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J.A. Montalbano: It's all relative in compelling chronicles

By J.A. Montalbano
Friday, August 17, 2007

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'51 Birch Street'

On DVD: Now

Rated: Not rated

Running time: 90 min.

Director: Doug Block

Grade: A-

Lately I'm enamored of simple documentaries that tell the personal stories of random folks.

Since fall, when Michael Apted returned with the elegant "49 Up," his seventh look at the 7-year-old British kids we met in 1964, we've seen a handful of engaging documentaries that examine the lives of people like us.

And it's further proof that you don't need a big movie star — or even a well-known newsmaker like Ralph Nader or John Lennon or the Dalai Lama — to make a compelling film that provides insight into the human condition.

A few films that might have flown under your radar this year:

• "Hand of God," which aired on PBS in January, tells the story of former Albuquerque resident Paul Cultrera and his family coming to terms with his abuse as a teenager at the hand of a priest.

• "Nine Good Teeth," Alex Halpern's surprisingly incisive valentine to his centenarian grandmother.

• "Following Sean," in which Ralph Arlyck returns to film the grown-up version of the precocious 5-year-old boy he met in Haight-Ashbury in the late '60s.

• "Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea," a wonderful platform for the eccentrics living out their lives in the California desert.

And then there is the best of the bunch: "51 Birch Street," which never made it to Albuquerque theaters but is out on DVD this week.

The heartbreaking film is essentially the simple tale of a postwar marriage. That's pretty much it. But it might be the most compelling documentary of the Ordinary People genre we've seen yet.

Filmmaker Doug Block goes back to his childhood home in Port Washington, N.Y., to study his mom, whom he's close to, and his dad, the stereotypical World War II veteran who has always been a mystery to his children.

But as Block peels off the layers from his parents' past, it's his mom, Mina, who provides the revelations.

It's no secret from the start of the film that Mina and Mike had an unfulfilling marriage. Mike threw himself into his work (and was quite close to his secretary) and Mina repressed her desires in order to raise three good kids in a clean house. The way her own son presents the yearning of a '60s housewife is both tender and shocking. It took guts for a son to make this film.

The nagging questions throughout the movie slowly build:

• Do Block and his sisters want to know what their parents really were like?

• Do the children, now approaching middle age, want to know exactly what their parents were thinking and feeling when they were the same age?

• Will the secrets of '60s suburbia force the offspring to shed their own hang-ups and see their parents as true flesh and id?

I won't reveal much about the "plot" of the film, because one of the great accomplishments here is the way Block gradually unlocks secrets, and revealing the key device in his film (it involves some memoirs) would ruin much of that for you.

Like a good dramatist, Block patiently lets his story unfold and his characters evolve. Toward the end, he gains insight into (and intimacy with) his father (ostensibly the original mission of the film), and Mike gives us a glimpse behind the facade of the World War II Male. Turns out, this emotionally distant provider may not want to dredge up the past — especially the negative stuff — but he's clearly been paying attention all these years.

When, toward the end, the father turns the camera around and directs a question to his son, you get the feeling that Block has his own walls around him. You almost want a sequel that would peel back the layers of the son.

I saw this movie in winter at the Loft Cinema in Tucson, and the local weekly wondered aloud whether such a home movie has much appeal beyond the Block family. It does, because it tells a universal story and asks a compelling question: Why do we take the path in life that we do? And another: Are we happy?

One of Mina's friends, Natasha, while discussing the '60s mind-set and the joys of psychotherapy, explains (perhaps unwittingly) why the rest of us might care about the family who lived at 51 Birch Street during the second half of the century. "What a relief," she says, "for someone to really know us."

Recently, in an essay about Daniel Burnam's feature "Family Law" (which also never made it to Albuquerque theaters and now is on DVD), I admitted that no film had made me miss my father like that one did.

With "51 Birch Street," Doug Block's documentary made me want to get to know my dad.

What it shares with most of the films above is how such profiles expand their focus from an individual to the family. "Following Sean" isn't just about a child of hippies who grew up to be ordinary; it's also a compelling look at Sean's father.

In "Hand of God," the abuse victim shares the stage with his elderly parents who have struggled for decades to stay faithful to the Catholic Church. And the movie was made by Cultrera's brother, Joe, who seems more outraged than them all.

Yes, like many movies — even most mob sagas — these are compelling stories of how we relate to our parents, our siblings, our ancestors, our kids. They remind us that there are others out there struggling with matters of blood.

Or maybe it's just me who has family issues. If you don't have any, e-mail me and we'll put your picture on Page 1.

Otherwise, rent an Ordinary People documentary this weekend and compare notes.