Not only Amy

On September 2, a festival of films about the city (and people living in it) “Center” begins at the Moscow Center for Documentary Cinema. The extensive program “Center” included paintings about Amy Winehaus (“Amy” - the opening film), recently opened by the great city photographer Vivian Mayer (“In search of Vivian Mayer”), Amsterdam Reachsmuzumu (“New Reachsmuzum”) and other documentary hits of the last year. Closing his eyes to the festival hierarchies and trusting only his sense of humanism, Maxim Semenov chose the most interesting films of the festival program from an anthropological point of view.

Documentary cinema is difficult to spoil. Unlike films, it does not require any special invention, which protects him from unnecessary falsehood. It is all present in it: people, problems, clothes and buildings, a genius of place and a subtle uncentive aroma of the era. It is always interesting to monitor this how it is generally interesting to watch life around.

The director of Doc does not need anything superfluous. Only cameras and reality are enough. And all. This does not mean that a documentary cannot lie. There is installation, there is a sunbathing voice; Already the selection of facts creates distortion. However, in this documentary cinema, the truth of the texture is usually wiser and more convincing than the most sophisticated copyright concepts, and the best documentaryist is the one who trusts reality, without trying to improve or embellish it. A living human face always triumphs over admission and journalism.

Actually, a living human face is located at the center of most of the best documentary paintings from the time of “nanuka from the north”. We go to the cinema so that, peering into the words and actions of strangers, suddenly recognize ourselves in these people, and to discover something living and completely our own differences and conventions. And here it is not so important who exactly is the hero of the picture. Probably, the main achievement of documentaries is evidence that the story of each person is quite exciting to be told.