Film Reviews: July/August 2007

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The members of the Danielson Famile are unabashedly Christian, wear nurse uniforms, and create music to heal through the "Good Word" in an ever-evolving project that's a combination of indie rock, devotional music, freak folk, and family variety show. The documentary Danielson: A Family Movie is a gently revealing look at the group, never quite penetrating the mystery behind their smiling faces. Founder Daniel Smith himself seems to exist most fully, and perhaps exclusively, in the context of his family and collaborators (including singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens). Smith is the opposite of the standard auteur; he is the center, yet he is humble and content to disappear into the whole. And even for skeptical audiences, the music itself, in all its strange, unironic glory, transcends the message. -Katje Richstatter

SACCO AND VANZETTI

(First Run Features; on DVD)

Considered enemies of the state, railroaded by the U.S. justice system, and declared guilty of crimes they did not commit, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in 1927, but their story resonates powerfully today. Peter Miller's penetrating investigation into the famous murder case that centered on the two Italian anarchists--"terrorists" of the 1920s--reveals the bogus evidence against them and the xenophobia and jingoism that contributed to their deaths by electric chair. Borrowing clips from Giuliano Montaldo's 1971 classic movie of the same name and structured like a historical courtroom exposé, the film also shows Sacco and Vanzetti--via letters read aloud by actors John Turturro and Tony Shalhoub--as thoughtful and passionate champions of the dispossessed. While the staid storytelling may not live up to the duo's revolutionary ardor, Sacco and Vanzetti painfully conveys the all-too-frequent evisceration of the nation's ideals during wartime. -Anthony Kaufman

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