Top Ten Docos with Drive

10. An Inconvenient Truth - Davis Guggenheim (2006)
The Academy Award winner for Best Documentary in 2007, An Inconvenient Truth brought climate change into the mainstream with the twin props of Al Gore and a slide show. Beginning with the classic line, “I’m Al Gore; I used to be the next President of the United States”, the film traces Gore’s personal story interwoven with scientific data about the changing of the earth’s climate due to human impact. While climate change was already certainly on the agenda, the film gave the issue a much needed boost further into the global consciousness - supported by an army of climate messengers around the world who were trained to give the slide show presentation.



9. The Cove - Louie Psihoyos (2009)
There’s a special kind of fervour reserved for converts to a cause, and a perfect example is Ric O’Barry, the former trainer of the dolphins for the TV show Flipper. After one of the main dolphins died in his arms, O’Barry began his crusade against cetaceans being kept in captivity. The Cove follows him, filmmaker Psihoyos and their team through attempts to expose to the world the herding of masses of dolphins into a particular cove in Japan where some are extracted and sold on to marine parks, but most are slaughtered for meat. The team runs a covert operation to obtain footage of the slaughter, sneaking in several times at night and using hidden cameras and night vision. The film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary.



8. The Oasis - Ian Darling & Sascha Ettinger-Epstein (2008)
Light years from the Moore/Spurlock approach outlined below, The Oasis shows that drive doesn’t have to mean an individual launching out there, brashly beating down all barriers and trampling everything in their way. Captain Paul Moulds is the epitome of the quietly driven man on a mission. Running a centre for homeless youth in Sydney’s Surry Hills, Moulds deals with kids from all manner of troubled backgrounds and while faced with constant drama, he never seems at a loss for what to do. The youth, no matter how street-toughened or drug-affected, save all their praise for this unassuming, kind man, even while they scream abuse at anyone else who comes near them. The Oasis is available to view online.



7. Man On Wire- James Marsh (2008)
2008 was a bumper year for docs with drive, and Man On Wire took out the Oscar the following year. The film, by Project Nim director Marsh, is a fascinating character study that also plays out like a thriller when it comes to the actual high-wire event. It’s centred around Philippe Petit’s 1974 high-wire walk between the two towers of the World Trade Centre. Petit was on the wire for 45 minutes; he crossed back and forth eight times as well as dancing and lying on the wire. The walk is recreated through stills and present-day interviews with those involved, the whole event eliciting at the time, and now, an overwhelming sense of awe.



6. Touching the Void - Kevin MacDonald (2003)
The most basic human drive is the will to survive, and for a demonstration of this it’s hard to go past Touching the Void. It’s the story of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, two British climbers attempting to scale Siula Grande in Peru. Simpson fell and broke his leg, but with no way to communicate or continue the descent, Yates eventually made the decision to cut the rope that connected them. Incredibly, Simpson survived the fall, and through reenactments and interviews with the two climbers, the story of his gradual and painful descent is illuminated.



5. Roger & Me - Michael Moore (1989)
Michael Moore is the father of a subset of this theme: docos where it is the filmmaker’s drive that is presented in front of the camera in service of a particular cause. A couple of other Moore films could equally appear on this list (Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling for Columbine), so confidently has he inhabited this style of filmmaking. In Roger & Me, Moore examines the closing of the General Motors factory in his hometown of Flint, Michigan, and goes on a quest to meet with GM's CEO at the time, Roger B. Smith. The film finishes with Moore never getting closer to Smith than a couple of shouted questions at company meetings, although criticism levelled at Moore has claimed he did in fact meet with Smith and left this out of the film (Moore asserts he only met Smith before filming commenced and discussed unrelated matters).



4. Super Size Me - Morgan Spurlock (2004)
Picking up the mantle from Moore, Morgan Spurlock also specialises in going on a mission in front of the camera. He does, however, have his own brand of putting his body on the line for a story, seen most clearly in Super Size Me. For thirty days Spurlock committed to eating only McDonald’s food for every meal, during which time he had regular medical checkups to determine the impact this was having on his body. His health plummeted on a range of measures and it took fourteen months after filming finished to return to his original weight. Spurlock’s films tend to deliver their simplified points with a sledgehammer, but perhaps, on an issue like obesity, laying it on with a trowel is an action that people understand.



3. Rough Aunties - Kim Longinotto (2008)
The rough aunties of the title are the women of Bobbi Bear, an organisation that provides support to victims of child abuse in South Africa. Made in Longinotto’s signature on-the-run style, the film follows the women, led by Jackie, as they work to speak out for the unheard, poor, black children who have experienced the unspeakable. The fabulous feisty aunties come up against horror after horror, some in their own personal lives, but their incredible and resilient personalities manage to pull the film back from becoming one that makes you want to curl into a ball in despair.



2. Grizzly Man - Werner Herzog (2005)
Timothy Treadwell collected 100 hours of footage of his time living among bears in the Alaskan wilderness, ostensibly to raise awareness of the need to protect the bears. Treadwell was eventually killed and eaten by a bear, and Herzog created this film largely from Treadwell’s footage. Rather than being a story of bears, though, the film is a fascinating portrait of an intriguing and misguided human character. Treadwell is single-minded in his self-appointed mission to protect the bears from human interference, indeed even to become one of them, yet Herzog wonders at his understanding of natural systems. A local Native American interviewed early in the film suggests Treadwell was ultimately disrespectful of the bears, not observing the invisible line that has existed between the species for centuries. Treadwell clearly had a way with animals, yet his unique take on them led to his own and his girlfriend’s death.



1. The Interrupters - Steve James (2011)
The Interrupters makes clear how much of our basic human nature is mirrored in our fellow animal species. Tribal hierarchies, power, respect - one might be watching an Attenborough documentary about the beasts of the African plains. The interrupters, though, are members of a group called CeaseFire, trying to change these systems that breed so much violence. The group works the mean streets of Chicago, attempting to ‘interrupt’ violence and retaliation before events spiral completely out of hand and lead to yet more deaths. The interrupters are all former gang members, which grants some respect and earns them a hearing with the people they are trying to reach. Success is hard won, but any life saved has to be worth a mountain of attempts.