Author Archives: Patrick Z. McGavin

In Cry for Argentina (2002, 57 min., in Spanish with subtitles), the British documentarian locates the bleak humor and bitter sadness of Argentina’s recent fiscal crisis and social tumult, as two young women appearing on a reality program called Human Resources compete for a job as an assistant sales clerk. Unfortunately it lacks any wider […]

The clash between American consumer culture and Cuban revolutionary fervor plays out in a fascinating, unpredictable manner in this colorful 2002 feature by David Schendel, about an offbeat collection of Havana painters, auto mechanics, and former racers who are slavishly devoted to their vintage American cars. Schendel introduces his subjects consecutively rather than interweaving them, […]

The Second Russian Revolution (1991, 60 min.) examines the 1991 coup attempted by Soviet hard-liners seeking to reverse the democratic reforms instituted by Mikhail Gorbachev. Though the film features some amazing surreptitiously shot video involving key planners of the coup and dramatic footage of tanks rumbling through Moscow streets, it leans too heavily on unrevealing […]

In September 1999 a bomb leveled a Moscow apartment, wounding Yelena Morozova and killing her mother and boyfriend. Authorities attributed the crime to Chechen rebels, but when Morozova’s sister Tanya, an emigre living in Milwaukee, returned to Russia she found compelling evidence that the state police staged the bombing to justify military escalation against the […]

English director Pamela Gordon’s Moscow Siege (2003, in Russian with subtitles) is a riveting look at the military standoff between Russian special forces and Chechen rebels who seized a Moscow theater and held the audience of 900 hostage in 2002. Incorporating interviews with survivors, news footage, and eerie material shot by the rebels, the film […]

The first film of a projected trilogy on doctrinaire political leaders, Oliver Stone’s documentary about Fidel Castro was culled from 30 hours of footage shot over three days. Constructed as a series of dialectical exchanges between the two men, it’s most effective as a meditation on personality, revealing their common obsession with Vietnam, John F. […]

Salma Hayek’s directorial debut, a DV cable feature, is a devoutly Catholic work. Searching for his father, an 11-year-old undocumented worker takes sanctuary in the church of a faltering border town; soon afterward a crucifix begins crying tears of blood, triggering a media frenzy. A troubled priest (Peter Fonda, salvaging a potentially thankless part) must […]

Rob Thompson’s engrossing video documentary (2001) chronicles the life of one of the “Little Rock Nine,” the group of black students who withstood mob violence and institutional racism to integrate an all-white Arkansas high school in 1957 (with backup from the National Guard). Framed by the 40th anniversary of the event, the movie portrays Trickey […]

The title characters of this 2002 action comedy are child actors who meet at an Iranian film festival, one of them an Afghan living in Iran, the other a Londoner. Initially the kids are at odds due to the language barrier and cultural differences, but when Danny the Brit stumbles upon a smuggling operation and […]

Syrus Hassanpour directed this visually ambitious 2002 Iranian fable about two boys who leave their harsh mountain village to search for a mysterious hero renowned for averting a train wreck—a perilous quest complicated by their distrust of one another. The nonprofessional actors do a good job of conveying toughness and valor in the face of […]

Director Maria Peters based this madcap period comedy (2002) set in 1930s Rotterdam on a novel by Chris van Abkoude. The title character (capably played by Quinten Shram) is a 12-year-old paperboy with a penchant for mischief. The first hour nicely captures the spirit of youthful freedom and adventurousness as the enterprising young capitalist and […]

Adapted from a novel by Witold Gombrowicz, this brilliant, disquieting feature by Jan Jakub Kolski (A Story of the Movies From the Village of Popielawy) is set in the Polish countryside during the Nazi occupation. A theater director and a writer orchestrate a love affair between a handsome partisan and a landowner’s beautiful young daughter. […]

Joan E. Biren’s 2002 video documentary chronicles the lives of pioneering gay-rights activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, who cofounded the first national lesbian organization, the Daughters of Bilitis, in 1955. Biren is strong on history and social context, setting the duo’s accomplishments against a background of discrimination that extended into the mainstream of the […]