By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Toronto: Politics, Truth & Consequences
Death of a President
UK, USA. Dir. Gabriel Range
Shut Up and Sing
USA. Dir. Barbara Kopple, Cecelia Peck.
Hype hurts the morning after, and journalists who queued up to see DEATH OF A PRESIDENT in the too-small cinema are feeling a bit snookered. Festival programmer Noah Cowan called this “what if?” docu-drama directed by Gabriel Range the “most dangerous and breathtakingly original film” he’d encountered this year; advance press served to fan the flames of controversy and a quick sale to Newmarket Films. For about 30 minutes, D.O.A.P. carries real tension: Set in 2007 Chicago, the site of a presidential visit and angry war protests that get out of control, the movie uses news footage, plus visual effects, plus CCTV footage, plus TV-documentary-like talking heads, to tell the story of the night the president (Bush) was assassinated. But once the deadly event occurs, and the inevitable frameup of a Syrian-born IT engineer begins to unfold, D.O.A.P. never follows through on its premise of showing how the assassination effects the country at large. All windup, no pitch. (As unsettling as the idea is, how would anything change if Cheney were president? Hasn’t it been made clear, in the latest round of 9/11 and Iraq documentary/remembrances, much he already runs the show?
Far better at dramatizing and the truth and consequences of unpopular political speech in this chilly climate is the Dixie Chicks documentary, SHUT UP AND SING. Directed by Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck, the doc will be released soon by the Weinstein company. As both a backstage film and an examination of what happens when public figures speak their minds – and lose fans – the film plays brilliantly. More delightfully, it rocks.
By the way: In the mood for a real “what if?” faux documentary? See IT HAPPENED HERE (1966), directed by Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo, which wonders, all too convincingly, what might have happened under a post WWII occupation of Great Britain.