Drag queen, gymnasts and scammer about HBO documentary films.

In recent weeks I have seen three documents - very different from each other, both in terms of subject matter and formally. Each of them, however, was moving and revealing to me certain elements of reality that I knew (and I think I still know) too little. However, I thought that because HBO does not talk so much about documentary titles, even if they are fantastic.

Wig - directed by Chris Moukarbel - the film tells the story of Wigstock - a festival which since the ’80s has been gathering Drag Queen every year which appeared both in front of a minority audience and a growing group of admirers of the whole environment from year to year. The film leads us to the Piramyd Club in which the festival idea was born in the ’80s but also the New York drug scene was born and developed. At the same time, we are observing preparations for the festival in 2018. This is a return, because after 2001 (the festival was traditionally held on September 3) the event was suspended. Over the past several years, the drag scene and the awareness of what they look like and what the drag queen and kings do have changed a lot. And this is actually the most interesting in this document. Somewhere in the background RuPaul and the program appear like a shadow - loved and watched by people around the world RuPaul’s Drag Race. It is worth noting that filmmakers show us photos from the ’80s in which we can observe RuPaula with the other characters of the production, who are organizing the festival after many years. But at the same time the star himself does not appear. Anyway, the approach to the program and how it influenced the community is very ambiguous.

The document shows how much the community can not decide - is it happy that the world knows more about their culture or can not get over that something very niche and so "their" was defined by this program. Anyway, watching the document you can see how many of these less "glamor" elements of the minority have been left somewhere behind the door still not falling within the program formula. I admit that for the first twenty minutes I had a problem with the document because it mainly presents material from private recordings from the ’80s. I will not say it is not easy to listen to (the sound is terrible). But then the document catches the breath and when we watch excerpts from the Wigstock performances, we begin to understand those elements of existence in this community that we may not see in the program. I honestly admit that in my opinion this film is a somewhat obligatory complement to the marathon of the next Drag Race season. In addition, it is an interesting footnote to what happens to the community, when from the margin, the margin of society goes closer to the mainstream. Sometimes there is still something to fight for, and sometimes you can only laugh. I highly recommend, although I want to point out - this is not a polite document, but in my opinion, this should not bother anyone.

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, dir. Alex Gibney - this is a document you should absolutely not miss. The documentary tells the story of Elizabeth Holmes who promised the Americans and the world the opportunity to conduct numerous diagnostic tests, with a drop of blood, for pennies - using the tool she called Edison. Her idea was so good that she got as much as 900 million from investors and quickly became the face of female success in Silicon Valley. However, after a few years it turned out that her device was not working and perhaps it would never work. And the very fame and foundation of Elizabeth Holmes lay in how well she told her story and how well she had a vision of what she could do. On the one hand, you can watch the film as an interesting story about a failed venture trusted by the American elite. But it's definitely interesting to watch the movie as the story of how the modern myth of genius and inventor works - especially in the world of new technologies.

Elizabeth Holmes did everything she should - she immediately started dressing in the same clothes every day, dropped out of college, and started a business at the age of nineteen. In addition, many people said that what she planned was impossible to do. Is this a fantastic story, add to this interviews, a good advertising campaign and suddenly it seems that we are dealing with another Jobs or successors of Google creators. And this is what is most interesting in this story - how such a story is created, how much people desire it and how later - when it turns out that reality looked different, it is difficult for them to come to terms with it. Another thing is that how Elizabeth Holmes at some point begins to act as if she did not see what the reality around her looks like makes you wonder - how many people who lie to the media or their shareholders at some point begin to believe in their lies. The film is quite long but in my opinion it analyzes well what happens when the vision that one cannot admit that perhaps nobody has revolutionized the world is not because they did not want to but because certain things cannot be changed. I really recommend it.

At the Heart of Gold: Inside USA Gymnastic Scandal dir. Erin Lee Carr - this is an absolutely moving film. It talks about many years, lasting two decades, molesting young gymnasts by a doctor (including a doctor of the United States national team in sports gymnastics) Larry Nassar. If you are moved by Weinstein's story, Nassar's story undermines the belief that any institution is able to protect women, especially girls. For two decades, Nassar molested young gymnasts during medical examinations, but not only. Over the years, several girls have tried to report this fact. They were all silenced. It was only when one of the gymnasts went to the press that the scandal was revealed. And that there would be no doubt - the victims of the doctor were school girls and also Olympic champions, for example - girls who we know from the headlines and their records. This is a scary story. Mainly because it not only analyzes the act of the rapist but also shows how the defense mechanisms work, which make molested girls afraid to talk about what happened to them, or sometimes even silence other girls without even realizing how much they hurt themselves and their friends.

In addition, after watching this film, I began to wonder if in pursuit of better sports results we have lost our minds. Very early handing children over to trainers or people who require absolute obedience as part of training and in addition become authorities sometimes more important than parents. In such conditions, it's easy to find secrets and abuses. At the same time, the film ends with an amazing record of those days of the trial, during which molested girls, today often mature women, testified in court about what happened to them. The latter sequences are watched as film sequences. They are emotional, terrible in some moments, but also show the strength of those girls and women who decided to testify. Ultimately, this is a story in which one can say something like a good ending, although there is no doubt that what happened to gymnasts can happen in many other training centers and sports federations. And it will happen as long as sports federations care more about profits and advertising contracts than on the good of the players. I have a feeling that it's really worth seeing this movie not only to understand this matter but also to many other aspects of harassment we talk about when we talk about metoo.

Some time ago I highly recommended my friends to browse the Netflix document catalog. I think, however, that it is equally important to remember that HBO has been producing really excellent documents for years - which cover very different subjects but are really worth watching. I've seen some weaker HBO documents in my life but most of them are definitely at a very high level. Therefore, even if you no longer look for new episodes of Game of Thrones, it is worth checking what's new is in the documents.