Documentaries

There's a lot to put up with in this city (traffic, hot weather, traffic...) so I'm concentrating on the good things like cool restaurants, good theater, and an abundance of independent movie houses. Recently I saw a couple of documentaries that had everything a good doc should: fascinating story, good film making, and people who are totally crazeballs.

First up: The Queen of Versailles

This was originally going to be the story of billionaire real estate mogul David Siegel and his trophy wife Jackie as they attempted to build the largest single-family home in America. Part way through construction, the housing bubble popped and the Siegels' had to, as Jane Austen put it in her magnificent novel Persuasion, "retrench."

Watch as they try to scale back their ostentatious lifestyle with their dream home sitting unfinished, languishing on the over-glutted housing market. The filmmaker was with the family for three years, so they became comfortable with her and they really let their guard down. It's a fascinating look inside their world.

And now, check this out: The Imposter

If someone pitched this story to you, you'd be like, "Oh please, even the Brothers Grimm would find that unrealistic," but it's actually completely, totally true. In the early 90s, 13-year-old Nicholas Barclay went missing in Texas. Three years later his family got a call from Interpol telling them Nicholas had been found in Spain. The family welcomed him back with open arms. The problem is, the man they welcomed back was not 16-year-old Nicholas. He was a 23-year-old Frenchman named Frederic Bourdin, who had different colored hair and eyes than Nicholas and spoke with a French accent.

Why did the family unquestioningly welcome Bourdin into their lives? Were they so grief stricken they wanted to believe? Or did they have their own sinister reasons for not exposing the lie?

This documentary is so amazing. I watched with my mouth hanging open, going "No way!" the whole time. The best part is that Bourdin participated in the doc, detailing exactly how he got into the situation and how he deceived everyone from the Spanish police to Nicholas' own mother.

Definitely put this on your Films to Watch list. I would not steer you wrong.