Windows onto worlds

After a long day, one wants to escape from the world once we turn on our televisions. But sometimes it can be just as rewarding to peer into lives other than our own. Be it a piece of distant history or a current event, the documentary can be just as entertaining as it can be informative. Because we can always use broccoli, but why not with a bit of cheese? With PBS slated to air the latest from Ken Burns on Ernest Hemingway, perhaps we might want to peruse some more true-life content. If so, these are some exceptional ones for your consideration.

Netflix has cornered the market on true crime docs for some time. From “Tiger King” to “The Ripper,” the boom has inundated the service. However, one feature took me by surprise. “Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel” starts out as your typical mystery. But as the story unfolds director Joe Berlinger shows the many layers that this onion contains. The circumstances surrounding Canadian woman Elisa Lam’s disappearance and subsequent death becomes just another part of the area’s horrific history. At times it becomes a sociological study in how governments create poor communities within the cities, breeding grounds for crime. In other parts we are introduced to a new phenomenon of internet sleuthing, distracting to an already daunting investigation. Interviews give light to the events of the case as well as the years leading up, most noticeably the hotel manager who just wanted to bring the establishment back to its intended glory.

Some Oscar-nominated docs are also on Netflix, including my personal favorite: “My Octopus Teacher.” Not your ordinary nature film, the subject Craig Foster takes up snorkeling off the coast near his home in South Africa. During a dark time in his life, he encounters a common female octopus within a kelp forest. Thereafter he endeavors to study and observe her over the course of a year. Through some beautiful pacing and cinematography Craig bonds with this odd creature as do we. The danger she encounters remains thoroughly investing. She becomes more than just an animal as we see her hunt and even play, in one the most joyous of moments I have seen on screen in over a year. An absolute treat to behold, for sure.

Front runner on the streaming service, “Crip Camp” follows a group of disabled individuals who attended a summer camp in the Catskills of New York in the early seventies. Permeating with hippie vibes (Woodstock had just happened the year previous), the film opens up a part of the civil rights struggle many don’t know. Using archival footage made by councilors, the subjects expound on how the camp informed their self-reliance and ethos. A direct link is made from formative years to social movements they spearheaded that would lead to the Americans with Disabilities Act in the Nineties. The filmmakers’ style becomes reminiscent of Burns and Errol Morris but not so much that is becomes distracting.

Another award hopeful on Amazon, “Time,” gives a face to the effects of mass incarceration. That is Sibil Fox Richardson and her six children as she fights for the release of her husband. Not sugar coating the details, perspectives are given from everyone in their lives. Resilient but remorseful, Sibil only wants her husband out before the graduation of her twin boys. Much can be made of the affecting score and stark black and white footage, mixed with home recordings the couple made together and apart. For as bleak as the subject is, the artifice is almost dreamlike. As much as respect needs to be given, I question the motives of the filmmaker in his presentation choices.

Regardless, happy viewing readers.

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