Special Coverage: The 2024 San Francisco Documentary Festival, Part 3
This last entry looks at stories about UFO spirituality and the whole picture of 2020 on-the-ground political upheavel.
Dear Moviegoers,
Occasionally, I’ll review films from beyond the bayous of Louisiana and the Gulf South.
Well, more than occasionally. Often.
This time, I’ve been invited to give some thoughts on some of the films from this year’s San Francisco Documentary Festival, running virtually and in-person until June 9th.
I chose eight films from a grand slate of diverse cinema, the last two of which will be covered in this post. For more information and to buy tickets, visit the official website. Hurry before the event ends.
Enjoy.
And, in case you missed them, here are Parts 1 & 2 of the review series:
What we as moviegoing earthlings have on our hands with a film like Welcome Space Brothers is something on the edge of universal entertainment and cosmic belonging. If nothing else, the various archival clips from the movies made in the 1970s and 80s by the Unarius Academy of Sciences group - an obscure but harmless collective of spiritual self-healers and UFO communicators - represent some grand bizarre and wonderfully outsider cinema. These strange and delightful flicks were only made possible by the teachings of Uriel, AKA Ruth Norman, and her dedicated crew of students and artists. Out of the ordinary, comes the extraordinary, and from the strange to the showcase.
Welcome Space Brothers features testimonials from current and former students and of course footage of Uriel/Ruth Norman in various self-interpretations of character which, for me personally, were some of the more engaging moments - to see the subtle cracks and semi-faults in someone so well-meaning and theatrically presented is satisfying in the way that learning of a parent’s mild youthful indiscretions is. They’re not perfect, and that’s great to remember. Unarius is most certainly not a cult, and not technically a religion either, because the students are all shown as being so aware and lucid, despite the whole “aliens are coming” thing. Presenting things more as an ongoing camp for kids at heart, Welcome Space Brothers treats Unarius very kindly, and perhaps almost too personally and too close. Almost. By no means is this film an advertisement or a recruitment piece, but it does hold itself together as a memorial for the group’s past and an appreciation of its present, which may or may not have been the best approach. I left my viewing uncertain.
What is true, however, is just how entertaining and endearing this movie is. There are lots of colors, lots of lights, lots of DIY (do it yourself) art, lots of creativity, and lots of heart, all from every individual in Unarius. When the spaceships ended up not landing on their property, I felt as disappointed as the collective was. If one or many had landed, however, such an event would only taint the reality of the artistic endeavors that these people lived through. It’s fun and games to finger-paint…until the paintings come alive. Then what? 3.5/5
Set in the state of Michigan, primarily in the metro area of Detroit, 23 Mile captures both the end of the world as we know it and the continuation of the same old same old in startling frames. It’s a video diary that begins as the COVID lockdowns began when the filmmaker makes a trip home to Michigan, and as various citizen activist movements begin. We are inundated with a barrage of so many protests and protestors and social media “journalists” and wannabe militiamen and so on and so on. When time stops and we’re all together in being alone in our homes, alone with ourselves in a world wide web of other-selves…shit gets real, real fast.
There’s the occasional interview with passersby and local TV reporters, just as everyone around walks the street refusing to mind anyone else’s business. 23 Mile isn’t a documentation of a turning point in American history, but rather a first-class flight through unrelenting noise that has no rhyme or rhythm. 23 Mile knows the lyrics and the music of political ideology all too well but is left absolutely flabbergasted and completely exhausted by the end of the frustrating year that was 2020. It’s all screams upon screams about the pandemic to brutality to civil rights to economic rights to voting rights to the vote itself to one person leading us all. This film needs some electrolytes.
While the time was indeed crazy and, as stated before the end credits, things would only get crazier with what happened on January 6th, 23 Mile finds control in the uncontrollable. With such an unwieldy and unholy setting for a story, and a difficult-to-navigate story too, the film, despite its video diary conceit, overcomes the overwhelming by accentuating the positives and eliminating the negatives. In other words, the final edit is superbly constructed and the story is ultimately well-guided. 2020 most certainly needed a guide who was well. At least the free-for-alls went back home and chilled out. For a time, anyway. 4/5