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      ‘From the Hood to the Holler’ Review: A Race to Galvanize the Poor

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      A new documentary revisits the former Kentucky state representative Charles Booker’s 2020 campaign to unseat Mitch McConnell in the Senate.At a hearing in 2019 for a vote on a bill that would restrict abortion access in Kentucky, Charles Booker, a state representative at the time, gave an impassioned speech about abortion rights, criticizing politicians who had compared the medical procedure to lynching. When the speaker of the Assembly tried to silence him, Booker yelled, “My life matters, too, speaker,” as an older white man screamed at him to “sit down.”“I can only imagine that in this white person’s mind, he thought he had the right to tell this Black person to sit down,” Attica Scott, another state representative from Kentucky, says later.The exchange plays out in the new documentary “From the Hood to the Holler,” directed by Pat McGee. It follows Booker’s subsequent run for Senate in 2020, including a campaign defined by his willingness to walk across that racial divide, traveling to “hollers,” or poor, mostly white communities in Appalachia, to unite impoverished voters. Booker lost narrowly in a Democratic primary against Amy McGrath; some weeks before the election, the documentary notes, he had raised around $300,000 compared to her $29.8 million. (In May, Booker won the primary by a landslide, and he’ll face off against the Republican senator Rand Paul in November.)The documentary succeeds at presenting Booker as a candidate who can unite voters, and its best scenes show him meeting the moment. In one scene, he mediates between the police and protesters after the death of Breonna Taylor, whom he knew, convincing the officers to drop their batons in a show of solidarity. In another, he strategizes with his team about safety procedures for traveling through places that may have once been considered sundown towns, showing how racism persists in modern-day Kentucky and the nation.But though Booker’s story and success are inspiring, the documentary falls flat, feeling more like a political tool than a commentary on the state of politics in Kentucky. It would have benefited from less focus on Booker and more on the many Kentuckians he spoke to who are ready for a change.From the Hood to the HollerNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      Your Monday Briefing: Ukraine Gains Ground

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      Plus China locks down Xinjiang and floods devastate Pakistan’s agriculture.The successful Ukrainian offensive began near Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city.Nicole Tung for The New York TimesUkraine strikes a major blowUkraine has been moving forward in a lightning advance that appears to have reshaped the war and smashed what had been a monthslong stalemate.Ukrainian forces appear to have driven Russian troops from almost all of the Kharkiv region, in the northeast. Ukrainian officials said on Saturday that the military had retaken Izium, a strategically important railway hub that Russian forces seized in the spring after a bloody, weekslong battle.The rapid gains — Ukraine’s most significant since April — have profoundly weakened Russia’s grip on eastern Ukraine, which it has used as a stronghold. Yesterday, Ukraine claimed additional territory and was poised to advance on more towns held by Moscow. Here are live updates and a map of where Russian forces are retreating in northeastern Ukraine.Reaction: In Russia, once-vocal supporters of the invasion criticized President Vladimir Putin. In Ukraine, the push has buoyed spirits and galvanized calls for even more Western military support.Nuclear: Ukraine has begun shutting down the Zaporizhzhia power plant, a safety measure as fighting continues around the facility.China: Russia said a senior Chinese official offered Beijing’s most robust endorsement yet of the invasion.The complaints from Xinjiang led to a surge of online comments in China.China News Service, via ReutersChina’s lockdowns hit XinjiangYining, a city in the Xinjiang region of western China, is under a grueling, weekslong pandemic lockdown. Residents say they face a lack of food and medicine, as well as a drastic shortage of sanitary pads for women.Many of Yining’s 600,000 residents are relying mostly on neighborhood officials to deliver supplies. But it appears to be insufficient: One resident told The Times that he received food every five days, but that there was little of nutritional value — no fruit, vegetables or meat. Other residents said they just hadrice, naan or instant noodles.The State of the WarUkraine’s Gains: Ukrainian forces appear to have scored the most significant battlefield gains since April by reclaiming territory in the northeast, in a rapid advance that has taken Russian troops by surprise.Southern Counteroffensive: Military operations in the south have been a painstaking battle of river crossings, with pontoon bridges as prime targets for both sides. So far, it is Ukraine that has advanced.Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant: After United Nations inspectors visited the Russian-controlled facility last week amid shelling and fears of a looming nuclear disaster, the organization released a report calling for Russia and Ukraine to halt all military activity around the complex.The Road to Rebuilding: With a major conference on post-war reconstruction scheduled for next month, Ukraine’s allies face complicated questions about the process and the oversight of the funds.People in other Chinese cities, such as Shanghai, complained loudly about similar shortages and conditions after long shutdowns. But Yining has gotten little national attention; Xinjiang is an ethnically divided region that has been under an intense crackdown aimed at Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other largely Muslim minorities.Context: Last month, the U.N.’s human rights office said Beijing’s mass detentions of predominantly Muslim groups in Xinjiang “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”Floodwater now covers around a third of Pakistan, including its agricultural belt.Akhtar Soomro/ReutersFloods threaten Pakistan’s cropsPakistan is facing a looming food crisis after monsoon rains last week exacerbated months of record flooding, which has killed more than 1,300 people — nearly half of whom are children.The waters have crippled the country’s agricultural sector: Nearly all of Pakistan’s crops have been damaged. So have thousands of livestock, as well as stores of wheat and fertilizer. More rain is predicted in the coming weeks.The water could derail the upcoming planting season, leading to further insecurity at a time when global wheat supplies are already precarious. The country is one of the world’s top exporters of rice and cotton, both of which have been devastated by the floods.Pakistan is already reeling from an economic crisis and double-digit inflation that has sent prices of basic goods soaring. The destruction could also deepen political tensions that have churned since Imran Khan was ousted as prime minister last spring.Reaction: Officials have called the floods a climate disaster of epic proportions. Around 33 million have been displaced, and aid officials fear a second wave of deaths from food shortages and diseases transmitted by contaminated water.What’s next: The damage from the flood will most likely be “far greater” than initial estimates of around $10 billion, according to the country’s planning minister.THE LATEST NEWSAsia and the PacificTaiwanese soldiers shot down a drone recently and are ramping up defenses.Wu Hong/EPA, via ShutterstockIn the past month, two Taiwanese islands have been buzzed by nearly 30 unarmed Chinese drones, one of which was shot down by soldiers.Five speech therapists in Hong Kong who were charged with publishing “seditious” children’s books were sentenced to 19 months in prison.China and India appear to be moving toward a de-escalation after a two-year-old spat over a disputed border.North Korea has adopted a new law that authorizes a nuclear strike if the U.S. or South Korea tries to oust Kim Jong-un.Indonesians are protesting a government policy that has increased subsidized fuel prices. “Social unrest is imminent,” an expert told The Times.The British MonarchyQueen Elizabeth II’s body will lie in state in Edinburgh until tomorrow before continuing on to London. Oli Scarff/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesQueen Elizabeth II’s funeral will be on Sept. 19. Her coffin will be taken to Buckingham Palace tomorrow.Britain faces overlapping domestic crises and anxiety over its place in the world. But despite internal divides, people mourned together.Across the world, grief mixed with criticism of the monarchy, as some Commonwealth countries discussed a rupture with their former colonizer. In Australia and India, former British colonies, people met the news of the queen’s death with muted reflection.“Britons tend to be kind of stoic,” our London bureau chief told The Morning. “You feel it more as this sorrowful undercurrent than as this visible, dramatic display of grief.”Around the WorldSweden has some of the highest rates of gun homicides in Europe.Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York TimesSweden held parliamentary elections yesterday. Gun violence was a top issue.William Ruto is expected to take power as Kenya’s fifth president tomorrow.The U.S. remembered the Sept. 11 attacks yesterday. President Biden promised to never forget “the precious lives stolen from us.”The U.N.’s annual General Assembly begins tomorrow. The organization has a new top human rights official: Volker Türk of Austria.What Else Is HappeningIga Swiatek celebrated her victory.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesIga Swiatek of Poland won the U.S. Open women’s singles title. The men’s singles final, featuring the 19-year-old Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz and the Norwegian Casper Ruud, began about an hour before this newsletter was sent.The criminalization of abortion in some U.S. states has changed how doctors treat women with complicated pregnancies.Climate change is threatening the olive oil capital of the world.A Morning ReadThe Hasidic Jewish community has long operated one of New York’s largest private schools on its own terms, resisting any outside scrutiny of how its students are faring.Jonah Markowitz for The New York TimesNew York’s Hasidic leaders have denied children a basic education, a Times investigation has found. Some Yeshiva schools focus on religious instruction at the expense of English and math.They have also benefited from $1 billion in government funding in the last four years but are unaccountable to outside oversight.ARTS AND IDEASA look back at Venice“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” a documentary directed by Laura Poitras, won the Golden Lion for best film at the 79th Venice International Film Festival. That’s quite a victory: documentaries rarely take the top prize.The festival — which continued in-person throughout the pandemic even when other such celebrations went dark — thrived this year. Our fashion critic, Vanessa Friedman, wrote that the festival “solidified its position as the most glamorous red carpet of the year.”Stars such as Timothée Chalamet and Ana de Armas enthralled the robust crowds, and there was no shortage of critical debate — or buzzy gossip.The festival augurs drama and triumphs to come, Kyle Buchanan writes: “When it comes to the real kickoff for Oscar season — the mad crush of prestige films, A-list cocktail parties and awards-show buzz that churns all fall and winter — it’s the Venice Film Festival that fires the starting pistol.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookBryan Gardner for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.Add grated zucchini to your turkey burgers.What to WatchHere are 40 shows to watch this fall. The Emmy Awards begin soon after this newsletter sends, at 8 a.m. in Hong Kong or 10 a.m. in Sydney.What to ReadSiddhartha Mukherjee has written blockbuster books about cancer and genes. “The Song of the Cell” delves into what he describes as “the units that organize our life.”Modern LoveShe ran from her emotions. Now she relishes them.Now Time to PlayPlay today’s Mini Crossword.Here are today’s Wordle and today’s Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. The morning after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, more Wordle players than usual tried QUEEN as their first guess.“The Daily” is about Queen Elizabeth II.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Stream These Three Great Documentaries

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      This month’s nonfiction picks include a surprising look at a World War II veteran and a fresh dive into footage shot during the first year of Putin’s presidency.The proliferation of documentaries on streaming services makes it difficult to choose what to watch. Each month, we’ll choose three nonfiction films — classics, overlooked recent docs and more — that will reward your time.‘The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On’ (1987)Stream it on the Criterion Channel.Whatever convinced the director Kazuo Hara that it would be wise to trail Kenzo Okuzaki, the subject of “The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On,” it’s a rationale that probably shouldn’t be repeated, if it ever could be. Yet it resulted in one of the most jaw-dropping documentaries ever filmed. Screening as part of a collection of movies by Hara (whose wildly voyeuristic “Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974,” another excellent streaming choice, shows his ex-wife giving birth on camera), “Emperor’s Naked Army” has won praise from some of nonfiction filmmaking’s biggest names. Errol Morris put it on a list of his 10 favorite documentaries, saying: “I think it’s every interviewer’s dream that in the middle of an interview, when your subject is not forthcoming, you get up out of your chair and just beat them to a pulp. Of course, that never happens — except in ‘The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On.’”The pugnacious interviewer — the man who physically pins men down during interrogations — is not Hara but Okuzaki. A World War II veteran, Okuzaki, at the time of filming, had spent more than a decade in prison for crimes that included murder and firing a slingshot at Emperor Hirohito. Now released, he is on a monomaniacal mission to learn more about the fates of some of his fellow Japanese soldiers who were killed in New Guinea after the war. The circumstances sound increasingly outlandish the more we hear, even as Okuzaki’s quest appears more unhinged (and at times darkly comic) in its single-mindedness. He even recruits people to role-play as relatives of the victims.With Hara tagging along as an observer and, by extension, perhaps an unwitting abettor, the reedy, loquacious Okuzaki, typically dressed in a suit, confronts potential witnesses and perpetrators and matter-of-factly demands that they talk, politely informing one that he came there prepared to beat him up if he does not. “When I committed a murder or when I shot at the emperor, I didn’t try to escape,” Okuzaki barks at another. “I took responsibility. But you didn’t. I hate irresponsible people.”“The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On” is a journey alongside madness, an ethical quagmire and a uniquely volatile movie, one that has been difficult to stream stateside until now.‘Enemies of the State’ (2020)Stream it on Hulu.It’s difficult to describe this paranoia-suffused documentary directed by Sonia Kennebeck (and executive-produced by Errol Morris) without giving too much away. A second viewing is completely different from a first. “Enemies of the State” tries to untangle the case of Matt DeHart, an American who fled to Canada in 2013 and claimed that the F.B.I. had him physically tortured, ostensibly because he had stumbled on a bombshell revelation after spending time in hacktivist circles. His supporters were inclined to group him with Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, even though he never made his purported findings public. In the movie, only his mother, Leann, claims to have seen the files he found.But at the time DeHart fled to Canada, he had been indicted on charges of producing and transporting child pornography in the United States, in a case that he suggested had been concocted. And while some coverage of DeHart has noted the difficulties of verifying certain details — the story involves minors (on the one hand) and national security (on the other) — by the end of the film, Kennebeck has not only indicated what she thinks is true, but has also raised potent questions about confirmation bias. The movie suggests that the various agendas of DeHart’s supporters inclined them to view him in certain ways. Kennebeck prods viewers to question their own trustingness, pushing them to doubt certain interviewees, then to believe them and vice versa, and even to be skeptical of what they see. (Re-enactments synchronize original audio recordings with the lips of actors.)To say more would reveal too much, but “Enemies of the State” explains the saga with a clarity other accounts have lacked.‘Putin’s Witnesses’ (2018)Stream it on Ovid.Credit goes to the Museum of the Moving Image for introducing me to “Putin’s Witnesses,” which it screened earlier in the month. In this eerie documentary, the director, Vitaly Mansky, who was born in Lviv, Ukraine; studied film in Russia; and now lives in Latvia revisits footage he shot during the first year of Vladimir Putin’s presidency, beginning with Boris Yeltsin’s resignation on Dec. 31, 1999, a decision that elevated Putin to the position of acting president. In narration, Mansky says he started shooting the movie as P.R. for Putin’s campaign in the March 2000 election — although Putin portrays himself as being all-business, above doing the unsubstantive work of advertising or participating in a televised debate. At the same time, Mansky points out, he was always on TV. And part of what can be seen in “Putin’s Witnesses” is how people around him manufactured and softened his image. The director says he himself proposed that Putin pay a cuddly on-camera visit to an old schoolteacher in St. Petersburg.Yet Mansky sees things in the material that didn’t jump out at the time. He reflects on watching Putin with then-Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain in the czar’s box at the Mariinsky Opera House: “It’s hard to picture the feelings of the guy raised in a St. Petersburg communal apartment, having joined the elite of the world at breakneck speed.” Mansky also spends time with Yeltsin and his family on election night and on the subsequent New Year’s Eve. Yeltsin looks increasingly perturbed at how much distance his chosen successor has put between them. Elsewhere, Mansky introduces various movers and shakers at Putin’s campaign headquarters on election night, then notes that the majority eventually either joined Putin’s opposition or were dismissed. (One of them, Anatoly Chubais, left his post as Putin’s climate envoy last week, reportedly over the war in Ukraine.)During his first year as president, Putin continues to act vaguely chummy with Mansky even as the faint rumblings of autocracy begin to be felt. Late in the movie, Putin praises the concept of being an elected leader instead of a monarch because it means a person like him can serve as president, then retreat into civilian life. “Everything you do with the state and the society today you will have to face in a few years as an ordinary citizen,” he tells Mansky. “It is a good thing to remember before taking a decision.” Those are chilling words now. More

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      ‘American Gadfly’ Review: A Candid Candidacy

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      This documentary goes behind the scenes of Mike Gravel’s oddball run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.A victory lap for a campaign that never sought to win, the documentary “American Gadfly” goes a long way toward explaining Mike Gravel’s perplexing run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.Gravel, the former two-term Alaska senator who pursued the 2008 nomination in earnest, and who died last year at 91, merely tried to qualify for the 2020 cycle’s debates. His run, which lasted for four months in 2019, was mainly the brainchild of two teenagers, David Oks and Henry Williams, who saw Gravel as a storied figure who wouldn’t prevail but could raise hell and push the political discussion leftward. Gravel sat on the sidelines and handed over his Twitter account.“My real end goal has always been to have Bernie Sanders pick up our platform plank,” Williams says at a staff meeting in the movie. Later in the film, in June 2019, Williams says he hopes half the candidates, “possibly including us,” will soon drop out, so that voters can vet contenders with a chance. Casting Tim Ryan, Bill de Blasio and John Delaney as villains — while somewhat incongruously praising Marianne Williamson, who aided Gravel’s fund-raising efforts — the movie suggests that Gravel had more substance than better-publicized long shots.The director, Skye Wallin, presents the correctness of Oks and Williams’s cause as a given. If you can get past that ingenuousness, “American Gadfly” is enjoyable as a chronicle of teenage idealism and its frustrations. (In Iowa, Oks bemoans the inefficiency of meeting and greeting voters.) Gravel, in his appearances, comes across as avuncular, eager to share ideas but even more eager to encourage young acolytes.American GadflyNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘President’ Review: Zimbabwe’s Struggle for Democracy

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      In a riveting new documentary, Camilla Nielsson follows the first democratic election in Zimbabwe since 1980.Eight months after Robert Mugabe, who ruled Zimbabwe autocratically for nearly 30 years starting in 1980, was ousted in a 2017 coup, the nation was set to elect a new president in its first democratic election since the start of Mugabe’s rule.Camilla Nielsson gives viewers a front-row seat to that July 2018 election in “President,” a riveting documentary that follows Nelson Chamisa, a charismatic 40-year-old lawyer, as he runs against Emmerson Mnangagwa, the strongman who unseated Mugabe.Nielsson’s access to Chamisa allows for an intimate look at the Catch-22 of establishing a democracy amid state-sanctioned violence and corruption, and the grit of those fighting for it. The juxtaposition of the candidates’ strategies is apparent when, as both sides arrive at a courthouse for a pivotal case, the camera pans first to the pile of papers with which the opposition will make its case and then to the police stockpiling nightsticks.Chamisa says repeatedly that he is willing to die for his cause. His charisma and connection to the people make him an excellent anchor for the film, reflecting and representing Zimbabwe’s decades-long struggle for a fair democracy. The film includes harrowing images of citizens being beaten, hosed down and shot at by the military and police for demonstrating in support of Chamisa.President Mnangagwa claims victory in the election, despite allegations of vote rigging that are raised by the opposition. It’s a somber end to a film that opens with and is undergirded by Zimbabweans’ hope for change.PresidentNot rated. Running time: 2 hours. In theaters. More

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      ‘Mayor Pete’ Review: Politics Is Local

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      This film, which follows Pete Buttigieg on his campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, rarely captures him in what looks like an unselfconscious moment.We already knew Pete Buttigieg was good on camera. For “Mayor Pete,” the documentarian Jesse Moss followed Buttigieg — the current transportation secretary and former mayor of South Bend, Ind. — during his campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. But the resulting portrait rarely captures him in what looks like an unselfconscious moment.Maybe Buttigieg is always on. “In my way of coming at the world, the stronger an emotion is, the more private it is,” he says in an interview for the film. He chafes against consultants’ advice that he “let loose” and be himself — because letting loose, he says, would not be being himself. The movie does show him singing a “Schoolhouse Rock” tune as he signs papers at his mayor’s desk.But Moss — a director of “Boys State,” in a sense a companion look at political novices finding their voices — hasn’t succeeded in becoming a fly on the wall, if such a thing is possible during a heavily photographed campaign. (“The War Room” focused on strategists, not the candidate.) Showing Buttigieg at one public appearance after another, “Mayor Pete” more often plays like outtakes from the trail than an inside glimpse.Occasionally the movie encounters situations that appear as if they weren’t intended to be filmed, as when Buttigieg’s husband, Chasten, points out that he’s not going to be positioned as prominently as other candidates’ spouses in Iowa. Later, in South Carolina, Chasten encourages his weary spouse to deliver yet another speech (“Everything you’re going to say is new to them”). For a minute, you can see Buttigieg let a private emotion through.Mayor PeteRated R for language. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. Watch on Amazon. More