Netflix Documentary Highlights: Accidental Courtesy, Night Will Fall, The Lovers and the Despot, Tower

Every now and then I get sick of plots and characters and actually want to learn something. And thankfully Netflix's documentary selection is still very eclectic and interesting. Today, we'll highlight three recent additions to Netflix's collection covering race, the best Holocaust documentary never made, and an escape from North Korea.

Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race, and America

This movie focuses on the controversial figure Daryl Davis. A lifelong rock musician, Davis is famous for sitting with KKK members to suss out the source of their prejudice and through friendship encourage them to quit the hate group. The story and Davis' perspective is inherently fascinating, as are the interludes of his musical talent, but the film's strongest and most charged moments come late in the film when confronted with Black Lives Matters organizers that believe his actions don't amount to real change. It's a confrontational coda that upends the film's narrative and truly challenges the audience about what the ideal path towards acceptance and equality truly is. The audience reactions to this film will vary, but it's a great conversation starter.

Night Will Fall

World War II marked the first time that camera crews were on the battlefield and as such news organizations and filmmakers got horrifying firsthand looks to the liberation of prison camps and their terrible practices. Centered around the astounding and harrowing footage shot by military war correspondents, the film tells the story of the BBC documentary that was never released while still making it at the same time. Though some may be familiar to footage like this the scope and horrifying realities of the horrors are presented in far more stark and violent examples than you've ever seen before.

Highlights include the influence of Alfred Hitchcock, the collaboration of allied film crews, and the stories from survivors including those subjected to experiments by Dr. Josef Mengele. Like most Holocaust related material the footage is harrowing, but the shining light is the correspondents commitment to telling this horrifying story so it can never be forgotten.

The Lovers and the Despot

It's a story that sounds like a movie, except it actually happened. In this film, the audience learns about a Korean film star and director, former romantic and artist collaborators, that were reunited after being kidnapped by the North Korean government. While the main intrigue from the film is learning about the country's dictators from primary sources, the movie is full of interesting tidbits about how even getting King Jong-Il on tape was unheard of at the time.

Few movies feel as oddly prescient in today's political climate.

Tower

The terrifying 1966 shooting at the University of Texas campus, is brought to life through interviews with the victims, witnesses, lawmen, and journalists, archival footage, and paired-down but expressive animation. The film's effectiveness, aside from its inherently compelling source material is its simplicity. There's no politicizing, no back story about the shooter, just the events of the day from beginning to end. Along the way the audience is introduced to the terror, the unknown heroes, and those paralyzed by fear who still live with shame. The facts and feelings of the tragedy speak for themselves.