Experience New Documentary Storytelling with Seeds, Viktor, and Between Goodbyes

Documentaries are often understood as historical records. They tell stories from oral accounts with the help of people who were at the events in question or have adjacent knowledge or context for those events. There is a lot of archival footage or sometimes an animated reenactment. We have a very concrete idea of what these types of films should be, which is why it's exciting to see a documentary film take on a new form and show us a slice of life.

The people in this genre (or subgenre) are not the typical subjects of documentaries with grander ambitions. They face unique challenges in sometimes familiar circumstances. Rarely are they easily definable. Their lives, thoughts, and feelings are put out into the world to help us understand our own place in it and to develop a bit of empathy for those we may encounter in similar circumstances.

SIFF (Seattle International Film Festival) shows a great number of documentaries every year. Three of the best I have seen in a while are showing this year—these slice-of-life tales.

(L-R) Mikyung Kim, Okgyun Kang, Kwangho Kim, Mieke Murtes, Mijin Kim in Between Goodbyes

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Filmed in a more traditional form, Between Goodbyes, directed by Jota Mun (herself an adoptee like her subject Mieke Murkes), is so much more about the emotional weight of international adoption than the history and practicalities of the trade. We get to meet Mieke, who grew up in the Netherlands, as she interacts with her birth family, and especially her mother Okgyun, in South Korea.

Between Goodbyes' emotional core is never strayed far away from, even as details about the adoptions of South Korean children by international parents come out of the story of Mieke and her family. The film is filled only with talking heads by those in the family and close friends. They detail the struggles and with Mieke's worries about how her family will handle her Queer identity as they live in a society that is not as accepting as the one she grew up in. It is intimate and at times overwhelming, but shows how family evolves and how even as communication is difficult, understanding and acceptance comes with exposure.

From an entirely different angle, Viktor, directed by Olivier Sarbil, details a different side of isolation and feeling of helplessness as deaf photographer Viktor Korotovskyi endures the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We learn through narration how much Viktor wished, and still wishes, to be a soldier like his father. At first he thinks this is the only way he can truly serve his country. As the war progresses he learns fighting isn't his only path to service. He finds opportunities eventually as a volunteer photographer embedded with several squads fighting in pitched battles.

Victor Korotovskyi in Viktor

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We are given the realities of Viktor's differences not only in his interactions with people, but in the sound design of the film. There are scenes where the sound of the film muffles and we are invited into a piece of Viktor's world. We understand the frustrations of not being able to hear the doctor telling him one more time he is not able to enlist or the musician evoking a strong emotional response from the other soldiers in attendance at a private concert. Yet, we get to see that Viktor's world is not completely isolated as he and another hard-of-hearing friend share a lively signed conversation in an otherwise loud bar. Viktor's world expands as he comes to understand his new purpose. We begin to understand a different perspective on service and what isolation can actually feel like.

Isolation is also a theme of Seeds, directed by Brittany Shyne, but it also is a film that isolates the audience from details about its subjects. Unlike Between Goodbyes with its linear and narrative structure, or Viktor with its internal narration and editorial structure, Seeds is loose and gives little to the audience. We are left to understand the struggles of Black intergenerational farmers of the rural American South through the images that appear on screen and the sparse dialogue between subjects.

While many may find the approach of Seeds to be antithetical to what documentaries are meant to be, the experience can open the audience's eyes. The film asks that we observe experience and not absorb information as a means of empathy and understanding. All the context necessary to see the joys, the struggles, the pain, the frustration, and the accomplishment of these farmers is spread throughout the film. 

Willie Head Jr. and great-grandchild in Seeds

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When we are given a greater amount of historical significance as subject Willie Head Jr. reveals his activism for his fellow Black farmers and the film takes a detour to see him and fellow activists in action at a protest in Washington, D.C., we are given better understanding to the difficult situations faced by the people we have seen. Seeds reveals itself slowly and in its own way, but it does have a thesis. The thesis is just not one fed to you by experts, but by the people who live in those circumstances.

Documentaries like Between Goodbyes, Viktor, and Seeds are an invigorating style of non-fiction storytelling. These films evolve the genre beyond what we perceive as documentaries. Documentary filmmaking, like narrative filmmaking, sets out to tell a story, so it makes sense to tell the story in a way that works for the subject and material. These three forge their own path and are all the better for it.

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For showtimes and venues, visit the SIFF site.