DOCUMENTARIES

Besides reading, watching documentaries is the best way to get valuable information that will better your life, besides whatever is on Tiktok.

I feel that documentaries are the bridge between people who don’t read and people who do. In my universe I enjoy documentaries about matters that otherwise would elude your typical thoughts, for example there are things that you can think such as what cake looks like and there are things that you cannot, such as fill in the blank. Documentaries should unlock an area of your mind that was never there because it’s a new pathway, not simply entertain the current routes because certain subjects are too complicated or dramatic, etc. Fill in the blank.​​​​​​
HYPERNORMALISATION, 2016
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thLgkQBFTPw
Movie Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperNormalisation#Chapters
Filmmaker Adam Curtis: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0193231/
What’s it about?
The film begins in 1975 and ends in a world without power. It’s the chronology of events that shifts our perceived reality from an enlightened state to one governed by money and influence. It’s like being in Disneyland as a child, when you’re an adult you understand the machine moves the doll's head, but as a child the doll is alive and nobody can tell you otherwise. It’s the classic Allegory of the Cave story, the flickering of shadows on the wall are reality, until you turn and see the reality is the puppeteers. It’s not necessarily bad, because surely you loved Disneyland before you realized that Mickey is probably an underpaid laborer, but the sooner you accept the possibility of motions of global politics the sooner you’ll stop drooling.
Why watch it?
Have you heard of the term Polymath? A polymath is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. This documentary’s filmmaker Adam Curtis is a great example of a Polymath. There are stings of events that result in the reality in which you’re living and if this documentary doesn’t enlighten your acceptance that events chain into others with human influence then I hope it jarrs you toward understanding that fundamental principle of our seemingly forward momentum.
BARAKA, 1993
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI5D-YyBSB8
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baraka_(film)
Filmmaker Ron Fricke: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0294825/
What’s it about?
No dialog, no narration, just amazing music to scenes from around the planet. It starts with a baboon resting in a hot spring. They’re so comfortable that their eyes close and the whole time they look human, scenes of homeless children in India and songs sung perfectly sysinced deep in forests by tribespeople with face paint, and the constant motion and apparent chaos of modern society. It’s like a soundtrack with visuals attached and each song telling a story of tranquility, pandemonium, and despair.
Why watch it?
It’s just so beautiful, I feel very American, but sometimes I want to be reminded there’s a great many other worlds out there because otherwise I’d just be born comfortable and die comfortable. There is so much beauty in the world, and not just with nature, but also the places where people live their entire lives just as you do in your little town. Documentaries like Baraka are the reason why people know of lives other than their own, far away in remote places they most likely will never see, and all in glorious 4K.
CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS, 2010
Watch: https://watchdocumentaries.com/cave-of-forgotten-dreams/
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_Forgotten_Dreams
Filmmaker Ron Fricke: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001348/
What’s it about?
There’s a cave in France called Chauvet Cave that’s named after its discoverers. After a rockslide blocked its entrance it remained shut until it was discovered in 1994 by cave hunters that included Jean-Marie Chauvet. Inside are the oldest cave paintings ever discovered, dated to about 35,000 years ago, and among them are messages from our formerly living ancestors about the world. 
Chauvet Cave: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvet_Cave
Why watch it?
This documentary has a very special place in my life, it’s arguably my favorite one in this list, and I vividly remember being the youngest person by thirty years when watching in the theater. It was in 3D and I only ever wish that I can see it in 3D again. Of all of the historical documentaries of human’s lives this one might be the record of the furthest back in time we have. There are three specific parts in the film that I remember very fondly because you need that level of human depth or you might stay a fleeting soul.
When archaeologist Julien Monney describes witnessing someone touching up cave paintings, and when he asked why the person was doing it the person said, “I am not painting, it’s the hand, the hand of the spirit that’s painting now” (16:30). 
When Jean-Michel Geneste reminds us that human beings record for the sake of our future selves, and that we’re all born into a world explained by the living, as is evidenced by this writing. (1hr:30)
When showing us the Venus of Hohle Fels, Archaeologist Nicholas Connard reminds us there were once two rival human species in competition in the frozen Iceland of The Ice Age (48:55).
The Venus of Hohle Fels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Hohle_Fels
CHRONOS, 1985
What’s it about?
Like Baraka this film has no dialog, just 42 minutes of glorious music and fast motion controlled scenes from five continents shot with a custom built 62mm camera. It’s heavily symbolic and as it highlights the history of civilization from prehistory and Egypt, to the Renaissance and the modern age, in a way that’s somewhat chronological and unpacks the ingenuity of the human made world.
Why watch it?
When I heard about this documentary I nearly fell out of my chair. I read the synopsis, “no dialog, timelapse from around the world”, and knew what I had to do. We have a projector that beams an image the size of an aquarium at the foot of our bed with a subwoofer underneath the mattress. There was only one thing to do, get comfortable, get cannabis, and dissolve in my own mind. That’s what I did. The music and the motion guided me and I had no time to think of my own ego. There are three scenes that I remember clearly:
One is of an early street, with cobblestones a thousand years before vehicles, and with a mini sidewalk (15:38).
The intensity of the music during this scene and the close up of a mosaic of a woman's face, she’s carrying a tray of food, and she’s been dead for a thousand years (15:00)
The psychedelic and somewhat sad climax to the film is of the shot of the inside of a helicopter as it appears to spiral out of control (39:55)
KOYAANISQUATSI, 1982
What’s it about?
The Native American tribe, The Hopi, have a prophecy called the curse of Koyaanisqatsi that marks the total disintegration of the life of harmony and balance. That is the subject of this film. Like Fricke’s other documentaries it’s shot in time lapse and slow motion with emphasis on symbolic means of life, and as in this particular film, life in a spiral.
Why watch it?
It’s important to feel uncomfortable. It’s been a theme in my life since I saw a suicide in person. Discomfort is important for you to be able to adequately appreciate when life is going well. It’s also important to appreciate our Native American ancestors of America. This place wasn’t always the Christan haven that it clamors to be, but rather it was and still is a land of stories told by people who live, lived, and died here for thousands of years. This film should force you to reflect on your cushioned life of Hulu binging and shot drinking. Another reason to watch is that its music is composed by Philip Glass who is the master of epic transcendental music.
The first shot of a space vehicle taking off toward the future (2:07)
Scenes from New York City in the early 1980’s, the people living their lives of which many of whom are gone, and their stories (1hr:10)
The New York Stock Exchange, and it’s commotion, slowed down to showcase the ghosts of their lives (1hr.15.23)
A rocket launch and its subsequent explosion in the air. The shot holds on the falling debris, and slows to a crawl, forcing you to accept the truth of it’s turmoil (1hr.16.39)
LO AND BEHOLD, 2016
What’s it about?
The origin of the internet and how the impact of technology on society. It’s structured in many acts, like a play, with the first act that starts with the first message sent from a computer in a UCLA basement to another at Stanford University on October 29th, 1969 at 10:30pm. The film highlights the dark side of the internet that includes the first viral images of a newly deceased person and internet addiction, as well as our perception of technology as being alive, and the potential for a future with and without modern computing which could lead to a utopian or dystopian reality.
Why watch it?
When I heard the internet travels through cables deep in the ocean I thought about how they could easily be severed. I had a joke on stage about how a cheetah in a future where we’re all connected to reality through a cord would delete all of humanity while chasing a marmot. There’s the expression, civilization is a mile wide and an inch deep, the width is the breadth of human technology and the depth is shown through the gaps in it’s competency.
How the everyone who had an email address knew each other personally (6:41)
A specific soccer kicking robot that is cheered for more than the others for some reason (27:34)
The dark side of the internet. The story of the first viral image of a deceased accident victim that was posted online by a nearby paramedic and the pain it caused the parents (28:22)
A former engineer with the government organization Sandia National Laboratories which is responsible for nuclear research and assistance with modern defense technologies for the military and his reluctance to talk about a secret project called Titan Rain (59:31)
A Honda robot pouring a glass of water for a human (1hr.24.12)
NIGHT AND FOG, 1956
What’s it about?
Night and Fog was shot only ten years after the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. It describes the lives of the prisoners in scenes from inside the camp with narration written by French poet Jean Cayrol. There are plenty of holocaust documentaries with dramatic scenes of Hitler and his posse, but this short film is focused on the people inside of the barbed fences, and the truth of their lives filmed only years prior in an effort to capture the truth before the grass grows over history.
Why watch it?
It’s important that serious stories are told by poets or they’d just be news of what once happened. When told well they can be interpreted in a way that could more easily move a person toward contemplation or action. I think it’s important that this was created so soon after the events because the stories are less-misinterpreted by time. There are detailed instances of what happened based on stories told by people who remembered them so clearly. It’s thirty minutes, unlike the documentary Shoah and it’s many hours, but its impact is greater than some films five times its length. There are too many incredible moments in this documentary to list, just watch it.
TITICUT FOLLIES, 1967
What’s it about?
This documentary is about the patients of Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane. The staff routinely bullied, force fed, and stripped the patients naked. The title is of the same name of the talent show the staff put on where they encouraged the inmates to sing and dance.
Why watch it?
This isn’t the most entertaining documentary on this list but it’s genuine and is one of very few feature length films depicting life in a mental institution. A lot of it is routine, showing an inmate wandering washing his hair or another being fed through a tube, but overall the scenes are honest and unflinching. It’s fascinating to see people behave in ways that seem unnatural but are their reality.
WHICH WAY IS THE FRONTLINE FROM HERE?, 2013
What’s it about?
This film is a tribute to the photojournalist Tim Hetherington who was killed in 2011 during the Libyan civil war alongside his colleague Chris Hondros from the shrapnel of a blast from either a mortar or RPG. He was known for the stories he told using photography in wartorn places in a way that was as much art as it was documentation. The film shows his career, his work, and words from the people who knew him best. He captured intense scenes of war but also the people involved which often was the softer side of the story. Just days after his death the Libyan city of Ajdabiya renamed its largest square after him.
Why watch it?
This documentary was a major contributing factor to me buying a camera and loving photography. Tim traveled to warzones and wartorn places to document what was going on and was often in dangerous situations, but he also told stories with his images, and was such a nice person. This is a story that I believe those who care to know about conflict zones and love journalistic and artistic photography will enjoy.
A shot from his short film of a man on a hospital bed vomiting on himself (12:05)