Film Impressions

DOCUMENTARY: A Doctor To Defend

A PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE

Minnie Vaid's documentary on Dr. Binayak Sen, A Doctor To Defend, is a moving and  inspiring portrait of a well-educated, middle-class man who followed his conscience all the way to the poorest districts of the country and has lived and worked amongst the people for nearly four decades. Indefatigably. Intelligent, articulate, soft-spoken and sensitive, Dr. Sen's interview is at the core of the film, which chronicles his journey from the Christian Medical College, Vellore, to the miners of Dalli Rajhara for and with whom he co-founded the Shaheed Hospital, the Bagrumnala clinic in Chhattisgarh from where he worked, all the way to his incarceration, first in 2007, and again in December 2010, on charges of 'sedition' and 'conspiracy' against the Indian state.

He has been sentenced to life imprisonment.  

DOCUMENTARY: Ayn Rand - A Sense of Life (1997)

THE ORIGINAL IRON LADY

Michael Paxton's two-and-a-half hour long documentary on Ayn Rand may not be particularly objective -- she was far too controversial a person to get such a rose-tinted appraisal -- but it certainly is a fascinating chronicle of her incredible journey from the heart of Communism to becoming one of the most vocal champions of unbridled Capitalism. Ayn Rand - A Sense of Life follows a staid, chronological and entirely flattering narrative and really comes alive when we see archival footage of Ms. Rand, piercing eyes and all, postulating her theory of Objectivism, her professed Atheism, vehement rejection of Altruism and of course the evils of Communism versus the glorious virtues of Capitalism.

REVIEW: Inside Job

DAYLIGHT ROBBERY

Charles Ferguson, the technology entrepreneur-turned-filmmaker describes what the banking industry did to the US economy through their heedless greed as a 'heist' where the looters didn't walk in with guns, but were the guys running the show themselves. Inside Job suggests that the indiscriminate deregulation of the financial services and insurance industries and the unbriddled spread of high-risk transactions called derivatives, has looted America (and, by extension, the world) of trillions of dollars and increased the gap between the haves and the have-nots in the country like never before; worse, rather than being prosecuted for their role in this scam, they continue to hold key positions in the Obama administration!

DOCUMENTARY: Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired (2008)

NOTES ON A SCANDAL

Months before Roman Polanski was placed under house arrest in Switzerland (he was in Zurich to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award) in September 2009 on pending charges of unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles in 1977, came a documentary chronicling the incident that changed the course of the famed director’s life. Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired by Marina Zenovich methodically delves into the events leading up to the harrowing trial that unfolded under the media glare and the flip-flops of presiding judge Laurence J Rittenband who clearly emerges as the villain of the piece, finally forcing Polanski to flee America in 1978, never to return to that country.

DOCUMENTARY: Nero's Guests

WAKE UP CALL

No matter how much documentaries are run down as boring and preachy, there is a viewership and a market for them, even it is small and scattered. If only feature filmmakers had the courage and imagination, there are thousands of stories out there, just waiting to be told. If they were made in the fiction format, maybe many more issues would reach a larger audience.