it is shared, grief can be lessened through the same process. 

7. “City Hall” (d. Frederick Wiseman)plays from December 22 on PBS
It’s daunting, I know, to fire up “City Hall,” and risk eons of boring internecine municipal power-struggles. But whatever about the John Cusack/Al Pacino movie – while Frederick Wiseman’s identically titled doc is technically 4 ½ hours long, the only “City Hall” that feels that length is Harold Becker‘s 1996 snoozer. Wiseman’s instantly absorbing exploration of the Boston Mayor’s office and its many branches and departments, threatens to give politics a good name, from an articulate, engaged citizenry, through city workers, bureaucrats, and policymakers, right up to Mayor Marty Walsh himself, who emerges as a deeply lovable, forthright, and dedicated public servant. It also fits seamlessly within Wiseman’s filmography, which now seems less an act of documentary than of cartography, like if you laid all his films out side by side, it would amount to a map of modern American life, surveyed, near as dammit, at a 1:1 scale. “Our differences do not have to divide us,” says Walsh, and he might be stating both Wiseman’s lifelong manifesto, and the most intensely reassuring and necessary message for our fucked up year. With people like these around, civic life will trundle on, and Frederick Wiseman will find a way to make its invisible, intricate mechanics not just visible, but beautiful. 

6. “The Truffle Hunters” (d. Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw)qualifying release December; wide release March 5, 2021
Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw’s gorgeously characterful portrait of a small truffle-hunting community and their stalwart canine companions is set in the richly forested landscapes around Piedmont, Italy. In painterly compositions of absurd autumnal lushness, we follow four men as they venture out alone, sometimes in the dead of night, to forage for these prized, insanely expensive delicacies. The film also spends time with a local truffle dealer, and a portly gent who is some kind of enormously influential truffle sommelier –  but it’s the four older men, all single bar one, who are the most indelible personalities. Aside, that is, from their dogs, especially magnificent little Birba, whose conversations with her tartufio owner, as he frets aloud about who will take care of her once he’s gone, are both sublimely funny and absolutely heartbreaking. Elsewhere, a monastic-looking chain-smoker types out his manifesto for retirement from the game; another loses a second dog to poisoned bait and breaks down in tears; and a third nods meekly under his wife’s tongue-lashing then creeps out of the window after nightfall again – all of them participating in a strangely sacrosanct tradition that seems to be, like these expert practitioners, in the twilight of its years.