Documentary examines mysterious life of a master maker of fly-fishing lures in the Scottish countryside
VIEWPOINTS: KISS THE WATER (Eric Steel, 2013)
Wednesday, April 24, Clearview Cinemas Chelsea 4, 5:30
Saturday, April 27, Clearview Cinemas Chelsea 9, 7:30
Sunday, April 28, AMC Loews Village 7, 7:00
www.tribecafilm.com
Documentarian Eric Steel weaves together his second film, Kiss the Water, with a care and artistry similar to that his subject, Megan Boyd, employed when crafting remarkably beautiful and intricate fly-fishing lures. Steel, who made his debut with 2006’s The Bridge, about the history of suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge, makes a gentler but no less fascinating splash with his follow-up, inspired by Boyd’s obituary, which he held on to for ten years before deciding to investigate the story. Boyd was a somewhat reclusive and mysterious woman who lived by herself in the Scottish countryside by the North Sea. There, like a kind of Rumpelstiltskin, she made such amazing fishing lures as the Jock Scott, the Silver Doctor, and the Durham Ranger, which fly-fishers used on the region’s world-famous salmon runs, where salmon flock to spawn, not eat. Steel talks to a handful of people who knew Boyd, painting a portrait of a rather eclectic woman who seems to have emerged from a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Steel also includes atmospheric animation by Em Cooper as well as shots of some of Boyd’s fans re-creating their favorite lures, hand made with love and respect. Among her best customers was Prince Charles, which led to Boyd being awarded the British Empire Medal by Queen Elizabeth II. It turns out that Boyd was not a fly-fisher herself, and she was not thrilled that her unique folk art was used to ultimately kill fish, but she had a talent she could not give up. Like the solitary fly-fisher, Boyd spent much of her time alone as well, but with Steel’s charming, engaging film, she should now make a whole new group of friends and admirers.
Orson Welles plays a masterful cinematic magician in the riotous F for Fake, a pseudo-documentary (or is it all true?) about art fakes and reality. Exploring slyly edited narratives involving art forger Elmyr de Hory, writer Clifford Irving, Spanish painter and sculptor Pablo Picasso, and reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, the iconoclastic auteur is joined by longtime companion Oja Kodar and a cast of familiar faces in a fun ride that will leave viewers baffled — and thoroughly entertained. Welles manipulates the audience — and the process of filmmaking — with tongue firmly planted in cheek as he also references his own controversial legacy with nods to such classics as Citizen Kane and The Third Man. It’s both a love letter to the art of filmmaking as well as a warning to not always believe what you see, whether in books, on canvas, or, of course, at the movies. F for Fake is screening April 20 & 21 at noon as part of the new Nitehawk Cinema monthly series “Art Seen,” which continues May 18-19 with Ben Shapiro’s Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters and June 22-23 with The Cool School and Paul McCarthy’s The Black and White Tapes. Each program will begin with an “Artist Film Club” presentation that includes one video from the 2013 Moving Image Art Fair.
Alias Ruby Blade: A Story of Love and Revolution is an intimate, involving documentary that goes behind the scenes of East Timor’s battle for independence, structured like a gripping thriller with a decidedly personal edge. In 1991, Australian Kirsty Sword went to East Timor as part of a team posing as tourists while actually making a secret film about the embattled Indonesian island. Almost immediately, the Australian teacher and activist found herself right in the middle of the violent struggle as bullets flew all around her and her team, but they kept the cameras rolling, compiling amazing footage that helped alert the world as to what was happening there. Sword soon became a courier for the revolution, adopting the spy name Ruby Blade and smuggling in notes and, eventually, electronic equipment to jailed resistance leader Kay Rala “Xanana” Gusmão, who was serving a life sentence in Jakarta’s Cipinang Prison. Armed with a camera, Sword took remarkable footage during those years, most of which has never before been shown to the public; she opened up her archives for husband-and-wife documentarians Tanya Ager Meillier and Alex Meillier and speaks extensively with them in the film, relating her involvement with the independence movement — which included falling in love with the charismatic Xanana. The Meilliers also talk with such key resistance fighters as Nobel Peace Prize winner José Ramos-Horta and diplomat Constancio Pinto as well as historian and human rights activist Geoffrey Robinson and Inside Indonesia editor Pat Walsh, who share their stories about the Indonesian occupation that lasted from 1975 to 1999, followed by a UN-sponsored referendum for independence that led to yet more horrors. But Sword, who narrates much of the film, and Xanana, who appears primarily in archival footage and photographs, never gave up their dream of a free, democratic East Timor while also considering a life together. As much as Alias Ruby Blade delves into the political situation in East Timor, it’s really about how a young, strong woman followed her heart and made a difference in a faraway part of the globe. Alias Ruby Blade will have its North American premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it’s part of the Documentary Competition. (By the way, the less you know about how things turned out in East Timor, the more exciting the film is, so don’t read up on it before going to one of the four screenings.)