Page 14 - aruba-today-20220126

a14 people & arts
Wednesday 26 January 2022
Sundance doc looks at man behind the modern bulletproof vest

By LINDSEY BAHR fed us cookies,” Bahrani
AP Film Writer said.
Richard Davis was a bank- “What was interesting for
rupt pizzeria owner when me in Richard was, you
he got the idea for a bul- couldn’t pin him down to
letproof vest in 1969 Michi- just wanting to make a lot
gan. Body armor was noth- of money. I kind of agree
ing new, of course, but with his second wife that
Davis had an inkling that he wasn’t motivated nec-
he could make something essarily by money. But I do
lighter that could be worn, think he enjoyed being the
undetected, under clothes. star. There is a narcissism to
Kevlar, he’d discover, was him. There is an ability of
the answer. And to prove believing his own decep-
that his invention actually tions that did remind me
worked, Davis, a former of a lot of people in power
Marine and born showman, even in this country,” Bah-
went to some extraordinary rani continued.
lengths: He shot himself “It reminds me of some
over 190 times. modern or harsh version of
Somehow, that’s not even Arthur Miller’s ‘All My Sons,’
the wildest part of his story, where the father has a
which is chronicled in the This image shows Richard Davis from the documentary “2nd Chance” by Ramin Bahrani, an successful factory making
official selection of the Premieres section at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.
lively documentary “2nd Associated Press airplanes for the war and
Chance,” which premiered the son comes to under-
this weekend at the Sun- American filmmaker whose knowing and not having acter who is at times shock- stand that some of these
dance Film Festival. films often explore and a set plan and just waiting ingly candid and other planes are faulty and re-
Utilizing new interviews with dismantle notions of the for the people to tell me times a wholly unreliable sulted in the death of pilots.
Davis, friends, enemies and American dream, includ- things,” Bahrani said. “With narrator, which Bahrani The father ends up really
ex-wives, the film charts ing “Chop Shop and “99 the short docs I had made, explores with a clear-eyed hitting a moral force from
the formation of his com- Homes.” I remember calling Wer- empathy. the son and it ends up in
pany Second Chance, its He was editing his last fea- ner Herzog and asking him “Some of what he says can a suicide. There’s a moral
triumphs (saving hundreds ture, “ The White Tiger, “ what’s the approach? His be uncomfortable to hear center to the play. Here,
of lives) and tragedies, in- when several producers advice was don’t pre-inter- and I don’t agree with his somehow that moral cen-
cluding the death of a po- approached him about view people on the phone, positions. But at the same ter within Richard’s own
lice officer after the com- making a narrative film don’t talk to them before time, he was charming, world seemed absent. He
pany started using Zylon in about Davis. But Bahrani you meet them. Just start he was friendly. When we started another company
its vest. surprised them when he rolling the camera and get showed up every day and that was even more suc-
“2nd Chance” is the docu- said he’d rather make a those immediate interac- we would show up to meet cessful, or just as successful.
mentary feature debut of doc. tions.” him, he cooked mac and There’s something disturb-
Ramin Bahrani, the Iranian- “I tried to go there not Davis is an eccentric char- cheese for the crew and ing in that.”q

Review: Allende’s ‘Violeta,’ an epic

South American tale

de. (Random House) After her father loses ev- eration Condor, a U.S.- her son’s father following
Chilean writer Isabel Al- erything in the Great De- backed alliance among a short, unsatisfying mar-
lende’s latest novel is “Vi- pression, the family must the region’s right-wing mili- riage. Ultimately, she ob-
oleta,” an epic tale that relinquish their comfort in tary governments. tains contentment late in
transports readers across an old mansion in the na- “The government was life with a retired diplomat
a century of South Ameri- tion’s capital and adopt committing atrocities, but and naturalist.
can history, through eco- a more modest life in the you could walk down the Considered the world’s
nomic collapse, dictator- country’s rural south. street and sleep soundly most widely read Spanish-
ship and natural disasters “Violeta” recalls Allende’s at night without worrying language author, Allende
like an earthquake and a best known and highly about common criminals,” is known for her many nov-
hurricane. successful novel, “The Violeta writes of those re- els including “Eva Luna,”
From the aftermath of House of Spirits,” which pressive times. “Of Love and Shadows”
This cover image released by World War I to the present weaves together the per- Violeta’s son is a journalist and “A Long Petal of the
Ballantine shows “Violeta” by
Isabel Allende. day, narrator Violeta del sonal and the political in who seeks exile, first in Ar- Sea,” as well as nonfiction
Associated Press Valle recounts the story a saga stretching across gentina, then in Norway books such as “Paula,” a
of her life in an unnamed decades. after learning he is on the 1994 memoir.
South American country “Violeta” also details the dictatorship’s black list. Allende left Chile for exile
with a book-long letter to horrors of the 1970s dic- Violeta suspect’s her son’s two years after Salvador
her grandson Camilo. tatorships in South Amer- father of involvement in Allende, her father’s first
Violeta tells of living ica, which saw tens of the repression through his cousin, was overthrown in
through the Spanish flu thousands of suspected work as a pilot. Much of a 1973 coup. Isabel Allen-
By ANITA SNOW pandemic as the young- political opponents kid- the book involves Viole- de lived for years in Vene-
Associated Press est child and only daugh- napped, tortured and ta’s long, passionate, but zuela before settling in the
“Violeta,” by Isabel Allen- ter in a family of five sons. killed, often through Op- troubled relationship with United States.q