“WHITE WITH FEAR”
Director: Andrew Goldberg

Nixon’s diaries featured the quiet part—that the “problem” in America is Blacks—but the 37th president was also aware that he absolutely could not say this out loud.  How to work around?  Use euphemisms such as “crime” and “law and order.”  The screaming and the scare-mongering, despite their vociferousness, can’t stop demographics as America becomes Browner.  Understandably (though not sympathetically), many are scared of this.

Interviewees include Steve Bannon and Hillary Clinton (unfortunately not at the same time), former Fox News personalities, former Breitbart staff, a former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers (who has the audacity at least to call the January 6th riots a racist act) and even former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, who begged Trump to call out white supremacists after Charlottesville.  The president promised McAuliffe he would say precisely this; and we all know what came out of his mouth instead (McAuliffe suspects Stephen Miller or someone else “got” to him).  Trump’s “law and order” soundbites are right from the Nixon playbook.

The film ends on a somewhat hopeful note from Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who says that despite America’s flaws, there is cause to believe in its continuing capacity to correct itself.

“HOLD THE LINE”
Director: Daniel Lombroso

The latest from Daniel Lombroso focuses on the Southern Baptist Convention, which pulls the rug from under any attempts to progress forward and allow female pastors.  We meet Linda Barnes Popham, a pastor in Fern Creek, Kentucky, who is essentially excommunicated for pastoring.  The SBC’s numbers are down by over 2 million, we learn; meanwhile, Barnes Popham’s church—no longer officially affiliated with the SBC—is growing.  Do your math.

“THE HAKA PARTY INCIDENT”
Director: Katie Wolfe

White engineering students at Auckland University in 1979 held a “Haka Party,” but unwisely didn’t consult with the local Maori community, who understandably were upset at this cultural appropriation.  The Maoris got out in front of the drunken bus, things went off the rails, with physical fighting heating up between the two groups.  A campus anti-racist protest occurred, which only infuriated the “appropriators” even more.  Forty-six years later, the two groups relate their sides of the story.  Some of the engineering students say they regret engaging in the Haka and wouldn’t do it now, but neither do they say that the Maoris were justified in meeting them with violence.  Meanwhile, the arrested Maoris say they were beaten.  Thereafter, they would film themselves prior to any action to head off any accusations of fibbery, at least trying to claim they were “not subject to your laws” of the Anglo establishment.  (Never mind that the nation’s famous rugby team is the All Blacks and starts out the game with the Haka.)

A late scene shows Maori, Anglos and New Zealanders of other extractions in the engineering department all performing the Haka together.  It may be a token gesture, but it’s a start in some reconciliation between the White majority and its Indigenous population.

“MR. BLAKE AT YOUR SERVICE (COMPLETEMENT CRAME!)”
Director: Gilles Legardinier

Sometimes all you need is a feel-good flick.  John Malkovich stars as Andrew, an Englishman who goes “undercover” as a butler to work at the French estate where he met his late wife many years earlier.  The estate is run by Nathalie (a magnificent Fanny Ardant), facing money troubles after being widowed.  Although a romance between Andrew and Nathalie is what we expect, because this isn’t Hollywood (oh, and because he’s also her employee), the script by Gilles Legardinier and Christel Henon instead regards these two older adults as complicated people with dashed hopes and hidden pains that won’t be solved simply by retiring together to the bedroom.  Suspension of disbelief is needed here as there seems to be no problem Andrew cannot solve with a witty remark or a crafty idea that often strains credibility—but the hearty giggles are there.

Malkovich speaks all of his own lines in French and, at least to my non-expert ear, gets the job well across the finish line.

“UNION” (featured image)
Directors: Brett Story and Stephen Maing

This verité-style doc follows a group of Staten Island Amazon workers struggling against the odds to unionize their warehouse.  It’s a tall order considering that the workforce turns over rather regularly, making any efforts to get the requisite percentage of current workers to sign on the effort rather difficult (full disclosure: I work at The Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos). Most of the people directors Brett Story and Stephen Maing follow are poor and/or persons of color, with several understandably not wishing to put their livelihoods in danger.  The union-busters utilize all the old familiar tricks, but this plucky group of workers refuses to give up.  The Amazon Labor Union makes some headway, but the company uses its massive legal might to take the results to court because of course.

“A QUIET LOVE”
Director: Garry Keane

The stories of deaf people are rather similar to those of hearing people.  They, too, have hopes and dreams.  And they fall in love, just like the rest of us.  In this intriguing documentary, we meet Irish couples who are either both deaf or one deaf and one hearing.  One couple met in a Belfast deaf school, the only place that didn’t segregate Protestants from Catholics at the time.  There, they found love despite those rather difficult, invisible boundaries and familial pressures to sever their union at the height of the Troubles.  A lesbian couple discusses their joys and pitfalls at becoming parents, as well as the fear that their daughter will inherit the non-hearing condition.  Another man, a boxer, struggles with whether or not to remove his hearing aid and potentially damage his fighting career, but coaching could give him an entirely new chance to help other hard-of-hearing pugilists to greatness.

Several of their stories are reenacted by deaf actors, allowing us a way to experience their versions of love as they did at the time.  Unsurprisingly, some couples relocated to London with its more accepting atmosphere, but thanks to Ireland’s equality laws, they can now be who they are back in their native lands.

Charming and uplifting, “A Quiet Love” is the type of feel-good documentary we could use right about now.

“LIFE AFTER”
Director: Reid Davenport

Stricken with cerebral palsy, Elizabeth Bouvia wanted to starve herself to death, but one day she disappeared from the public record.  Did she succeed in this quixotic endeavor?  Reid Davenport wants to find out what happened to Bouvia, but the trail goes cold.  He finds her sisters, Rebecca and Teresa, who explains the horror show of surgeries and other procedures Elizabeth underwent.  The journey is as much about Davenport, who has cerebral palsy, finding his own place in the world as it is about uncovering Bouvia’s eventual whereabouts.

The featured image is from “UNION.”