This year will mark the 50th anniversary since Neil Armstrong and the boys touched down on the Moon in July 1969. Back then, it was an epic event of Star Wars proportions (and I imagine the excitement of seeing the touchdown on a ’60s television set was akin to seeing Star Wars IV in the theatre for the first time) – the world tuned in to watch humankind take the next step forward. So much has happened since then – we’ve seen robots on Mars, satellite images of Pluto, the advent of the Internet, and more. It is a marvellous time to be alive – we can return to the past at the click of a button, look ahead to the future, and still live in a time where tigers, elephants, pangolins, and other creatures roam the wilds. The world is in trouble and we have an ominous future, but there is still some time left until irrevocable catastrophe hits. Watching the documentary Apollo 11 fills me with optimism and hope – it is a celebration of human achievement and fulfillment of one of humankind’s greatest desires. Despite the impending sixth mass extinction and the ominousness of climate change, this documentary makes us remember what we’re capable of and what makes us special as humans. Yes, humans are guilty of obscene pollution and deforestation and eradicating wildlife and overpopulation, but we also sent a few men to the Moon, and I think technology and collaboration will help save us and our planet in the years to come. Apollo 11 draws from familiar stock footage as well as unreleased footage and documents, and the timing and chronology of events positions the viewer in that summer of ’69, seeing it all for the first time. It is very special, and so breathable and vivid. I want to believe that such a documentary will squash the idiotic Apollo hoax theories (I mean, we’ve seen extensive footage of the takeoff and astronauts in space as well as landings on the Moon which I don’t think a film studio would replicate), but they always find more fodder and bullshit to chase after (guys, the flag was made of aluminum tin foil…).

For me, the film is also an ode to space travel and human discovery. As Carl Sagan once said, “The universe beckons.” And that vision is so apparent here, the desire to explore and learn more, to overcome our own limitations and thresholds to overcome the next frontier. The director makes great use of the archival footage, and the one scene where he juxtaposes JFK’s Moon landing speech with landing on the Moon a few years after his death was particularly effective and moving. It is a testament to NASA and humanity and deserves to be seen by everyone. As we are reminded, so much could have gone wrong with the Apollo 11 mission, yet so much ended up going right, and it has changed all of our lives forever.

David Munro’s 1979 ITV documentary Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia (written by John Pilger) captures the horrors and atrocities of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime (1975-79) firsthand from the front line. While it is a hard watch, it is a compelling one, featuring interviews with survivors from the camps and detailing the ongoing suffering of the people after Pol Pot’s fall. Munro’s main argument is that the Khmer Rouge arose as a direct consequence of Nixon and Kissinger’s bombings of neutral Cambodia during the Vietnam War; while I do agree that this is an aspect of it, it is a limited view, and I personally think the conflict in Cambodia is much deeper and more complex. The Khmer Rouge were also very opportunistic, seeing the end of the Vietnam War as a chance to exert their power, to use a vision of socialist utopia to fulfil their ultra-nationalistic ends, reverting civilisation to an agrarian society and basically killing off everyone in the process in horrific and sadistic ways (no one was spared; they even killed children and babies, taking photographs of everyone before they killed them).

The documentary is only about an hour long, but like other relatively short documentaries such as Night and Fog, it is hard-hitting, and some of the images of starving children or a look through a school-turned-death camp or a survivor’s account of the brutal torture he would experience on a daily basis at one of the camps. Another aspect that really stayed with me was that no other country (except for Vietnam, ironically) truly intervened to stop the genocide (not even Canada!). The good news is that the impact of the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge made a mark, and Cambodia received enough relief to administer penicillin to its patients. In retrospect, Vietnam eventually conquered Cambodia and toppled the regime and brought communism to the country (although communism didn’t really work for Cambodia), Pol Pot and the Killing Fields remain a dark, sudden, and haunting chapter in its history (current reports state that Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were responsible for killing a third of Cambodia’s population). This should have never happened, and what is worse, Pol Pot and his cronies never received true justice either.

This is very powerful and affecting objective journalism, and Pilger and his crew took many risks to bring us this message (there are rumours that he was on the Khmer Rouge’s death list). It’s an important watch of an often forgotten past, haunting to walk through the once thriving cities (i.e. Phnom Penh) only to see them empty as if, as Pilger has written, it had experienced a “nuclear cataclysm.” I hope we all remember what happened in Cambodia and ensure that something of this magnitude never happens again.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb36F9FGCi0]

Ron Lamothe’s film The Call of the Wild (2007) is an extraordinary documentary that primarily focusses on the ill-fated quest of Chris McCandless (also subject of Sean Penn’s film Into the Wild, my favourite film, and Jon Krakauer’s book of the same name), a young man who decided to leave it all behind and embark on his own personal Waldenesque quest into the wild. It is also, however, Lamothe’s own interesting journey into the wilds and heart of America. From conversations with the lovely folks in Slab City to hitching with ex-convicts in South Dakota, Lamothe retraces McCandless’s journey while also fulfilling his own dreams. While some see Chris’s story as “stupid” and quixotic, others see it as a determined romance that ended in tragedy. Indifferent or not, however, people remember Chris’s story. In small town Carthage, South Dakota, everyone still remembers him like it was yesterday. I was particularly charmed by the hospitality of all these people – these are touching vignettes of American society, and I was particularly drawn to the altruism of it, their willingness to help out one another, the very meaning of friendship. Perhaps McCandless was drawn to this sense of hospitality as well.

But what drove Chris to desert his promising career path and lifestyle and turn to the road and eventually the Alaskan wilderness? Lamothe has his own theories about it, but I don’t think it was a generational thing. I think it touched on something universal. I think it was his disillusionment with society and capitalist lifestyle. He saw where his life was heading and he saw it as a familiar pattern: find a career, work, get married, have kids, and die. And he realised that there’s more to life than that, and he wanted to see it while he could. He nearly made it too, and was damn resourceful in the time that was given to him. Perhaps that’s the greatest tragedy of it all, and you can see the awareness of his impending death in his final photographs that transcends his hopeful smile. It is an old, wearied look that haunts his reckless youth.

Interestingly enough, Sean Penn was filming Into the Wild at the same time as Lamothe, and unfortunately this affects some of his key interviews. One wonders what his film would have been like and the stories that would have been told if the timing had been different. Still, both films are excellent in their own way. Naturally, the documentary style makes it more realistic than Penn’s passionate and romantic take on it. What I loved most about the film was that at its heart, it is about stories, the stories that people remember and hold onto, the stories that keep them going, the stories that define them. I loved hearing about the eccentric guy in Slab City and the Yellow Brick Road, and the kind South Dakota man who packed Chris sandwiches, and even from the Alaskan trappers (whose views I don’t necessarily share), whose insights raise different perspectives on the incident.

Despite the trappers’ ill view of Chris (he wasn’t cut out for it, wasn’t experienced enough, etc) I’m still drawn to the romance of it, much like Lamothe, Penn, and Krakauer. I think Chris tapped into something that we all want to experience but are bound by social obligations. Chris decided to break those barriers and live beyond society and it almost worked, but in the end, it cost him his life. Still, his story has inspired so many people, and a simple YouTube search reveals that many folks have followed in his footsteps, travelling up to Healey, Alaska to see the Magic Bus and the last resting place.

Lamothe also comes to some interesting conclusions about Chris’ fate, noting that his BMI was critically low towards the end of his life (making his death inevitable), rather than Krakauer’s original theory that he ingested toxic alkaloids from seeds or ingested the mould from them. Krakauer has since revised his theory, but I still think Lamothe’s theory is most convincing. Chris wasn’t getting enough caloric intake, and I think everyone can agree that the mismanagement of the moose meat was the turning point for him.

Still, Chris’s story raises fundamental questions about our society and our own needs and drives, and that’s why I think his story is so important. The first half of the film focusses on Lamothe’s journey there, and it’s not until the final third that he reveals his exciting evidence about the whole case. For a low budget documentary, it’s masterfully done, and a joy to watch. It also makes you think about the people you meet and the colourful stories they have to tell, and the relationships between us that leads us to where we are now.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_dt911IEBI]

Coming out the same year as the excellent fictionalised account Control but enjoying its BBC premiere just now, the 2007 documentary Joy Division is the essential documentary that examines the beginnings, rise, and fall of Ian Curtis and Joy Division. The filmmakers managed to get all the New Order members together to confess their hearts and tell it like it was. Control was a great biopic, artistic and intellectually stimulating, but it’s not exactly the way it was. Here, we see how it was. The band members excitedly describe their inspiration at the Sex Pistols concert and their formation of the classic post-punk band. We start from the promising Warsaw days, and the band evolves from the fierce punk sound of Warsaw to become its unforgettable Joy Division sound. They describe the enigma of Ian Curtis’ character and his dark, brooding lyrics and idiosyncratic stage presence, and how he changed as a person, becoming disconnected from the group over time and suffering epileptic fits.

What really interested me was the human geography in Ian Curtis’ songs. The film visualises this idea, taking us through the industrial streets of Manchester. I think what really resonated with people was how deeply personal and emotional his songs were. ‘She’s Lost Control’ is about a young woman whom Ian had encountered at work, and who suffered epileptic fits and died from them. We see how much he pours into his performance onstage, dancing uncomfortably and enduring epileptic bouts. I think Peter Hook relates a story where they were on in a car together and Curtis started punching everyone, and then suffered grand mal epileptic seizures. It was hard for his friends to see him like this. They wanted to understand, but couldn’t. Curtis clearly had his own demons haunting him who, alongside the pressures of expectation and performance, ate away at his mind. We feel his tortured soul in the music, see it in his eyes in the performances and promotional stills, accompanied by Peter Hook’s killer bass lines and Bernard Sumner’s amazing, ominous riffs. There are lots of great performances here, as well as insightful interviews from the women in Curtis’ life, as well as an interview with Alan Hempsall from Crispy Ambulance (another great post-punk band) and the Factory record producers. Even Genesis P-orridge, who was the last known person to talk to Curtis before he committed suicide, makes an appearance.

Many stories have been told about Factory records and Joy Division (24 Hour People is another with some awesome performances, but not much else, especially if you don’t like Steve Coogan), but this one truly tells it from the heart, with all the information and details that you need to know. The death of Ian Curtis was a terrible event that is made all the more tragic with the band members’ revelations. It is something they will never forget, and lives on in New Order, which birthed from the ashes of Joy Division to become incredibly successful. While it enjoyed a cult following in the ’70s and ’80s, Joy Division has gained an immense following over the years, with Unknown Pleasures becoming a staple and iconic post-punk record. Joy Division effectively captures the joys, hardships, tragedy, endurance, substance, and rebirth of this great band.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhCLalLXHP4]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2v4UwEiO-g]