Sundance Dispatch: Doc Dance

Documentaries were particularly strong at the Sundance Film Festival this year. Here’s a look at some of the highlights.

Did Morgan Spurlock find Osama bin Laden? Rumors to that effect have swirled about for months, leading up to the premiere of the Super Size Me director’s latest documentary, Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? Turns out the answer isn’t just no—it’s no, and who cares? The movie is a light, entertaining overview of the legend built out of bin Laden’s elusive state since 9/11, and it reaches the conclusion that finding the infamous Al-Qaida leader matters less than stripping him of his power. “He’s like Keyser Soze—everywhere and nowhere,” Spurlock told me shortly after the film’s premiere here at the Sundance Film Festival. “He’s this mythic figure with so much influence over people around the world, so in order to take that away, you have to address those problems we’ve seen around the world that make people want to follow him.”  The production, which lasted two and a half years, took Spurlock on a meandering tour throughout the Middle East, while his pregnant wife waited for him in New York. By no means a masterpiece, Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? (which will probably hit theaters in March) is still a firm investigation into our troubled times.

It’s not the only Sundance doc grappling with an indefinable subject. Marina Zenovich’s Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired offers a revealing look at the masterful director’s rape trial that marred his life in the United States throughout the 1970s. His ultimate self-imposed exile to France usually overwhelms accounts of the litigation process, which was corrupted by a publicity-hungry judge and a series of unfair developments. Zenovich does a masterful job of drawing parallels between Polanski’s ominous films and his troubled life, but she also manages to turn much of the story into an entertaining affair. “It’s a very serious case, but I tried to show some irony and wit in some of the circumstances,” she said during an interview yesterday. Although Polanski refused to participate in the film, he did agree to meet with Zenovich off-camera. “I heard through his agent that he didn’t want to be involved,” she said, “but I called him and he said, ‘Let’s meet.’ It was great to look him in the eye. It was very satisfying.”

The title for the film was suggested by Zenovich’s close friend and colleague, Alex Gibney, whose Sundance doc Gonzo: The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson reconstructs the quirks of the quintessentially bizarre Rolling Stone journalist through fantastic archival footage and interviews. Gonzo, which Magnolia Pictures will release in March, illuminates both the good and the ill of Thompson’s fiery career. What’s fascinating about the film is the way Gibney finds voices from every ideological angle to voice their approval of the late druggy scribe—from Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner to Pat Buchanan.  “Politics is theater, and Hunter was a theatrical person,” Gibney said over a cup of coffee on Main Street a few days ago. “That’s probably why he connected with so many politicians.” Asked to identify writers following in Thompson’s footsteps in the wake of his suicide in 2005, Gibney was coy. “There are a few imitators,” he said, identifying former New York Press columnist and current Rolling Stone contributor Matt Taibbi as one of them. “But nobody has managed to really capture the pulse of America.”

Maybe not, but many of the other strong documentaries at Sundance certainly tap into the nation’s hotly debated topical issues. In addition to the three discussed above, there’s Bigger, Stronger, Faster, a wise and hilarious look at the controversy surrounding steroids (and why all the hate is misguided); Anvil: The Story of Anvil, the most comically-inspired document of a goofy rock group since Spinal Tap, but this time the band is real; and Trouble the Water, which contains footage shot by a New Orleans-based hip hop artist from her home in 2005 as levees broke and her neighborhood drowned. With home video of scenes that non-New Orleans dwellers only know from television, it’s the ideal rebuttal to Cloverfield: Authentic, intelligent, and no need for special effects to be scary.