Dorothy’s Woodend’s Best Documentary Films of 2020

Reality is always stranger than fiction, and this year’s crop of documentary films was a pointed reminder of the fact. How could anything compete with the madness and drama of real events, in particular the Shakespearean shitshow that was the United States election? The Bard himself must have been rolling in his grave thinking, “Who is writing this stuff?”

But if you go down into the 2020 doc trenches, exercise caution. A prolonged immersion can inflict a form of damage. Call it PTDS: post-traumatic documentary syndrome. It’s easy to emerge from an extended period of viewing with the notion that humans are simply no good.

I lost count of the number of films about the ongoing attrition of civil rights, voter suppression, endemic racism, sexual abuse, and abuse of power.

No film was quite as grim as Alexander Nanau’s Collective. A health care scandal in Romania might not sound riveting on paper, but Nanau’s extraordinary exposé used the horrific facts of the story to pose larger questions about the failure of human empathy.

The 2015 Colectiv nightclub fire in Bucharest killed 27 people, with another 146 injured. It was the death of a further 38 young people who perished in hospital, largely from preventable infections, that attracted the attention of journalist Cătălin Tolontan. Along with his team from Sports Gazette, Tolontan’s relentless and dogged coverage broke the story and brought down a government. But for all the darkness uncovered, the film is a powerful and cogent reminder of what fearless truthtellers can achieve in the pursuit of justice. The film is available to screen via Video On Demand.

Counter-balanced against the ongoing bleakness of world events, there were some gentler options.

The idea of a group of people willingly undertaking a period of extreme social distancing might not sound appealing at the moment, but Spaceship Earth offers a fascinating exploration of the Biosphere 2 project.

In the golden era of utopic experimentation, otherwise known as the 1970s, a team of scientists set out to see if humans could survive in an artificially created ecosystem. After bouts of oxygen deprivation and near-starvation, Steve Bannon showed up and wrecked everything. You can’t make this stuff up.

One of the best things that documentaries can do is introduce you to interesting species of humans. The number of biopics this year included everyone from Greta Thunberg to Oliver Sacks, but ordinary people are often just as fascinating,

A case in point is Circus of Books, about a husband and wife who ran an adult bookstore in L.A. The film is a family affair, made by the couple’s daughter and featuring her siblings as well as long-term store employees, who might as well be family. It’s a humble, occasionally ramshackle effort, but its shagginess is also part of its charm, a lot like the store that gives the film its title.

Alice Gu’s The Donut King offered as its tasty centre the story of Ted Ngoy. “Uncle Ted,” as he is affectionately known, fled the Khmer Rouge, started a doughnut empire, lost that empire, started all over again, and along the way inspired an entire community of doughnut makers and lovers. It’s a charming film that may force you to leave your house in search of doughnuts. Luckily, the film is streaming in partnership with different doughnut shops across Canada, including Cartems in Vancouver.

If you’re in need of more sweet offerings, Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles is a fine bit of puff pastry, pleasant to look at and as light as a meringue. The history of pastry is crazy stuff, although the film barely scrapes the surface, offering up a thinly frosted comparison between the height of the French monarchy and the oligarchic excess of New York society. (If you need a more in-depth take on culinary madness, seek out 2010’s Kings of Pastry. I’ve never seen so many grown men cry in my life. It is delicious.)

Harsh or gentle, bitter or sweet, there were as many flavours of non-fiction film in 2020 as there are, well, flavours! Just make sure not to overindulge too much, lest you end the year with a bad case of documentary indigestion.

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