Tag: documentary

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The Documentary-to-Drama Pipeline

Last week, I had the opportunity to watch Everybody to Kenmure Street at Dundee Contemporary Arts, followed by a question-and-answer session with the director Felipe Bustos Sierra. It covers the story of a Glasgow man who clung to the underside of an Immigration Enforcement van in May 2021 and the neighbours who rallied around him.

Rather than rehashing the message of the film, which has been done many times, let’s focus instead on its composition.

Like many documentaries, the majority of the narrative is pieced together through eyewitness footage and interviews. This provides a sense of immediacy, while making it cheap to produce. However, there are a few sequences read by actors, Emma Thompson among them. The director later explained these were either to maintain anonymity or for legal reasons.

But this technique also brings its own problems. A performer reading from a script will invariably personalise it to one degree or another, whether by tone of voice, word emphasis, or even the speed of delivery. I don’t know for sure how these sequences were filmed, but I suspect the real people were interviewed and their words were ‘parroted’ by the actors.

Scottish cinema as a whole seems to be having a moment in the sun right now, and this recent batch seems to be following a documentary-to-drama pipeline.

Let’s compare the recent I Swear, exploring the life of John Davidson and the effects of his Tourette’s syndrome. Although he’s been the subject of a few documentaries, this was the first time it was approached as a drama, spanning his childhood and adulthood.

Then just last week, James McAvoy attended the premiere of his California Schemin’, about a Scottish duo who pretended to be American so they would be taken more seriously. This story was first told in the documentary The Great Hip Hop Hoax, and features much of their own archive footage. I look forward to seeing how the dramatisation works out.

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When You Simply Can’t Enjoy It

Some advance warning that this entry is likely to give away major plot points for the film All of Us Strangers and the Michael Palin TV series Around the World in 80 Days.

A couple of weeks ago, my pal wanted to see All of Us Strangers at the cinema. I looked at the blurb on the website and it didn’t appeal to me, but I said I would take a chance on it. I’m rarely disappointed by a film, so the odds were in my favour.

I can’t fault the cinematography nor the soundtrack, but there were parts of the plot that didn’t make much sense to me.

Let’s start with the times Adam jumps on the train to see his parents. What is he actually doing while hallucinating? It’s revealed he can’t actually access the house, so is he sitting in the garden? And if so, why did nobody call the police on him?

The ending includes a twist where we also find out Harry has been dead all along. Yet if they’ve only met once, why did Adam think it was all right just to let himself into Harry’s flat. And when he discovered Harry was dead, why leave him there without reporting the incident?

While acknowledging I’m in the minority, I think the four- and five-star reviews are way off the mark here.

This brings me to the second production: Around the World in 80 Days, originally broadcast by the BBC in 1989. In this challenge, Michael Palin attempts to follow the steps of Phileas Fogg in the book of the same name. As the source novel was published before the advent of powered flight, he wasn’t allowed to use aircraft.

I was quite young when this was first shown – I might even have watched a repeat – but I do remember enjoying the sight of all the different lands he visited, plus a scene in the final episode where a vendor wouldn’t sell him a newspaper because he didn’t want to be filmed. As such, I recently took the notion to watch the first episode and see how it actually compared to my memory.

I lasted until halfway through it before switching off. While acknowledging the programme was supposed to be aspirational, I felt as though I was watching a posh boys’ club rather than a travelogue, as he dined with his fellow Monty Python members before leaving and then in the first-class area of the Orient Express.

The final straw came when the train stopped in Italy because of a rail strike so a replacement bus service was arranged for the next leg, and Palin threw down his magazine in disgust.

Perhaps this is merely the set-up for a redemption arc to be explored in later episodes, and I am willing to give the rest of the series a shot in the near future. At the moment, though, I agree with Alan Whicker’s terse assessment that the programme was a ‘seven-hour ego trip.’