NEW YORK, NY.- Now that 2024 is half over, Ive started collecting candidates for my list of the years best films and that, of course, includes documentaries. Ive written about many great nonfiction films already this year (including some favorites like Songs of Earth, Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus and Art Talent Show). Yet plenty fly under the radar, so I wanted to highlight three documentaries I havent written about that are worth your time.
The first is Spermworld (Hulu), directed by Lance Oppenheim (who also made the recent, amazing HBO documentary series Ren Faire). Oppenheims singular style is dreamlike, heightening reality so it becomes poetic and unworldly. In this movie, he follows several sperm kings, men who connect with would-be parents looking for sperm donors via the internet, rather than at a sperm bank. The movie illuminates the reasons they choose to donate as well as the reasons people seek donors in this unconventional way. That premise could be cheesy, exploitative or salacious. Instead, its gripping and empathetic and unlike anything youd expect. (The documentary is based on a 2021 New York Times article, and is a New York Times coproduction.)
I also loved Onlookers, Kimi Takesues unusual film about tourism in Laos. You can imagine a journalistic approach to this topic, which might involve interviews and investigative work, or perhaps a first-person travelogue approach. But Takesue eschews all those tools for something entirely different: a series of long takes, set up as locked, wide camera shots. Tourists and locals amble through the frame, taking pictures, talking to one another, buying items and going about the activities typical of tourism in the region. What you slowly realize youre watching is the way that constant observation creates a certain sort of performance as well as disruption. Tourists are there to look at locals, and locals look right back at them, watching their behavior as well. But theres an extra layer, because here we are as viewers, watching people be watched. So who is the real onlooker?
A final film worth seeking out is Sam Greens 32 Sounds (Criterion Channel), an immersive sound documentary that Green has toured as a live performance throughout the world over the past few years. Now its available for home viewing, and the good news is that the experience is just as excellent through your headphones as it might be in a theater. Thats because 32 Sounds aims to make you aware of the world of sound literally vibrating around you, and its designed to make you feel as if youre inside the documentary rather than just watching it. Green narrates the film, which is both funny and full of ruminations on how sound creates meaning in our lives. Sometimes on-screen text instructs you to close your eyes so you can pay fuller attention to what youre hearing. Its the sort of movie that can change the way you live, and thats what the best films do, isnt it?
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.