Considering what a substantial portion of the streaming sphere they consume, I wrote less about documentaries than I should have done in 2018 – in part because my colleague Charlie Phillips had the nonfiction side of things so authoritatively covered in his series of columns last year. So it was in the spirit of the new year and its accompanying resolutions that I returned to Docsville, a highly regarded docs-only streaming service that I hadn’t really visited since a major rebrand late in 2017.
Docsville entered the scene as a plucky upstart nearly three years ago. Then rather perplexingly named Yaddo, it was founded by Nick Fraser, former editor of the BBC’s Storyville documentary strand, and had a credo to match those credentials: the focus of its programming, much of it plucked from the Storyville files, was on serious-minded, globally accented fare rather than pop-doc entertainment. Its collection was a bit small, but it would surely grow. That was before Amazon got involved, in a David-Goliath merger that led to a new, less cryptic moniker and accessibility via two routes, both £3.99 a month: as a freestanding subscription service or as one of Amazon Prime’s array of add-on video channels (a buffet that probably merits its own navigational column at some point).
A little over a year into its makeover, Docsville has expanded its library slightly, though at a still-selective 140 titles (ranging from features to two-minute shorts), not all will agree on its value for money as a subscription service. But its nutritious programming approach and international outlook remain consistent, with the latter a particularly welcome virtue. First-hand perspectives from Asia, Africa and South America generously pepper the more expected American and British content. Among their most popularly streamed titles, for example, is the riveting 2006 Japanese-Korean production Dear Pyongyang, Yang Yong-hi’s intimate study of how her own family was split and ruptured by a North Korean repatriation campaign. Not easy to find elsewhere, it’s a selection that typifies the Docsville brand.
There’s a scattering of more recent films too, many of them directly commissioned by Docsville. From last year we have How the World Went Mad, Rupert Russell’s playful but sobering series of animated shorts unpicking the insanity of the Trump era. Still, a 2000s sensibility predominates, probably not coincidentally in line with Storyville’s earliest days. Among the best-known attractions are Nick Broomfield’s landmark 2003 bio-doc Aileen: The Life and Death of a Serial Killer and, from 2000, DA Pennebaker’s Down From the Mountain, an earthily joyous folk music celebration spun off from the Coen brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou?.
More vintage options are to be found in the pile too, though Ray Müller’s The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, an invaluable portrait of the conflicted German film-maker and Nazi propagandist from 1993, is practically brand new compared with Man With a Movie Camera. Dziga Vertov’s pioneering, experimental silent from 1929 remains a formally dizzying mind-warp in the way it captures a day in the life of a Soviet city, and is probably the most essential title in the whole Docsville collection. More digging across the decades would enrich a streaming outlet that still hasn’t reached its full potential, but its distinctive remit and content are enough to make Docsville stand out on the skyline.
New to streaming and DVD this week
Cold War
(Curzon Artificial Eye, 15)
Paweł Pawlikowski follows the Oscar-winning Ida with another ravishing black-and-white study in mid-century melancholy, following two star-crossed musicians buffeted across Europe by love and other conflicts.
The Rider
(Altitude, 15)
Docudrama hybrids may seem a bit old hat these days, but Chinese film-maker Chloé Zhao’s golden-hour stunner of a neo-western rejuvenates the form, eliciting a one-of-a-kind performance from real-deal rodeo rider Brady Jandreau in an adaptation of his own broken-down life.
The Escape
(Vertigo, 15)
In her best screen performance to date, Gemma Arterton brings affecting urgency and credibility to Dominic Savage’s low-key character study of an Essex housewife yearning for a life to call her own.
Searching
(Sony, 12)
The rare film that may just play better on a laptop than on a cinema screen: Aneesh Chaganty’s faintly ludicrous but nifty techno-thriller neatly adapts the all-in-one-monitor gimmick of Unfriended to a sweaty-palmed missing-person mystery.
