At the 90th Academy Awards, filmmaker Bryan Fogel went on stage to receive an Oscar for his documentary Icarus . “We hope our film is a wake up call,” he said. “Yes, about Russia, but more than that about the importance of telling the truth, now more than ever.” Not only does Fogel’s speech fall well within America’s long-standing anti-Russia narrative but also reflects the current sentiment about empowering the press in the Donald Trump administration.
Touted as ‘unprecedentedly political,’ the Academy Awards this year presented five fairly diverse nominations in the best documentary category. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail and Strong Island expose the underlying racism of the U.S. judicial system by telling the story of two different racial groups: the Chinese and African American community.
Although the central subjects in both documentaries — Abacus (a small neighbourhood bank serving New York’s Chinese community) and Yance Ford (whose brother was killed by a white mechanic) — are battling against different circumstances, what’s common is their fight against the system.
It is interesting that last year’s Oscar-winning documentary, O.J.: Made in America (2016), depicted how the same judiciary can be manipulated to play on white guilt. The film documents the clinical efforts of O.J. Simpson’s lawyers to resurrect his African-American identity and show him to be a victim of the racist law enforcement system.
Conspiracy theory?
Although both the winning documentaries (this year and last) belong to the world of sports and are investigative in form, they go beyond to uncover other issues. Fogel, an amateur cyclist, stumbles upon a larger, global doping scandal in Icarus, when he sets out to prove how easy it is to circumnavigate the anti-drug testing system.
His plan is to compete after using banned substances, outdo other participants, pass the urine test and document it all in his film. But what he lands up with is an acquaintance with whistleblower, Grigory Rodchenkov, the director of Moscow’s Anti-Doping Centre, with whom he eventually discovered a state-sponsored doping scandal in Russia.
Despite Fogel managing to acquire detailed access into the workings of the scandal, the documentary often appears as if it is based on a conspiracy theory. As the film progresses, you see Fogel’s increasing involvement in blowing the lid, as he helps Rodchenkov take shelter in the US. In doing so, the filmmaker is unable to distance himself from his narrative, thereby eliminating objectivity and a critical eye.
It’s not rare to see a filmmaker be the subject of her own documentary. In fact, three of the five nominees — Strong Island , Faces Places and Icarus — document a part of their makers’ lives. Particularly in Strong Island , the presence of Ford (who became the first transgender director to get an Oscar nomination) is an overwhelming one.
He recalls the loss of his brother and the denial of justice in tight frames with his face almost covering the entire screen, making it a confrontational experience. In Faces Places , it’s the endearing 89-year-old French filmmaker, Agnès Varda, who captures herself on a trip with 34-year-old photographer and muralist JR, as the duo creates portraits of people in rural France.
Unflinching gaze
What adds a tint of urgency to personal stories like Strong Island and Icarus is that they are, in a way, seeking justice. For Ford, it is about narrating the story of his brother through intimate family portraits, and for Fogel, justice lies in broadcasting the nuts and bolts of the scandal to showcase the alleged failure of the International Olympic Committee.
In a year that saw many first-time nominees and winners at the Academy Awards, Icarus became Netflix’s first feature documentary to win an Oscar. Last year, The White Helmets brought the maiden Oscar for Netflix in the short documentary category. Interestingly, the short film shares its subject with this year’s nominee, Feras Fayyad’s Last Men in Aleppo.
Both films capture the bravery of the White Helmets volunteers who find and rescue Syrian civilians. It may seem like a repeat, but in Fayyad’s film the unflinching images of war-ridden violence manage to create a fresh impact, proving that similar stories can find space at the Academy, as long as they are told in a strong voice.
