I am not so deluded as to think that the majority of people turn to a nice, juicy, critical analysis of a real-life topic in the form of a full-length film on a Friday night. I’m probably in the (very cool, very sophisticated) minority with my love of a good documentary. It’s pretty rare for me to find someone who shares my appreciation for a good talking head. (Not to be confused with the iconic David Byrne band). I have a friend who is my twin in many ways. In fact, we refer to each other as “my twin.” We once spent a night eating tacos, playing Dance, Dance, Revolution, and watching a cult documentary. The classic documentary structure is so ingrained in us that we don’t even notice it anymore. The lower thirds, the montages, the expert talking heads/family members/witnesses/celebrities. Of course, some documentaries do it better than others. The choice of subject is important, to start with. The ones that captivate my attention foray into a completely unexplored topic. Sure, I’ll catch the odd true crime documentary that’s trodding over familiar territory, but those ones have their own, unique appeal. In general, I want to know something I’ve never known before. The following documentaries are in our physical collection or we provide access to them through the Kanopy streaming app. They might not be the most flashy or spectacle-driven media in existence, but if you give one a chance, it might just prompt you to do your own deep dive into the granular detail of reality.

One of the best documentaries on our streaming media app Kanopy is Kedi. Meaning “cat” in Turkish, it’s a love letter to the street cats of Istanbul. The stunning visuals of a bustling, sprawling city between Europe and Asia on the Bosphorus Strait were originally released in 2016. I wonder what the city’s like today. Are there still so many stray cats? Have they made efforts to spay and neuter large numbers of them to make it easier to properly care for them? The Turkish culture celebrates cats for all their idiosyncrasies, charms, and wiles, with several folks feeding the same cats on their routes through the metropolis. That makes Kedi absolutely worth a watch. It’s almost as comforting to view as it is to have a cat purring on your chest, a pile of fur bobbing up and down with each breath.

Did you know Taika Waititi’s 2023 movie Next Goal Wins was originally a documentary? Also called Next Goal Wins, it follows the beleaguered national American Samoa soccer team following a titanic defeat in 2001, losing 31-0 to Australia in a FIFA match. It’s an inspiring story with a winning cast of characters (because even real people become characters in a documentary narrative). Players with rich, emotional lives captured by the camera, a Dutch coach recruited from the US with a heartbreaking past and a massive chip on his shoulder, the beauty of Polynesia on the screen. It’s a wonderful film. Taika Waititi’s fictionalized version makes several changes to the real-life events. He directed, produced, co-wrote, and acted in the project. I haven’t seen his version, but I would love to do a comparison between the two. I have loved so many TV shows and movies Waititi has been part of. I love his dry, endearing, goofy, comedic sensibilities. I’ve written about What We Do in the Shadows on this blog before. Both the original film about New Zealand vampire flatmates and the spinoff TV show with all new characters are favourites of mine. From what I’ve heard, in Waititi’s dramedy iteration of the American Samoa soccer team’s exploits, the coach (played by Michael Fassbender) becomes a villain in the piece. There’s something sad about that when you learn who the actual Thomas Rongen was, but who knows, maybe the comedy really relies on him being a stark contrast to the charming players. I will find out, but I encourage you to watch them both and make up your own mind about it.

Everyone’s favourite dreamboat and all around good guy, Keanu Reeves, once made a documentary about the emergence of digital video production and the decline of shooting on celluloid film. Did you know that? It came out back in 2012. It was not on my radar at all, but I saw it tooling through Kanopy the other day. (It’s also available as a DVD in our collection here.) I learned so many things about movie production. One of the first things was that filmmakers could only shoot for 10 minutes at a time before the advent of digital. They physically had to remove a magazine of film, send it off to a film lab to be developed off set, and put another magazine on to shoot for another 10 minutes. Needless to say, if you’re a film nerd, you’ll love this one. I found the discussion around the merits and drawbacks of digital versus celluloid fascinating. To give an example, Danny Boyle — famous for Slumdog Millionaire and Trainspotting — recounts the origins of his iconic 28 Days Later film. I remember watching it on my laptop one night and feeling glad that I wasn’t experiencing it on a huge screen with stereo sound. The eerie atmosphere and horror premise would be too much for my sensitive bean countenance. The grainy, fuzziness that is so synonymous with that picture was a deliberate choice by Boyle who reached out to a Danish innovator in digital to create that handheld, immediate, hardscrabble roughness that perfectly matches the post-apocalyptic, zombie story. The almost found footage style of it is so ingrained, I couldn’t imagine it shot on film. Now, I have an entirely new perspective on the movie and the people who made it. Alex Garland, one of the best in the business as far as I’m concerned, wrote the screenplay. If you haven’t already seen it, what are you waiting for?

I can’t believe I haven’t talked about the next documentary before on this blog. Watching it kind of changed my life in a big way. Won’t You Be My Neighbor is the story of Fred Rogers’ life and work as a minister and then children’s entertainer. I remember being emotionally affected by this one. His tireless efforts to create educational content for children, always with a message of “I love you. You are not alone. You matter” are awe-inspiring. He stood up for PBS to receive crucial funding in the US Senate in 1969. When everyone was focused on space exploration, building rocket ships, and putting a ‘man on the moon,’ Mr. Rogers was worried about the children who were going to lose out on valuable lessons delivered over the radio waves. The thing that will stick with me forever is his discussion of being a vegetarian. He famously said he ‘can’t eat anything that has a mother.’ To say this quotation had an impact on me is an understatement. Please check this one out. It’s amazing, and it will give you a whole new appreciation for the man, on top of his amazing show that always kept me company as a kid.

Well, that’s it this time. I hope there’s something here that strikes your fancy. I think documentaries are an undiscovered medium for a lot of people, and I know there’s one out there for everyone. You just have to find that area of knowledge that makes you want to do a fathoms-deep dive. Take care, and I will see you all again soon.