The Other Side
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True/False Dispatch 1: Director w/vs. Subject
It was a very good year for True/False, but I’ll save the taking-fest-temperature overview for our next print issue. In starting to sort through this year’s films, therefore, I need some kind of arbitrary framework that will provide the illusion of meaningfully segueing from one work to another. In this dispatch, I’ll be focusing on the thorny subject of what happens when documentaries do — or antagonistically don’t — try to serve as compassionate ambassadors to the world on behalf of their subjects. Unambiguous Sympathy Christopher LaMarca and Jessica Dimmock’s The Pearl is a nighttime movie, all quiet, warmly illuminated interior spaces populated by a self-supporting […]
by Vadim Rizov on Mar 10, 2016 -
“I Am Completely Oblivious to Risk When I Film”: Five Questions for The Other Side Director Roberto Minervini
Italian-born, American-based Roberto Minervini’s fourth feature The Other Side grew out of his previous film, 2013’s Stop the Pounding Heart. That hybrid documentary followed the (fictionalized) romance between Colby Trichell, a teen rodeo rider, and Sara Carlson, a young girl in a devoutly Christian family. Moving from Texas to West Monroe, Louisiana, Minervini’s new documentary starts by following Lisa, the sister of Colby’s dad Todd, and her boyfriend Mark. This is a dark story, one of drug abuse and disenfranchisement, and the second half plunges further into the backwoods, riding along with a virulently anti-Obama militia as they train and prepare to confront their perceived enemies. The […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 10, 2015
