Sundance 2022: Three Minutes – A Lengthening, Lucy and Desi, Downfall: The Case Against Boeing | Festivals & Awards

The most structurally daring feature at this year’s Sundance played in the Spotlight section, one that highlights a few works that have played at other festivals like “The Worst Person in the World” and “After Yang.” The doc in that section is Bianca Stigter’s haunting “Three Minutes – A Lengthening,” a study of not just history but how we unpack and interpret footage of it. In 2009, a man named Glenn Kurtz found a 16mm home movie in his parents’ closet, footage from a vacation that his grandfather took to Poland in 1938. Stigter’s film opens with this uncut footage. We see dozens of people in a Jewish community gathering in a square, many staring straight at the camera while others go about their days or come together for some sort of event. There’s only one blurry sign and few landmarks, so it’s hard to tell exactly who these people are and what they’re doing, but that didn’t stop Kurtz.

He turned into a celluloid detective, first figuring out where the footage was shot—Nasielsk, Poland—and then trying to find anyone who could fill in the history of this place and its people, quickly learning that almost all of them were killed during the Holocaust. Fewer than 100 people from Nasielsk survived World War II. Most of these people would be dead much sooner than they could have known. It’s like watching ghosts.

And it’s all we see. Stigter’s film consists of no footage other than what’s in those three minutes. Frames will be pulled out and dissected, such as when Kurtz tries hard to read a grocery store sign to figure out its owner, likely the woman emerging from the front door. Narrated by Helena Bonham Carter, “Three Minutes – A Lengthening” becomes more than just history but a conversation about how we capture it. It’s mentioned that the footage was so degraded that restoration likely would have been impossible if it hadn’t been found when it was. What then? These people would have never been seen again, forever lost to history. Stigter’s film makes the case that when we record even something as casual as a family vacation, we are capturing life in a way that’s important. Celluloid matters not just as a passive viewing experience but as a portal through time and place. It’s a powerful, essential piece of filmmaking.

It’s hard to fathom a documentary as distinctly different from Stigter’s as Amy Poehler’s “Lucy and Desi,” a relatively routine bio-doc but with an intimate, personal touch from a female comedian who clearly admires its subjects. While the structure can be repetitive and overly familiar, the respect that Poehler and her collaborators have for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz is contagious, leading to a Prime Video film that’s ultimately more satisfying than the Oscar darling by Aaron Sorkin currently airing on the streaming giant.