A film column by Claire Dukes
As always there has been a series of Marvel mishaps violating our screens throughout the year. I for one have grown tired of these popcorn projects. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a movement, but I’d strongly suggest that there is a demand for the return of reality. In response, 2017 has churned out some cutting-edge documentaries. 
The Death And Life Of Marsha P. Johnson opens up the cold case of trans icon Marsha, who was found dead in the Hudson River 1992. Concluded by police as a suicide, there are many who strongly believe she was murdered. The case remains unsolved. Alongside the investigation runs the story of trans activist, and anti-violence project member, Sylvia Rivera. The exploration into Marsha’s death and the rights of the transgender community highlights the manipulative role of authoritive figures. If this seems irrelvent today, the doc also resurfaces the homocide commited by James Dixon in 2016. He killed a trans woman out of “blind fury” for not realising she was biologically a he and recieved just 12 years. Leap over to 2017 and this is where I tag in Icarus. 
Starting off as a curious experiment filmmaker and cyclist Bryan Fogel trials doping, aiming to expose the process and the truth behind it. After a chance meeting with the director of Moscow’s Anti-Doping Centre, Grigory Rodchenkov, Bryan, Grigory and Netflix find themselves amidst the Russian doping scandal which fllows the trail all the way up to the Russian Government and Vladimir Putin. Threat and danger are the responses from governing bodies, in both films, for trying to uncover the truth. At what point do we disconnect investiogative documentaries with sheer drama? Has the artificial escapism of blockbusters started to distort our brains? The Death And Life Of Marsha P. Johnson and Icarus both incorporate typical cinematic conventions, both including archive footage and interviews to drive the investigations forward. In doing so these docs rise against the common misconception that factual things are boring, on par with people’s immediate shun towards black and white films. Forget the hypodermic needle model and the suspension of disbelief, this is the best antidote to Hollywood’s denseness which is long overdue: explorative documentaries as a response to social malpractice. But the kind of social injustice that the Avengers can’t fix. These films provide their medium with a prestigious identity for depicting social realism, the content of each unapologetically punching people in their faces.
