DocuWeeks and Its "Complicated" Women

Film fans in withdrawal for the screen presence of complex women, particularly older women, should line up to see Megan Doneman’s riveting Yes Madam, Sir, one of 17 nonfiction features screening in the International Documentary Association’s 13th annual DocuWeeks showcase. In chronicling the life and groundbreaking achievements of Kiran Bedi, India’s first female police officer, Doneman pushes beyond the hagiography in which too many filmmakers engage when trying to illustrate a subject’s heroism. Her lumps-and-all portrait includes Bedi’s father breaking with tradition to educate his four daughters; Bedi joining the police force in 1972, setting the stage for her controversial, career-long battles with police and government bureaucrats; and the globally influential prison reforms Bedi formulated. But Yes Madam,Sir isn’t pure celebration; the egoism beneath Bedi’s altruism, and the self-absorption that costs Bedi’s daughter and husband dearly, are also shown. The result dazzles: a depiction of enviable heroism rooted within a flawed and recognizably human persona. Similarly tough, multilayered engagement with subject matter is the strength of Julie Bridgham’s Sari Soldiers and Lee Storey’s Smile ’Til It Hurts: The Up With People Story. The first is set in Nepal, where the deadly battle between the Royal Army and Maoists is largely told through the story of one woman’s search for her missing daughter, who was arrested and “disappeared” as a way of punishing her mother for speaking to the press about a niece’s rape and murder by the army. Bridgham’s inspiring, infuriating, sometimes hard-to-watch film underscores the old but still noteworthy point that the female body is one of the great casualties of war and political strife; it’s ironic that both the Royal Army and the Maoists use huge numbers of female soldiers to wage their battles. Storey knows that the Up With People volunteer organization inspires giggles and derision in equal measure, so he opens with old footage of the troupe singing and dancing at the height of their late-’60s–early-’70s visibility to get (most of) the chuckles out of the way early. The film is a withering critique of the organization’s religious cult roots, right-wing political subtext and insipid music while also being respectful of the fact that, for many who signed on, the group offered them a way to affect positive, even progressive, change in the world. Also recommended: Sweet Crude, Tapped and Garbage Dreams. (ArcLight Hollywood; thru Thurs., Aug. 20. docuweeksla.bside.com)

Smile ‘Til It Hurts: The Up With People Story

Related Content

• L.A. Weekly Critic J. Hoberman's Top 10 Movies of 2011
  December 22, 2011
• A DOC YOU CAN CELEBRATE
  January 6, 2011
• Cari Ann Shim Sham*'s Documentary About Tap-Dancing on Sand
  August 18, 2011
• L.A. Planning Commission Considers Doomscraper at old CBS studios
  December 8, 2009
• Construction Report: Tender Greens Hollywood To Open Next Month
  December 7, 2009

More About

• Kiran Bedi
• Megan Doneman
• Julie Bridgham
• Lee Storey
• Police