The proliferation of documentaries on streaming services makes it difficult to choose what to watch. Each month, we’ll select three nonfiction films — classics, recently overlooked docs, and more — that will be worth your time.
“Of Men and War” (2015)
Stream it Kanopy. Rent it Amazon, Apple TV, Fandango at home, Google Play and Kino Now.
Every politician who makes decisions about sending troops into war zones should see this hard-hitting, moving documentary, which follows several post-9/11 American veterans as they receive treatment for PTSD at a program in Yountville, California. Filming lasted from 2008 to 2013 There is a tragic code of events on the screen: In 2018, long after the film was completed, three women who worked on the program were killed after being taken hostage by a former participant.
What we see in the documentary – directed by French director Laurent Bécue-Renard – are veterans, all men, working to readjust to civilian life and come to terms with their new fragility. They, and their significant others, recognize that they have changed dramatically from who they were before they developed. (“You don’t feel as strong as you used to,” one says. “You feel flawed.”) In group therapy sessions, sharing doesn’t come easily to men who have been asked to be stoic professionally. The presence of the cameras, subtle as they are (direct cinema pioneer Albert Maysles gets a credit in the credits), obviously made things even more difficult. The vets don’t immediately trust each other either. More than once, someone storms out of a session.
The patients aren’t identified in any formal way—the closing credits list first names—but we see many stories unfold over time. Some men share terrifying memories from abroad. One remembers kicking in a door and accidentally killing a little girl. Another remembers having to flatten a corpse into which the rigor of the dead had entered. Another remembers smelling the flesh of his face cooking after an explosion. A man honestly confronts why his marriage, upon his return, is now in jeopardy. “I realized I have no idea what it’s like to be a woman and marry a man who’s twice your size and deadly in the military, too,” she says.
But there are also hopeful stories – of reconciliation, new parenthood, modest breakthroughs in dealing with anger or redirecting guilt. “Of Men and War” doesn’t impose a neat narrative arc on the material, which, by its very nature, resists easy analysis.
Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind (2022)
Hardly a substantial behind-the-scenes showcase, but something any Coen brothers collaborator will want to check out, “Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind” is a product of how Ethan Coen spent the early days of the pandemic. It is his first documentary and his first direction without his brother, Joel. (“Drive-Away Dolls” came later.) But it’s also not a hit.
According to accounts, T-Bone Burnett had approached Coen and his wife, editor Tricia Cooke, about making a film about rock ‘n’ roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis. The two made a documentary out of a collection of Lewis’ archival performances and interviews. (The project “came to us two or maybe three weeks after the pandemic, when everyone was still afraid to go out,” Cook recalled to Rolling Stone.) The result doesn’t claim to be anything more than the editing exercise suggested by the original story — but Cooke and the Coen can really edit. At 73 minutes, “Trouble in Mind” presents a thorough overview of Lewis’ musical career and bows out to just about the maximum amount of time an audience could reasonably be asked to devote to his presence. How he could move his hands so wildly and still hit the right piano keys is a source of enduring wonder. But he was also a noxious egomaniac who, in old interviews, makes unflinching wisecracks about marrying his 13-year-old cousin, which he ingloriously did.
Abundant performance clips often leave the songs playing. Numbers include “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” (anyone who didn’t like that song “had to have a problem — with the music,” says Lewis); “Lewis Boogie”, which he performs with his cousin Mickey Gilley. and “I’ll Fly Away”, which she sings with Little Richard. (The song is no stranger to Ethan: Allison Krauss and Gillian Welch’s cover was on the Burnett-produced “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack.) Plus, there’s footage of Lewis at a gospel recording session in Nashville in January 2020. The interviews are a must-see, with Lewis extolling his own brilliance over and over and sometimes coming across like a Coen character. (Returning from the hospital after treatment for a ruptured stomach, he delivers a television interview holding a comically large cigar.)
Screened at Cannes in May 2022, before Lewis’ death in October, the film had a screening at the Film Forum in New York in January and is now, with little fanfare, available to stream.
“Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgrois” (2023)
“Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgrois” by Frederick Wiseman chronicles the operation of a three Michelin star restaurant in Ouches, France. While making it, the director was able to eat his lunch there. It won’t be long into this four-hour film before viewers are intensely jealous of that fact, though they may be thankful they’re not faced with the crippling indecision of choosing from such a massive cheese cart. (The maître fromager’s recitation gets one of the film’s biggest laughs.)
Wiseman, being Wiseman, is interested in much more than just showing off the kitchen and the cooking process. “Menus-Plaisirs” chronicles the operation of nearly every aspect of the restaurant, from arguments over menus to sourcing ingredients to preparations for customers who don’t want this or that item in their meals. At this restaurant, being picky seems downright gauche, but the staff handle it all with grace.
The ballet of setting the table and good service is also part of the picture, as are the dining experiences of guests who may be too overwhelmed by the aromas of their food. “Menus-Plaisirs” is also a portrait of the head chef, Michel Troisgrois, and his sons, and the extent to which he is willing to take on and delegate. Interacts with visitors in French and English. He criticizes an employee for improper brain preparation and directs him to recipe books. When in doubt, he says, consult Auguste Escoffier or the Larousse Gastronomique. He gets into an extended back-and-forth with one of his boys about whether something is missing from a plate of kidney, passion fruit and sriracha. Can it be topped with al dente white asparagus? Son thinks the asparagus will dilute the flavor too much. And no one, no one seems to love the taste of passion fruit as much as Monsieur Troisgrois.
Wiseman closely guards the distribution of his films. Most can be streamed on Kanopy, which is available through some libraries and academic institutions. But “Menus-Plaisirs” will do stream free on PBS through April 20. It’s Wiseman’s signature pop-up restaurant.