I watched 3 documentaries (well, 2 documentary films and 1 series) to ring in the new year. I wish I would have the same luxury of time in the coming weeks to see more of what I missed from last year but it’s back to the daily grind for me.
The Mission - This film is about the American missionary John Allen Chau, who was killed while attempting to make contact with the Sentinelese people. It does a fine enough job at introducing the audience to Chau — his background, family life and motivations. He feels like one of those friends we’ve all had back in university. It also deploys some interesting animation work and archival footage to break the monotony of the subject. However, I wish it dwelt more on the institutions of what his father calls “radical evangelism”, and how these religious organizations plant seeds of missionary work on young people like Chau. I mean, there is some of that, and the best bit of the documentary for me is when an ex-missionary described how he came to realize that what he was doing was unethical. But other than that, I thought the treatment was superficial.
American Symphony - Obama’s 2023 list brought me here. It traces the development of Jon Batiste’s work American Symphony, which he was doing while his wife was getting treatment for cancer. As expected, this is a very emotional documentary which intersperses footage of Batiste writing music with him supporting his wife. As a fan of classical music and Batiste himself, I was really engaged with the scenes showing his composing process and how his life circumstances informed and shaped his symphony. The film also does a good job at showing Batiste’s musical philosophy and how he attempts to incorporate different strands of American (specifically African-American) musical tradition. Finally, it makes a powerful statement on the way music allows people to articulate emotions in ways that words can not. Recommended.
Captains of the World - This 6-episode sports documentary focuses on the recent FIFA World Cup and takes a look at the journeys the captains of the different national teams. I followed the 2022 edition in Qatar and this series brought me back to some of the thrills of that competition. I think the series is torn over whether its really about the captains — there was an earlier documentary series called Captains that does a much better job at showing their personal life and troubles — or about the World Cup in general. But I didn’t mind because I enjoyed reliving the peculiarities of that year, such as the various upsets (e.g. Morocco defeating Spain and Japan defeating Spain and Germay) and the fraught USA-Iran match that came at the heels of the 2022 Iran protests. Anyway, it is easy to binge and well produced, as is expected from Netflix.