DOCUMENTARY HIGHTLIGHTS

Some notable documentaries following an observational style in 
foreign settings, similar but not as hardcore as "Tie Xi Qu: West 
of the Tracks" which I talked about in 
2026-01-01A_Chinese_New_year.txt, are The Moscow Skyscraper (2005) 
and Inheriting the Castle (2024). The Moscow Skyscraper is 
particularly interesting, intermixing the daily lives of residents 
in the skyscraper completed shortly before the death of Stalin, 
with insights by the filmmaker into the mindset of life under 
Stalin's rule from his own memories living around the scyscraper in 
his youth, as well as those of the older residents. The documentary 
highlights the rapid and somewhat ironic changes in society 
reflected by the different skyscraper's different occupants. From 
the old guard of the son of a former Communist party official, and 
an acclaimed military weapons designer, to the new capitalists with 
a banker's freshly rennovated apartment and up-market stores and 
clubs replacing the bookshop and green grocer's in the shops at the 
base. But it ends with the curious spectacle of a Russian election, 
with votes cast in the building's foyer, whereby the filmmaker 
comments on how Russia under Putin nevertheless still suggests of a 
rising mentality familiar to him from the time of Stalin's rule.

Inheriting the Castle isn't nearly so deep on the social and 
political commentary, but it's a somewhat bizarre window into the 
odd life of a housekeeper and her probably lesbian daughter, living 
in the Argeninian castle left to her after the death of its 
European aristocratic owner. They have no money, and the daughter 
is more interested in trying to become an F1 driver than the castle 
or farm, yet the native Argeninian woman is more or less content to 
battle on without accepting offers of business opportunities for 
hosting guests. It's an interesting dynamic, though lacks the 
broader social and historical insight of the other docos since the 
history of the castle's former owner and her housekeeper then isn't 
really delved into very deeply.

At the other end of the documentary spectrum, I've been really 
getting into the many BBC documentaries featuring Fred Dibnah. A 
steeplejack in northern England, he was featured in a 1979 
documentary "Fred Dibnah: Steeplejack" completing work on tall 
buildings and chimneys, and demolition of the latter without 
explosives, as well as on his steamroller that he restored as a 
hobby and drove around local streets. The BBC made follow-up 
documentaries in the 1980s and it eventually turned into a new 
career for him hosting TV series about British industrial history 
in the late 1990s and early 2000s, before his death in 2004. "Fred 
Dibnah's Made In Britain" (2005) was his final production, where he 
completed restoring a steam traction engine in time after his 
terminal cancer diagnosis to take a long journey to visit different 
historic British engineering businesses still employed in producing 
the sorts of parts that he'd required to rebuild the machine. Many 
of them being the last such manufacturers operating in the country. 
He's actually a bit of a know-it-all, and the editing doesn't 
always show the manufacturing proceses very clearly, but it's a 
rare look at old British industries that have most likely died away 
even more by now. Also his infectious passion for it all, combined 
with the challenge of the journey on the traction engine, makes it 
very entertaining to watch. It may have been his best series, but 
I'm continuing to download and watch earlier ones, having also 
found "Fred Dibnah's Industrial Age" (1999) very interesting.

 - The Free Thinker