Tudor Monastery Farm – A documentary series

Byrichard

I took advantage of a rainy day to watch a series of documentaries by the BBC called Tudor Monastery Farm. It is a documentary series where three individuals live the life people would have lived at the relevant time period for a year. During this year they try farming, mining, fishing and other skills and crafts from the time.

These are observational and experimental documentaries. They take the observational cinéma verité and Direct cinema approach to factual television production. As you watch these documentaries so you are transported to a different time period.

For years or even decades I thought of this time period as a bad time period. I thought of the church as being an oppressive force. Through this set of documentaries I eventually felt sad that monasteries and the way of life that was illustrated in the series of documentaries was dissolved by Henry the Eighth.

Imagine a monastery with 20,000 sheep, imagine the work that was lost by stone masons as the need for monastery construction and other activities declined.

If you find this documentary series I strongly recommend watching it.

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Edwardian Farming, a BBC documentary series about the life of Edwardian farmers.

Byrichard

I really like this documentary series about Edwardian Farming. it is a fly on the wall documentary following three people through a year on an edwardian farm close to Dartmoor. They experiment with market farming, food preparation of the time, trout farming and so much more. It is relaxing and without an over-enthusiastic announcer/narration.

It’s a fascinating glimpse at a way of life that those who remember it is becoming dead rather than living history.

The BBC excel at this type of content and this is what they should focus on producing more of.

 

 

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Village Photography

Byrichard

On Google Plus, one of my muses, I saw that instead of Street photography someone suggested Village photography. I like the idea because villages are such an integral part of my life.

Life in villages is a privileged one. Every time we go for a walk we cross people we do not know and say hello. We walk from field to field and along paths. We see which crops have been planted and which ones are being harvested. We see frequent horses and dog walkers. We also see families. We hear the sound of rifle practices at the local gun range. The practice is for military service most of the time.

We also have fountains and old buildings. We hear the church bell every half hour and hour. We see the fountains with wooden chalet to protect from the cold in winter.

Villages are seasonal. In summer the sounds of children playing, of fireworks and of barbecues can be heard. In Autumn the sound of wind blowers can be heard. In Winter we see lights on as the neighbours prepare their evening meal.

In the mornings we see parents bring their children to school before the bell rings and they head in to their classes to sit and wait impatiently for the school day to be over so that they may go out on adventures.

That’s why village photography captivates my imagination. I know villages well. I appreciate them. I look forward to looking at images from the past, and preserving today for future generations.

Monkey Thieves, Great in HD

Byrichard

Monkey Thieves is a documentary about the Gulta Gang, a gang of monkeys in India wreaking havoc. What I love about this documentary is that it’s a great topic in HD. You see all the details. You see the faces, you see how they eat a grape but throw away the skin for example. You see wide shots of the city and you see other animals.

It’s all about the visual wealth that documentaries can offer you. It’s just a well shot and humorous look at monkey behaviour. You see smiling faces in the background. The scene is monkeys stealing ice creams and eating them. They hold it with the stick, take little bites and more.

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The 50 Years of the City Club cinema in Pully

Byrichard

I was in Pully this weekend for the fifty year celebrations of the City Club Cinema celebrating half a century of existence. There were a number of special events, from a silent film being screened with a live orchestra to a number of documentaries being screened as well.

I particularly enjoyed the documentary screenings because the documentary producers and some of those interviewed in those documentaries came to the screenings and presented their films before the film and answered some questions at the end.

The documentary the I enjoyed, or at least found most interesting was “La Citadelle Humanitaire”, a documentary by Frédéric Gonseth and Catherine Azad. It explored the work done by André Rochat when he worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Yemen in the 1960s. The documentary explored the interesting work carried out by these humanitarian workers and the challenges they faced. It was told as much by André rochat as those that worked with him.

It showed some of the challenges they faced, from where to situate the hospital to having more mobility, facilitating prisoner exchanges up to the point of hostage releases being negotiated successfully. It’s a great piece of documentary making and within the next few days a few of the Q&A questions should appear on this blog as well as my own.

A second documentary that I watched, but that did not appeal to me quite as much was La Reina del Condòn by Silvana Czeschi and Reto Stamm. It confused me. I couldn’t see why an East German would come to Cuba to speak about Sexual liberation in a machist country. I couldn’t see any of her motivations in carrying out such a project. If I had produced the documentary that’s what i would have concentrated on. I would have interviewed her more extensively, spent more time exploring the personality and the motivations behind what she did.
What we had instead was an exploration of three or four people’s views which did not make the documentary uninteresting so much as that famous “So what?” question that an English teacher used to always ask me to elaborate on. It’s the same with this film. I simply think the exposition could have been more researched.

Umare Te Wa Mita Keredo (Les Gosses de Tokyo) by Jasujiro Ozu is a 1930s film from Japan looking at two children at this specific moment in time. It’s a silent movie where the two main characters are Children and a few days out of their lives. What made this screening special was the live four piece orchestra playing live at the front of the Room.

Finally Lars and the Real Girl was also screened. It was a strange topic to be explored but it made me think of the Film Parle Avec Elle to some extent, the role of online and offline relationships as well as dealing with people with certain characteristics. It’s a comedy and as a result you’ll spen some time laughing but at the same time it’s a reflective film into how we behave. I found the film to be quite interesting but another individual said that it was a little too slow so it’s hard to say whether you’d enjoy it.

Overall I enjoyed being at the City Club for their fiftieth anniversary, having interesting people to meet and good documentaries to watch.

Gael Métroz and Dziga Vertov

Byrichard

For three weeks he had no battery and was unable to record anything but the rest of the time he was collecting 150hrs worth of video for his documentary Nomad’s land. We’re speaking of Gael Métroz of course, a swiss born traveler who wanted to retrace the steps of Nicholas Bouvier. He would travel from Switzerland to Sri Lanka.

I want to see the documentary but so far I’ve had no opportunity. I’m more interested in what he talked about in between seesmics. He told us that he would meet with the people and let them use his camera. At first what they filmed would not be so good and he would show them how to get some better results. In effect the people would participate in the making of the documentary.

It’s interesting because that’s what Dziga Vertov was trying to do with the Agit trains in Russia in the early 1900s, the idea that the camera would be used to document the everyday lives of groups of people in a country as vast as Russia in Vertov’s case and as big as half the globe in relation to Métroz’ case.

That’s the trip you want to do, one where you travel for a year meeting people, experiencing their culture and really having the time to talk. He would bring up that he wishes he had this amount of time in the Western world to get to know people, without having to worry about everything else. It was interesting.

That’s what would make an interesting travel documentary, far more in depth than the entertaining Lonely Planets we have watched on numerous occasions.

It was also a taste of why I enjoyed going to the Frontline club in London. You get a short introduction about the subject, watch the documentary and then listen as people discuss the issues that are raised by the documentaries. It’s an academic exercise rather than entertainment. It’s a shame there aren’t more opportunities like this that i know of around Switzerland.

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Gael Métroz au City Club de Lausanne

Byrichard

Today I met, Gael Métroz, a guy who decided to travel along the trail of Nicholas Bouvier shortly after his studies. It was an opportunity to try the seesmic style of interview at the City Club in Lausanne. The idea is simple. Those doing the interview have a laptop with a webcam and a good internet connection. They go to film an interview with the laptop and the audience themselves ask questions from the person appearing.

It was the first time that the people I was with tried this style of interview and it was a good experience.

Nomad’s land – Gael Métroz

What was also a nice experience was getting to talk with Gael, getting a more personal view than if we had watched the interview on television. It’s a more relaxed, and in this case, less rushed interview, more personal less formal.

I hope that we get to do more of these events.

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Screening: Kosovo, the Valley

Byrichard

Last night I went to watch an observational documentary called Kosovo, the Valley, about the conflict in Kosovo in 1998. The event took place at the Frontline club in London. The documentary starts with a graphic scene of the aftermath of an attack and takes a look at both the Albanian side of the conflict and the Serb. It’s a good documentary that helps to understand how the conflict was. Keep in mind that the documentary was shot back in 1998 and finished in 1999.

During the Questions and answers session we learned that the documentary was produced over a period of months, from months of research to weeks of actual production with film camera work and an amusing anecdote about the current Prime Minister of Kosovo having confiscated a few reels of films and more.

Thanks to the budget the producer had been given he had the ability and the luxury to learn and understand the story like someone who would file reports could not. As a result there are a few personal stories and it was not meant as a current affairs program.

Accessing the UCK (KLA) was apparently challenging because they had no media policy, rather there was some necessity in going via Switzerland although how Switzerland helped is unclear. Is it through the United Nations or other. I’m not sure.

Another aspect of this documentary is that through it’s very nature the film makers had the challenge of covering both sides of the story. The producer was faced with having to make sure not to disclose information from either side. That’s an interesting situation to be in but through negotiation they were able not to disclose any information about the others.

Following one person’s question we found out that due to the nature of these village communities they lived fairly isolated lives as a result of which they may never have met someone from the other side. As a result prejudice had been easy for some to bring in.

A side of effect of this was the lack of a media policy or organisation. One person in the crowd who had gone into the area in 1999 asked whether some questions about military organisation. Apparently they were not that well organised. The KLA had some people in charge of the main part although overall control was according to tribes and the head of the family, more traditional. What this meant is that they did not provide a unified front when attacks occured. Radios were not working. We could see aspects of this in the documentary.

I’m glad I went to see this documentary because after having a good friendship with one Albanian girl I saw a lot of their culture as it was in Switzerland. I became interested in the background as to why she moved to Switzerlan. I understood certain of the words and I know about the music. I’m happy I read “Les Tambours de la Pluie” since it meant I had better background information. I’d recommend watching the documentary although some scenes are quite graphic and may not be suitable for all. It’s powerful and I’m glad I went to it.

— Update —

There is a none english version that can be found here

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Learning more about Dziga Vertov and his views on cinema

Byrichard

Dziga Vertov is an interesting personality because of his ideas of the Cinema eye. His notion was that with the cinema eye, the Kino Glaz you could capture life unawares whilst being involved in the creative treatment of actuality. After making some quick money by answering some social networking questions I dropped by the apple store only to find that computer games are far too expensive for what they are. I dropped down via the usual streets and got to waterstone’s.

There is a small documentary section which I have visited on numerous occasions in the past and today I found an interesting book. It’s Dziga Vertov – Defining Documentary Film by Jeremy Hicks. It’s a translation of some of Vertov’s key texts so that the non russian speaking audience may understand his ideas more clearly. I only got as far as reading the introduction but I hope that through the reading of this book I may get some new views and opinions on the current media landscape.