Film Feature: The 10 Best Documentaries of 2012

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5. “West of Memphis”

West of Memphis
Photo credit: Sony Pictures Classics

The saga of the West Memphis 3 is not yet over but Amy Berg’s documentary could be the complete, final statement on the time from the arrest of Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, and Jason Baldwin to their controversial release. Epic in running time, “West of Memphis” captures everything in the award-winning “Paradise Lost” trilogy and then goes beyond to further examine who likely actually committed an unimaginable triple homicide that became one of the most stunning true crime stories of the last two decades. We will not only have a full review early next year but an interview with Echols and wife Lorri Davis.

4. “Burn”

Burn
Photo credit: Apostle

Maybe I’m just a hometown boy but the city I grew up and still love is brilliantly captured in this documentary about how it’s burning to the ground. Detroit firefighters are like no other in the country, mostly because the city gets 30,000 fire calls a year, more than any other. As so many people abandon the motor city, how does anyone keep it from burning to the ground? With a perfect mix of social insight and human stories, “Burn” is one of the best documentaries ever made about firefighting.

3. “Room 237”

Room 237
Photo credit: Highland Park Classics

I wonder if Rodney Ascher knew he was making one of the most critically divisive films of the year when he decided to interview some of the most passionate fans of Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.” While I understand that some people think that Ascher is somehow demeaning the very art of film examination, I don’t see it that way at all. In fact, I see the opposite in this rabbit hole journey into the minds of people who have watched one movie so many times that they’ve become nearly as delusional as its central character. I love Ascher’s structure and the way he intercuts undeniable truths about the film (like the Overlook’s bizarre floorplan) with undeniable nonsense like Kubrick’s face being in the clouds. It all starts to blend until just appreciating the film in any way is what’s important. Right? Wrong? Art is nothing until it is interpreted by a viewer and few films have captured that more interestingly than “Room 237.”

2. “The Central Park Five”

The Central Park Five
Photo credit: IFC

Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, & David McMahon don’t just convey the true story of justice gone horribly awry in New York City, they do so with a framing and structure that makes it riveting cinema. The story of five boys who were unjustly incarcerated for a crime that virtually everyone involved in their prosecution must have known they didn’t commit is fascinating on paper but the movie excels because of how its filmmakers present it as a byproduct of a city obsessed with crime and race. They don’t excuse the action of perverted justice but they more deftly portray how it happens than most films of this type. Riveting throughout and never more so than listening to the voices and stories of the men who had their developmental years ripped away by a city boiling in fear.

1. “The Invisible War”

The Invisible War
Photo credit: New Video

Kirby Dick’s rallying cry for an international injustice to end is the most powerful and best documentary of 2012. A woman in the U.S. Army has a better chance of being sexually assaulted than of being injured in combat. That is such a shameful fact that it has inherent power even just in this feature but it’s the way that Dick presents the stories of unspeakable crime that elevates his film. Women who volunteer to protect us are not being protected themselves and the heroes of this group, the ones who rise up to fight back against a power structure that encourages this kind of behavior, are some of the most memorable people you’ll meet all year.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com