Documentaries that have stuck with you.

[LetsGoCrazyPurpleBanana]

I remember in the early 9Os watching a documentary about 2 men who were partners, living with and ultimately dying from AIDS. Found it on YouTube and watched it again at the weekend. I've not stopped thinking about them. It's called "Silverlake life,the view from here" 😭

Also another one,again early to mid 1990s called "The dying room" about China's orphanages.

That doesn't surprise me at all. I'll try and watch that.

Yes this was a hard watch :( He had a wicked sense of humour.

Hayley,the little girl with progeria :'(

Tsunami: Caught on Camera

Oh god, so many!

Back in the 90s I watched a documentary about the Donner Party, a group of pioneers heading west in the great American emigration. They took a catastrophic risk of a short cut and ended up trapped all winter. Some of them ended up eating the dead to survive. I've never forgotten it.

John's Not Mad, about a Scottish teenager with Tourettes syndrome. Heartbreaking but also hilarious. The follow ups have been brilliant (adult John doesn't tic during sex :))

Tales from Death Row. The one about the abused boy who grew up to kill his elderly neighbour is just incredible.

Any bbc 4 music doc featuring stars of the past as they are now moves me to tears. I can't explain why.

There’s one I’ve recently come across that I watched years ago about children who are allowed unrestricted access to consoles and/or allowed to play violent video games. I think of it all of the time when I’m on MN because of the amount of posts I see from parents complaining about their teenage/young adult children that are holed up in their rooms, depressed/anxious, won’t go to school/get a job, or go out and see friends or interact with people. The common theme in every one of these threads is that they’re sat playing on a console. This study on the damage consoles do to childrens brains and emotional developmental is unbelievable.

The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off was amazing.

Johnny's mum 'ooh Johnny what do you want me to do with your waistcoat when you're gone?'

Johnny: (eyeroll to camera) put it on ebay, woman!

Both progeria Johnny and Tourettes John had strong mothers and poor fathers. John's dad left the family because he couldn't cope with John's tics.

The Staircase - about an author who allegedly pushed his wife down the stairs

Sorry, I've got progeria confused there. I meant the skin disorder.

My Octopus Teacher. I don't like seafood anyway, but I would never eat octopus now.

The two that Nick Broomfield made about Aileen Wuornos. Such a complex person and such a complex subject. I cried at the end. It put me in the peculiar position of having a huge amount of sympathy for a serial killer, despite knowing she was 100% responsible for and guilty of those crimes.

Definitely The Dying Rooms. Two docudramas . I think one was called something like Dying for my debt about a young man who buys a scooter to get work and ends up being persued by bailiffs . Such a sad story . Also Threads . A 1970s drama about a nuclear attack on Sheffield .

I watched Torn a few months ago on Disney Plus. It’s about the legendary mountain climber Alex Lowe who died in an avalanche and was made by his son. I think it was very beautifully and thoughtfully made and more about the subject of grief and losing someone than about mountain climbing.

Another one is Children of the Tsunami where they interviewed kids who were affected by the Tohoku tsunami and nuclear accident. I read the book Ghosts of the Tsunami, so it was interesting and heartbreaking to see some of the people mentioned in the book.

The Paradise Lost trilogy stick with me from the moment I watched the first one when I was about 14. Even at such a young age, the obvious injustice both the accused and the victims were landed with shook me. I’ve followed the case closely ever since.

Also there was one, ITV I think a few years ago called War Widows, about women who’d lost their husbands in recent conflicts. My exH is military, I was still married to him at the time and in all honesty I wish I’d never watched it. We all know the reality that comes along with being married to a soldier, but seeing these women, most of whom had young children go through the worst case scenario of that lifestyle completely broke me 😞

I remember watching one on the Boxing Day tsunami.

The bit that always stays with me, that I can almost remember word for word.

husband: we got up that morning. Beautiful morning. We had a shag

wife: laughs.

and then they spoke about the water rushing in and how the wife was clutching her 4 year old daughter as hard as she could. The water tore the daughter away. And they found her body days later.

Mummifying Alan. I think it's still on 4od.

It is a man who is dying, who signed up for an experiment in trying to mummify in the modern world, but the manner of the ancient Egyptians. It details the end of his life, his mummification and his wife after his death and the treatment of his body. It was interesting, but mostly incredibly moving. The love his wife felt was so clear, before his death and when viewing his mummy. It was more a documentary of human emotion than a science experiment.

One of my favourites.

documentary about Nikita Grender who was murdered when heavily pregnant. The sheer grief of her parents was very difficult to watch. I often think of them and hope they’re managing okay.

Ripper - the son of the first victim to be murdered describing how he woke up as a little boy to find his (single) mum missing and describing his fear and confusion.

i saw a documentary years ago about the 2004 tsunami which featured video footage of a family finding their daughter on a pin board of photos of dead bodies. They were American and their daughter was only a teenager. Horrific.

The Killing Fields about the war in Sri Lanka - there was a scene where 2 men were collecting bodies and one remarked about the figure of a dead lady ☹️

More recently, The Staircase documentary on Netflix (not the Colin Firth series about the same thing), I still don’t know what to think about it.

Not a documentary as such, but ‘I know my name is Michael’ was based on a true story. Never forgotten it.

Rain in my Heart. If I'm ever tempted to have a drink again, I watch that. The scene of the guy downing wine then instantly throwing it up will stay with my alcoholic ass forever.

The Paris Bennett episode of Psychopath (presented by Piers Morgan who I normally can't stand but does a good job here!). Paris killed his sibling and this is a fantastic interview with him - incredibly chilling!

A Storyville one years and years ago about two Romanian teenagers who were homeless and the girl was pregnant. I sometimes wonder what happened to them.
I can't remember the name right now but it's on Netflix- a series of documentaries about people who killed. Almost every one of them had a terrible childhood. That stuck with me.

Any bbc 4 music doc featuring stars of the past as they are now moves me to tears. I can't explain why

There was a lovely one about the friendship between Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt and them making a record together. Linda Ronstadt had a beautiful voice but can no longer sing. Makes me very sad when I listen to her songs now.

Another great one is 'Searching for Sugarman' about Rodriguez, an early 1970s musician who was briefly big in the US and then faded into obscurity. It turns out he became a huge hit in South Africa with his songs becoming anthems for young people as apartheid was dismantled, but was widely rumoured to have died. Two obsessed fans set out learn his true fate. (Spoiler alert: in 2018 he was alive and well when I saw him play the Albert Hall)

I love watching documentaries! There is definitely one that stuck with me. It was originally aired at around 2009/10. It was a about three young women who had plans to become nuns. One of them really stuck with me - she was going to a monastery on the Isle of Wight at which you completely shut yourself away from the world. You literally never leave the grounds of the monastery again, visits from your family are behind a metal grill etc. The documentary ended with showing that she was back at home after a few months. I often wonder what happened to her. Did she go back into civil life, marry, have kids? Or did she go back to the monastery? Did she go to another one. I often wish they did update documentaries to show what people are up to five years or ten years on.

Three Identical steanger. Just the fact really their separation was part of a social experiment is so sad!

Can't remember what it was called but about Jonestown. Scary how much influence the man had and was able to really commit mass murder with fear and words.