Tag: National Geographic

Screening Room: ‘Retrograde’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - Festivals, Film-DocumentaryLeave a comment

The year’s second, and likely more memorable, documentary about the slow-then-fast collapse of the Kabul government in 2021 is Matthew Heineman’s Retrograde. It has played some festivals and should hit theaters and National Geographic before the end of the year.

I reviewed for PopMatters:

Retrograde opens with an eerie pan across distant mountains while American presidents make disembodied pronouncements over 20 years: from George W. Bush’s declaration of the invasion to Donald Trump’s threat that “our commitment is not unlimited” and Joe Biden’s insistence that he would “not repeat the mistakes” of the past. From there, Heineman tracks the end stages of Operation Enduring Freedom (a name ever destined for blackly comedic usage), zeroing in on a dusty outpost in Helmand province…

Here’s the trailer:

Reader’s Corner: ‘Lost Cities, Ancient Tombs’

On By chrisbarsantiIn BooksLeave a comment

Very happy to have received my copy of the just-published Lost Cities, Ancient Tombs: 100 Discoveries That Changed the World. I was truly fortunate to have been asked to help with the editing and writing of this truly beautiful book from National Geographic about some of history’s greatest archaeological finds.

Seriously: Long-vanished civilizations, sunken cities, invading armies, you can’t ask for more.

Screening Room: ‘Sea of Shadows’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-DocumentaryLeave a comment

The new documentary Sea of Shadows uses the incredible story of how environmental activists and the Mexican military are fighting cartels to save an endangered whale to highlight what the extinction of one species means for the future.

Produced by Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Richard Ladkani (The Ivory Game), Sea of Shadows opens this Friday. My review is at Slant:

The whale in question is the vaquita, a dolphin-like creature endemic to the Gulf of California. At the time of this film’s making, there were most likely less than 15 left alive. Not a target of hunting themselves, the vaquitas had the bad luck of swimming in the same waters as the heavily fished totoaba and dying in the nets meant to catch their more valuable neighbors. The vaquitas are ultimately collateral damage in an illegal fishing scheme driven by greed, economic insecurity, failing security apparatuses, interstate organized crime, and more…

Here’s the trailer: