What is, THE HIGH: MAKING THE TOUGHEST RACE ON EARTH about?

It is three in the morning and it is happening again. I am waking up from a dead sleep and gasping for breath, but this time it is combined with a nightmare that I am suffocating and it makes it all the more frightening. It’s the 3rd night in a row now and I am scared to fall asleep, and even more scared that this whole thing is going to come to an end before it starts. After 30 minutes, I try again but then panic – my mouth wide open grasping for air.

HIMALAYAS OF NORTHERN INDIA
Where am I and what am I doing here? I am in the Himalayas of Northern India at 12,000 feet and I am following a rare group of ultra running trailblazers at the 2nd running of the highest altitude ultra in the world, and have been acclimatizing to the altitude now for three days.

HIMALAYAS OF NORTHERN INDIA

It has been a year ago since I followed up on an email telling of an ultra running doctor out of New Delhi who was creating a new race that included running the two highest motorable passes in the world. I called him up and he started by telling me of how he thought up the idea. It was a day-run up to a place called Rohtang La (the pass of piled corpses). The goal was just to have fun running with friends up to 13,000 feet. An elevation challenge for an ultra runner bound to his homeland, India, for work. But the run was cut short by a landslide and they found themselves in a warm café drinking tea and staring into the wave-like road map of the Manali–Leh Highway, wondering what if.

It wasn’t apparent to me at the time I was hearing this, but the idea of running at these altitudes seems insane. The first time at 18,300 feet, the body doesn’t respond all that great and the pulse-ox meter that one runner is testing tells us so. The heart rate is at 112 beats of the normal 60 and the body’s O2 is down to 76% of its norm of 98%. But the body does change. Red blood cell building and O2 adapting, slowly the lungs make better use of the oxygen and as the days pass, we are all starting to see our heart rates drop and blood O2 levels go up, and this is a good thing. It means I am not going to get on that plane and fly home. It means I am going to see the starting line after all.

After Rohtang La, Rajat returned home to his family and found himself struggling to think of anything other than this map of the Himalayas. His mind started to crunch the numbers and his fingers started to punch up the details and in 9-months time he had constructed a race crossing 137-miles (222km) covering the passes of Khardung La (18,300ft) and Tanglang La (17,583ft) before finishing in the Morey Plains at 15,000 feet. Now all that was left was finding runners to run it.

2011 START OF THE HIGH

ULTRA HIGH: RUNNING AT 18,000 FEET
Sifting through the ultra running pool, he found 30-runners to say yes, but as time would have it that number trickled down to one – Molly Sheridan – and now that one was standing in front of me at the second running of what became the documentary film Ultra High: Running at 18,000 Feet (released in 2010 at 1 hour 10 minutes and distributed internationally, later becoming available on streaming platforms).

Next to her, pacing like race horses were Ray Sanchez (USA), Lisa Tamati (NZ), Samantha Gash (AU), Jason Rita (AU), and Sharon Gayter (UK). And so while I sat backwards filming on my motorcycle, they were waiting to take on this challenge before it took them.

The run to Khardung La isn’t all that bad. Once your body has acclimatized to the altitude it is pretty good at taking on the first 26 miles. By the time the runners get to the peak each of them are still moving at a pretty good pace and looking at a long 26-mile downhill into Leh before planing off for a 45-mile stretch through the high desert of the Leh Valley. But the comforts of this flat land can turn dark. The continuous hours of low level O2 can sneak up on you leaving you with exhaustion, dehydration, cramps, and worse. It is something to be aware of and it was this element that crept up on the runners in that first year’s event and almost ended the entire race before it began.

Rajat’s thirty runners had turned to one and that one runner, Molly, helped turn it into three. By race day of 2010, Rajat was poised at the starting line doing the countdown and with a click of a second those faithful three were off and carrying with them the unknown question of if this race could even be done.

Molly at Khardung La (18,300ft), 2010
Months before this moment Rajat had worked to do his math. He was a doctor after all and it wouldn’t look good for a doctor to have dead runners on his hands. So he visited the Special Forces branch of the Indian Military to gather information on how to prepare the body for the high altitude. Standing square in the office of some of the highest officials in the land there was dead silence as the officers listened to his race idea before looking him in the eye and stating, “Are you mad! No one can do this…it is impossible”.

Words to live by one might think, but not Rajat. Not the man who grew up in a home where the word “NO” to his running interest was all too common a theme. A theme that left him seeking the very outlet of this race today. And so he set off to make this race bulletproof and prove to the military, his country, and the ultra world that this run could and would be done. But now 24-hours into his own race, two of his runners were in the ICU with one getting evacuated for further emergency care.

It was Molly who went first to the ICU. She had gone too long without water coming down Khardung La and needed an IV to recover. Bill Andrews came second and shortly after with problems that required an immediate flight out. And so there was only one – Mark Cockbain – and the questions again arose of if this race was even possible.

Why do you do it? That was the question I used to ask. Why do you run these distances? I was only just learning about this sport and the answer for them was simple, “because we can”.

MARK COCKBAIN, TANGLANG LA 2010

Humans can endure amazing things and in that endurance we can discover something about ourselves that we never knew.

By this time, Rumptse was the town on everyone’s mind. It is the last cutoff point before the finish and the place to rest before the final push up Tanglang La.

Mark Cockbain on his way to Tanglang La 2010
I thought about myself for a moment when I first met Mark in the UK for an interview. Would I have been willing to drive towards that finish line all alone? There was no glory in this. There were no competitors to go up against. There was only the long dirt road ahead and an empty finish line. And the answer is I don’t know. For Mark however, none of that really mattered. All that mattered was that he was only a few steps from crossing over the top of Tanglang La and needed to go down.

Watching Mark cross over the top, Rajat hopped back in his car to finalize plans with Molly and Bill. Arriving at the hospital in Leh, Bill was in bad condition and Molly was by his side. Assessing that more proper medical care was in order, they booked tickets and hopped on a plane home. Leaving the ground it became clear for them both that the race was over, but not finished.

Standing at the finish line one year later, surrounded by cars, ambulance, crews, and a banner, the excitement of the 2nd year’s finish was in the air. Walkie-talkie updates were coming in and it wasn’t certain who would arrive first. In those last 14 hours at around 17,000 feet, Sharon Gayter overtook Ray Sanchez and fought to keep the lead ever since. Watching with excitement you could vocally hear her panting as she turned the final 100-yards towards the finish. Pushing herself to her limits, her lungs were screaming for air as she crossed the finish line and collapsed into the hands of the medics. The crew was in a roar – the first runner had officially made it, but there was more to come and others were still out there.

Sharon Gayter crossing a landslide 2011
Seeing Molly and Bill off on the plane, Rajat now was driving back to find Mark with a million thoughts on his mind. Did they make it? Are they safe? Do we have a race or is this a lost cause? But the answer wasn’t easy. After leaving them at Tanglang La the night before, Mark and his crew made a dangerous mistake. Tired and exhausted from all they had done, and suffocating from a lack of O2, they pulled the car off the road and with Mark inside each fell asleep.

I imagine Mark’s last dream up there was similar to mine during acclimatization. Laying there in the back of that truck suffocating and hypoxic, he snapped out of that slumber and rocked forward with one thought in mind, “We have to get out of here and start moving or we are just going to lay here and die”. First with the right foot and then with the left, Mark kept moving and one step at a time he made his way down to lower ground and the finish.

It was daylight now and Rajat was headed to the rendezvous point of Whiskey Junction. He had checked the finish line first to see it empty without sign of Mark or crew. Now he was searching for them in the last place they could be. Pulling into the rest area he looked around quickly and found them down by the river, bathing their feet. Grabbing his breath and looking more closely, he could see they were smiling. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. With that it became apparent they had finished the race and it was done. The impossible had become possible and it was time to go home and celebrate.

SHARON GAYTER CROSSING A LANDSLIDE 2011

Sitting here at the finish and rethinking through the 2010 race, I am now starting to wonder where Molly is. Listening to the radio I heard that she didn’t make the cutoff at Rumptse and I don’t know where she is now, but I do know one thing: I really hope she makes it. It isn’t because she didn’t finish the first race last year or that I want to see a comeback story come true. It’s because Molly is that person who gives you that little push in life, the push we all need to get our dreams going towards true, and now I want to see her get that push so that hers come true too.

As seconds turned to minutes and the clock struck down to under one hour, we saw that last runner coming around the final turn and it was her. Out in front of me, holding the finish line banner and waiting for her arrival was Rajat and most likely he was thinking about all that it took to get them here: the dream of doing it, the work to make it, and the moment when Molly said she would stay by his side. Watching her cross the finish I knew it was complete. It was finished for her and for him as well. Standing there in front of my camera was a pair of people – one who dreamt the impossible and one who believed it could be done.

The remarkable story of making this ultra marathon has been captured in the featured documentary Ultra High: Running at 18,000 Feet (released internationally and now available to watch on streaming platforms like Apple TV and Prime Video).

          

The Corporation, directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott

The Corporation, directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott, and based on the work of Joel Bakan, is not a film designed to entertain or keep you on the edge of your seat. It does not rush through information for the attention impaired, nor does it offer small, bite sized talking points meant for casual conversation at work. Instead, it is a film grounded in facts and analysis. It speaks less about the problems already visible and more about those looming ahead. At its core, it challenges untethered capitalism and asks us to consider how being the best at what you do can be as dangerous as it is beneficial.

By outlining the corporation as a psychopathic, self obsessed, disconnected, and manipulative entity, the film focuses on the unsettling reality that corporations are legally defined as persons and granted the same rights that come with that designation. Achbar, Abbott, Bakan, and their team sift through roughly one hundred and fifty years of history, tracing how corporations shaped American legislation to evolve into what they are today. By tackling the legal definition of corporate personhood head on, the filmmakers turn the very centerpiece of corporate power against itself, exposing how dangerous this terminology truly is.

Placing this corporate “person” into the seat of a psychologist, the film methodically evaluates it against the criteria used to assess a healthy human being. One by one, the corporation fails. Each trait reveals a pattern of behavior that would be deemed socially destructive if found in an individual. Over its one hundred and forty five minute runtime, The Corporation makes it painfully clear that if left unchecked, the modern corporation will become, is becoming, and in many cases already has become, a monster capable of consuming everything in its path.

The central question that lingers throughout the film is deceptively simple. What does any of this have to do with me? While the documentary addresses how the system affects individuals, it spends less time examining how individuals affect the system. The answer, perhaps uncomfortably, must come from within. Because no matter how clearly we understand the dangers posed by corporations like Walmart, McDonald’s, Nike, and others, they continue to make our lives easier. They offer convenience, efficiency, and comfort, quietly dulling our sense of urgency.

Even as they manipulate laws, exploit global labor, and shape future consumers from childhood, these corporations remain embedded in a system most of us do not feel compelled to change. And perhaps that is exactly how they would prefer it to remain.

If you get the chance, rent a copy and experience it from your own perspective. Let me know when you do.

Thanks for reading.

TRAILER & EXTRAS

 

Mindscape of Alan Moore, directed by DeZ Vylenz

There are times in life when you come across a film that is neither great in its entirety nor dynamic in structure, yet when it ends, it leaves you feeling changed, wanting more, and still trying to digest what you have seen. Mindscape of Alan Moore, directed by DeZ Vylenz, is just such a film.

Hidden behind a mass of hair and beard, mysteriously adorned with gothic style rings, a cutoff T-shirt, and a deck of magical cards constantly in motion, Alan Moore at times resembles a softer, more introspective version of Charles Manson. He is the kind of character who might send those with a weaker stomach running from the outset. But if you can see past the visual distraction, resist the urge to dismiss him outright, and keep your own wisdom intact, the film rewards you with moments of thoughtful insight into creativity, perception, and the human condition.

The film opens with Moore facing the camera and narrating his own life story. Early on, he demonstrates his manipulation of language by reframing the word trafficking, typically associated with illegality, to describe his approach to writing fiction. “I traffic in fiction,” he explains. “I do not traffic in lies.” While initially distracting, this wordplay quickly colors the portrait of the man, offering an early glimpse into the philosophical case study that follows.

Turning to his childhood, Moore reflects on his formative years with remarkable composure. Sharing deeply personal memories, mistakes, and realizations in what feels almost like a single uninterrupted take, he displays an ease that draws you closer. Sitting under lights with a crew present is rarely comfortable, yet Moore moves through stories of failure and defeat with a calm that helps explain the man he has become.

After dropping out of society and drifting through the lower rungs of working life, cleaning toilets and handling animal carcasses, Moore makes what he calls a “shot in the dark” decision to become an author. In doing so, he articulates one of the film’s most striking ideas: that to truly create, one must abandon both the fear of failure and the desire for success. The idea that the purest actions are those performed without lust for results is unexpected coming from someone whose appearance might suggest otherwise, and it is here that the film fully earns attention.

As Moore moves through his career, he opens up about his work for DC Comics on The Swamp Thing and his relocation to America, which he describes as part of a “brain drain.” His critiques of American fascism, authorship, and cultural misuse are delivered obliquely, but these ideas seem to crystallize in his most famous work, Watchmen, later adapted into a feature film. When discussing fame, Moore offers surprisingly grounded insights into its dangers and distortions, ultimately choosing to live out his beliefs by returning to Northampton, England, and beginning a new chapter away from the spotlight.

At forty, Moore declares himself a magician, and it is here that both the film and the man begin to drift further from concrete ground. Logic, history, and metaphor blur as Moore reframes reality through a mystical lens. These moments can feel confusing or even alienating, yet they also provide an unusual window into the thought structures of a deeply intelligent and imaginative mind.

By aligning modern writers with ancient shamans and portraying contemporary authors as cultural prostitutes stripped of authority, Moore emphasizes the power of the written word and its frequent misuse. At the same time, he moves freely between fact and metaphor, a skill sharpened through years of crafting fiction. This is where his insights become both compelling and potentially dangerous, and where the viewer is best served by maintaining a healthy sense of caution.

Ultimately, Mindscape of Alan Moore invites you into locked rooms of thought and offers keys shaped by Moore’s own interpretations. Over seventy-eight minutes of dialogue, his slow, hypnotic voice works through nearly every major facet of life. He challenges the limits of perception, redefines how individuals understand their surroundings, critiques distorted ideas of sex and war, invites participation in what he calls creative mind space, and reflects on the overwhelming influx of information driven by modern technology. In the film’s final moments, he delivers some of the most imaginative and provocative ideas presented throughout.

In closing, if you can set aside the film’s sometimes intimidating visuals, move past surface judgments of appearance, and take the time to engage seriously with the thoughts being presented, Mindscape of Alan Moore proves to be a mentally stimulating and creatively challenging experience. You may walk away with a deeper understanding of a worldview very different from your own, and perhaps a few new ways of thinking unlocked along the way.

Thanks for reading.

DIRECTOR DeZ Vylenz
http://www.shadowsnake.com/biogeo_dez.html

Our Daily Bread, directed by Nikolaus Geyrhalter

I was first introduced to Our Daily Bread, directed by Nikolaus Geyrhalter, in 2009 while watching a series of documentaries focused on industrialized food that I had discovered through Netflix. Within a grouping of three films, Food Inc., King of Corn, and Our Daily Bread, this one stood out immediately for its unconventional approach to the subject. By choosing to eliminate dialogue and narration entirely, and relying solely on natural sound, the film engaged my thoughts in a way the other two documentaries did not, forcing me to actively process what I was seeing rather than being guided toward a conclusion.

The film opens with an unsettling calm. Pig carcasses hang blankly from ceiling hooks, drifting past the lens as the camera follows an employee cleaning the floor beneath them. From there, the film moves methodically from pigs to mechanized gardening, from mechanized gardening to cows lined up for slaughter, from cows awaiting slaughter to vast yellow fields of sunflowers being sprayed by a crop duster, and then to baby chickens rolling down a conveyor belt like car parts on an assembly line. The visual rhythm establishes early on that Our Daily Bread intends to cover the full spectrum of modern food production, leaving little room to question how what ends up on the dinner table arrived there.

Colorful and quietly disturbing, the film stirs emotion through imagery alone as it presents industrial food production across Europe. Making this system appear visually beautiful while simultaneously revealing its dangers is no small task, yet Geyrhalter manages to strike that balance. At times, the experience feels like Baraka colliding with food production, where composition and movement seduce the eye while the subject matter unsettles the mind.

Over its ninety-minute runtime, Our Daily Bread leaves you in awe of how far we have come in the mass production of food, while gently nudging you toward a more uncomfortable question. Just because we can produce food this way, does it mean we should continue? The absence of commentary leaves that decision entirely with the viewer, making the film linger long after the final image fades.

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INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR NIKOLAUS GEYRHALTER:
Taking the opportunity to delve deeper into how it was made, where the idea came from, and how it effected the people who made it.  I took the opportunity to speak with director Nikolaus Geyrhalter about the making of the piece and this is what he had to say:

DOC THIS:  My first thought is how did you come up with the idea of building this piece?
Nikolaus: Usually, I make the films I would like to see and that no one has shown...and so I was very curious about the subject. My interests didn’t have to do so much with the message that the film has at first instead I initially just wanted to see what was happening with our food and then figure out for myself what the film was about.

DT: In regards to the audio, what drove the choice to go without it in this project?
N: Actually I wouldn't say it’s without audio. It’s without narration and commentary. I mean there is audio in the sense that there is the original sound and this sound is so telling. I honestly wouldn’t have known what to add. I mean - I wanted the audience to be able to really see and hear and feel for themselves and then be able to build up there own opinion. I think that this style versus telling them what to think is much stronger because everyone really can enter the same room, the same area - much like I did when filming and then hopefully they can be over-whelmed in the same way that I was. So I think it was just the right choice to leave the audience alone with what they see…like I was alone with what I saw when I was shooting it.

DT: With an experience like this, how does it changed you?
N: Well –um I was shooting the piece over two years, so I saw a lot of change. But I guess for me what I would say is this...on one hand now I really do believe that organic food is better food. I would never think that for me to become a vegetarian would solve the problem, but I guess I just think that you can try to go organic as much as you possibly can. The other thing I learned is if you try to eat as clean as possible and go organic and if you do all the ‘right stuff’ to try to avoid this industry, you simply can’t really avoid it at some level.  Even if you can escape it because you have the money to afford to buy better food you must realize that there are other people who may not have that money and won’t be able to do that.  So it is the kind of reality that we are facing and living in whether you like it or not…for me I guess there are a lot of concerns.  But at the moment I guess do what I can.  I grow my own potato’s and try to live as organic as possible and that is it.

DT: I am curious with some of the factories with the chickens and the cows and what not.  Did you light those rooms or did you just shoot them with natural light?
N: No, it was all natural light. I didn’t have the chance to put any artificial light in.  Although it wasn’t really necessary because the light as it is it’s part of the architecture - it’s part of the structure of those rooms, so I was very happy to just work with the light that I found.

DT: Where there any scenes that you had to cut out for the length of time or other reasons that you wish you could have left in?
N: You know we cut out all the interviews.   We did do interviews, but it was a decision during the start of editing that interviews were just too boring and so we decided from the very beginning not to use any interviews at all.  It was just that we felt that what ever the people interviewed had to say it would not contribute to the film at all because what we saw with our own eyes was much stronger than what people could tell.  So this was the big change of direction in the film that we decided that we wouldn’t have any thing the interviewers said in it…it was not the original concept.

DT: When you were starting to work on it, how did you go about getting funding? Or how difficult was it to get commissioned for this project?
N: I have to say that in Austria we are very lucky because there is serious funding for documentaries especially if they are made for cinema. And usually you will get some amount of funding for research and then you have to apply again, but if the project is approved you will find they are able to award good amounts of funding for documentaries here.  Now it is getting a little more complicated as the budgets are getting smaller and smaller every year, but at that time to receive funding was not that complicated.

DT: Are you working on anything new now?
N: In the moment I am about to finish a film about Europe and this is also a film without commentary or narration. From the structure it can be compared with Our Daily Bread, but it’s more about where we as a society are standing right now and it also has to do with immigration and deportation.

DT: Is that connected with terrorism, international, or what is the theme connected with?
N: No, its more a bit philosophical about just where our country or Europe in general stands and how superior or inferior we really are or are not.  I wouldn’t even necessarily call it a documentary, but more like an essay.

DT: What’s the name of it?
N: In German it will probably be ABENDLAND in English I think it will just be called Europe.

DT:  Thanks for your time.
N: My pleasure thanks for your interest.

Reviewing this film and speaking to Nikolaus about its making was an honor and I hope you enjoyed.  As always I encourage you to comment with thoughts on the review or film as well as check out the links for preview and purchase.

Thanks for reading!

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OFFICIAL WEBSITE: http://www.ourdailybread.at/jart/projects/utb/website.jart?rel=en

Standing Army, directed by Enrico Parenti and Thomas Fazi

I was recently introduced to Standing Army, directed by Enrico Parenti and Thomas Fazi, by an Italian friend of mine who works at RAI, Italy’s national television network. He felt the film might interest me, given that I am an American, a veteran, and a filmmaker, and he was right. The documentary was produced by an Italian crew who were inspired to make the film following the announcement that the United States military planned to build a new base in Vicenza, Italy, a decision that moved forward despite widespread public opposition, protests from local residents, and outspoken political resistance from the region.

The film begins by documenting these protests before expanding outward, taking the viewer on a tour of Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo and then grounding its argument in unclassified statistics and extensive archival footage related to the US military. Over the course of three years, Parenti and Fazi assembled a detailed examination of the United States’ expanding global military presence, the effects this presence has on host countries, and the possible motivations and risks behind its continued growth. What they ultimately present is an unsettling diagnosis of a condition that many Americans may already sense but rarely confront directly.

The title Standing Army itself is compelling. Visually, it evokes the image of soldiers in uniform, waiting, prepared, and immobile. When that army is the United States military, the subject becomes even more difficult to ignore. Growing up in the US, hearing phrases like “our military is the best in the world” shouted by a drill instructor in boot camp, is something I admit I once carried with pride. This film challenges that pride by placing it under external examination. Viewed through the lens of foreign filmmakers who step inside the US to interview scholars and authors such as Noam Chomsky, Catherine Lutz, and Gore Vidal, the documentary offers a perspective that is difficult to gain while living within the country’s borders.

Using field research, archival footage, and expert testimony, Standing Army frames the United States as a modern empire and connects the immense growth of its military to long standing warnings issued by past presidents, including George Washington and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower’s cautionary words about the military industrial complex, a term I first encountered in The Fog of War, become a recurring anchor point. The film argues that terrorism and foreign wars are not isolated outcomes but symptoms of an overextended system. It also draws a clear line between the expansion of US military bases and the interests of global oil contractors, a connection that has been repeated so often in recent history that it risks becoming background noise to voters more focused on local news or reality television.

Watching the film’s depiction of a military apparatus that appears able to go where it wants, when it wants, while leaving cultural and environmental damage in its wake, is deeply uncomfortable. Yet it is also unsurprising, particularly in light of events associated with Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Perhaps the most painful realization the film offers is the suggestion that the US military is no longer defined solely by the idea of standing ready to defend the nation. Instead, it has evolved into a complex system that increasingly pursues economic and political stability through conflict, positioning its resources wherever it sees advantage.

The film is not without its weaknesses. Its most notable flaw is a lack of meaningful opposition to its central argument, which at times pushes the message toward the edge of propaganda. Relying heavily on expert interviews that reinforce the same viewpoint, the film labels the US military as the “800 pound gorilla in the room” without offering counter perspectives from policymakers or military officials. Selective use of a public speech by Hillary Clinton and visual manipulation of footage featuring Barack Obama, making him appear cold and distant, further reveal the filmmakers’ willingness to shape perception. Even the opening music carries a tone of paranoia. While these choices maintain tension and engagement, they also weaken the film’s credibility by leaning too heavily in one direction.

Still, it is difficult to ignore moments that cut through these shortcomings. Watching Edward Luttwak, a consultant to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, dismissively address those who challenge military interests is jarring and revealing. Listening to author William Blum calmly list recent wars alongside the military bases that followed gives weight to the film’s claims. By the end, it becomes easier to understand how it might feel to live with a foreign military embedded within one’s country, and harder to deny that the United States is most often the one occupying that role.

As a side note, Standing Army has received recognition across parts of Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, though it has yet to secure distribution in the United States. You can watch the trailer below and visit the Standing Army site to purchase a copy. It is a professionally made and valuable film for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the United States’ military influence around the world.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. Comment and join for future reviews.

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BUY YOUR COPY AT:

http://www.standingarmy.it/
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With Jean-du-Sud Around the World A Film by Yves Gelinas

Alone Across the Atlantic, directed by and starring Yves Gélinas, was given to me as a gift by a friend of mine, Dan Wasserman, which felt especially appropriate considering the two of us spent nearly three months on a small boat together in 2006. From my first viewing, I immediately fell in love with the film, both for its accuracy in portraying life at sea and for its carefully paced editorial rhythm and poetically written narration. Since then, I have watched it numerous times, partly as a reflection on my own voyage and partly for the simple enjoyment of observing this quiet, determined man and his deeply personal perspective on undertaking such an immense task.

Jean du Sud is the name of the small sailboat that carries Gélinas around the world, and within the film she becomes more than a vessel. Written and framed as a central character, Jean emerges as the true hero of the journey, carrying a young Yves across oceans and through months of isolation. Over time, the two form a bond that may seem strange to anyone who has never experienced extended solo travel at sea, something akin to Tom Hanks and Wilson in Cast Away, yet it feels entirely accurate and earned.

The journey begins gently, drifting down the Atlantic in calm conditions where the pleasures of sailing feel almost effortless. Handmade bread, warm equatorial climates, and friendly conversations over shortwave radio with a contact in Nova Scotia make the idea of sailing the globe seem blissful and manageable. But the film never allows that illusion to last for long. Months into the voyage, contact with the outside world is lost. Depression, exhaustion, and a loss of focus set in. A broach leaves Jean dismasted and broken, forcing Gélinas to improvise a jerry rig and limp to shore, ending the trip prematurely.

Seemingly defeated, Yves returns home heartbroken. Yet the story does not conclude there. His connection to Jean proves stronger than the setback. Months later, he returns, rebuilds, repairs, and recommits to finishing what they started together. The film captures this return with quiet resolve, culminating in a successful completion of the voyage and a reaffirmation of purpose.

Watching this small, unassuming man in his sea-worn outfits, and at times no outfit at all, is both entertaining and unexpectedly enlightening. Moments like crafting and flying a homemade kite with a camera attached, offering a bird’s eye view of the boat and the vast ocean below, stand out as visual highlights. His loneliness during holidays spent away from his children feels deeply human. His descent into depression, breaking under the weight of the sea, and eventual recovery make the journey profoundly inspiring.

It is rare in life to experience a trip like this. But if you have, if you want to, or if you simply want to understand what it feels like to live inside such a commitment, Alone Across the Atlantic is a meaningful place to begin.

I hope you enjoy it. If you have seen it, or decide to watch it, write me. I would love to hear your thoughts.

TRAILER:

Waltz with Bashir, directed by Ari Folman

Waltz with Bashir, directed by Ari Folman, is an undeniably tragic and at times mildly morbid piece of history, spun in a way that entertains the mind, opens the eyes, and leaves you wondering how war can look so beautiful while being so painful. The film opens with an intensely striking scene of wild dogs running through the streets of a city in Lebanon, immediately pulling you into Folman’s journey to recover a memory that has been buried for more than thirty years. In doing so, the film guides you directly into a dream state shaped by fear, guilt, and trauma experienced by characters who feel fictional at first, yet carry very real suffering from the events they survived.

Throughout Waltz with Bashir, it becomes difficult to separate the cartoony figures on screen from the profound tragedy contained in the stories they tell. The hypnotic animation style and psychologically charged color palette draw you in, creating the sensation of overhearing distant horrors through a cracked door at the end of a long, cold, dimly lit hallway. The artistic depictions of Lebanon and life in the Middle East are intercut with scenes rooted in the harsh realities of war, forming a strange and unsettling connection between what we think we know about conflict and what we do not.

As Folman works to resolve his mental block, he reconnects with former comrades and consults therapists who gently guide him through the process of memory retrieval. These encounters are edited together with action sequences, conversations, and music in a way that feels seamless, allowing the film to function as both a retelling and an unraveling of the past in a single movement. The structure drifts past preconceived notions about the Middle East and quietly opens your eyes to lived realities that are often flattened or ignored.

By the end of Waltz with Bashir, the act of therapy extends beyond the filmmaker and those directly involved. It reaches outward, delivering a sudden and sobering sense of reality to the audience. The resolution does not arrive gently. Instead, it wakes you to the sound and weight of war, leaving you with an understanding of why, for those who served, these memories often remain tucked away down a long hallway, preserved in fragments and images that feel unreal even to them.

I encourage you to take the time to watch Waltz with Bashir and form your own conclusions. If you do, feel free to comment or email me your thoughts.

Trailer:

Links below:

http://waltzwithbashir.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLkwfsFzrJw&feature=related

Manufactured Landscapes, directed by Jennifer Baichwal and featuring the photography of Edward Burtynsky

Manufactured Landscapes, directed by Jennifer Baichwal and featuring the photography of Edward Burtynsky, is a surprisingly good piece about Burtynsky’s documentation of global production and its effects on the planet. Initially, I felt like I might be watching a mark off of Baraka directed by Ron Fricke in 1992, one of my personal favorites. However, as the film progresses through shots of massive earth mover trucks that look like toys driving against the massive strip mining operations, it begins to define itself in slightly different terms.

The film opens with a long, rolling dolly shot through a giant production plant in China, accompanied by cinematography from Peter Mettler. Moving through what Burtynsky describes as “the largest industrial incursions I could find,” the sequence does an excellent job of grabbing your visual attention and placing you in a mindset ready to observe and listen. Still photographs of altered landscapes, wide zooms revealing mass pollution, and sweeping pans showing human-driven change make you feel like a giant looking down on an anthill.

Discarded motherboards that resemble a strange blue green haze mark the transition into the middle of the film. Up to this point, the story moves slowly, building its visual argument, but with the introduction of technological debris the documentary becomes more pointed. Scenes of burning, stripping, and discarding electronic waste into unmanaged locations, where computer parts pollute waterways and clutter the landscape, stand in stark contrast to the likable term recyclable goods. The film reinforces this idea by moving through massive container ship yards and then bringing us full circle to muddy graves where these objects are torn apart for scraps. It is overwhelming to see both our great accomplishments and their demise presented side by side.

As the film closes, Manufactured Landscapes avoids assigning blame. Burtynsky does not point a finger, and Baichwal allows the imagery to speak for itself. With music by Evelyn Glennie underscoring the scale of what we are seeing, the film leaves you in awe of how much larger these systems are than any one individual and wondering what role we play within them. The mountain sized gashes in the landscape, the colossal carcasses of container ships, and the endless arms of cranes moving earth make the mind reel. The film ultimately reflects our chosen course on the planet and the consequences that follow, leaving the viewer to decide what to do next.

Trailer:

Further information:
http://www.filmforum.org/films/manufactured.html