'Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry'

Documentary. Directed by George Butler. (Not rated. 130 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.).

First things first: "Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry," is a partisan political work -- an unabashed paean to Kerry's character at a time in the presidential election when Kerry's character is being questioned. It's also a riveting film that (leaving politics aside) is a time capsule of the Vietnam War and the protests that gripped the nation -- a tense period that has obvious parallels to the situation in Iraq.

Made by a lifelong friend of Kerry's who happens to be a documentarian and a photographer, "Going Upriver" shows how Kerry went from being a heroic commander of a Swift Boat unit in Vietnam to a prominent anti-war activist in Washington. The reasons for Kerry's transformation are laid out onscreen: Soldiers he knows are killed in Vietnam; U.S. military higher-ups implement strategies that lead to scores of civilian deaths (about 1.5 million Vietnamese civilians lost their lives in the war); Kerry loses faith in his initial belief that the United States would liberate the Vietnamese. After leading anti-war protests with the group Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Kerry becomes an "instant celebrity" when he addresses the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

This is when President Nixon becomes a bigger character in the film. Nixon senses that Kerry could cause him trouble, so he has his staff try to find embarrassing information about the veteran. They can't -- a fact that director George Butler plays up, even using Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man" (from Dylan's 1965 album "Highway 61 Revisited") to emphasize Kerry's strong anti-establishment credentials. Butler, whose best-known documentary is "Pumping Iron," uses excerpts of other '60s music to give resonance to "Going Upriver." At times, the film feels like an MTV video montage of '60s hits. Butler even recycles Philip Glass' music from Errol Morris' "The Fog of War," giving the impression that Butler strained to finish this film for its theatrical release.

Butler, who once worked for Kerry, has admitted he wants "Going Upriver" to solidify a positive impression of the candidate. Kerry certainly comes across as a man who was destined for bigger things, but "Going Upriver" is actually more touching when Kerry is off-camera -- especially when we see mostly anonymous veterans demonstrating in 1971. Using detailed footage and black-and-white stills, Butler spotlights these long-haired men camping in front of the White House, marching down Pennsylvania Avenue, making the sign for peace. These men are resolved to end the war. Some of them are missing legs. Some of them can't hide their pain and their tears. Kerry was but one person in a nationwide movement of anti-war protesters. When Kerry is offscreen, we see the effects of war more clearly. Even at age 27, Kerry was an eloquent speaker, but he seemed to mask his raw feelings in ways that others could not. "Going Upriver" is (thankfully) as much the study of a nation in transition as it is about a future presidential candidate.

-- Advisory: This film shows disturbing images of death. - Jonathan Curiel

'The Yes Men'

Documentary. Directed by Chris Smith, Dan Ollman and Sarah Price. (Rated R. 83 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.).

Liberals and conservatives have opposing views of Michael Moore, but they can probably agree on one thing: Moore has radically changed the field of documentary filmmaking, opening up the genre for directors who use humor to make bigger points about the society we live in. "The Yes Men" has Moore's imprimatur all over it. In fact, Moore even appears in this documentary, but unlike "Fahrenheit 9/11" or "Bowling for Columbine," "The Yes Men" uses traditional filmmaking techniques to spotlight its subject: two activists who oppose the World Trade Organization.

These aren't ordinary activists. These are people who impersonate the very officials they oppose, attending conferences as WTO representatives -- only to deliver talks that are critical of WTO policies. Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum have a history of pulling off successful stunts, and in "The Yes Men, " they live out the fantasies of many left-leaning activists by "subverting the dominant paradigm" on a global scale.

The film's humor stems from Bonanno and Bichlbaum, who find funny ways to attack organizations and people they oppose. "Funny" is a relative term, of course, so it may only be liberals who laugh at what happened during the 2000 presidential campaign: Bonanno and Bichlbaum created a Web site that parodied then-candidate George W. Bush; the site was an exact duplicate of Bush's official site, except that it ripped his environmental policies and suggested Bush had a past drug problem. When a reporter asked Bush about the site, he said then, "There's a lot of garbage in politics, and obviously this is a garbage man." When the reporter suggested the site had gone too far, Bush said, "There ought to be limits ... to freedom."

Coverage of that incident prompted other activists to help Bonanno and Bichlbaum, who call themselves the Yes Men. These two pranksters thrive on the media attention they get and in getting people to rethink their assumptions. As they explain in the documentary, more media attention means more people finding out about their subversive campaigns, which leads to figures like Herb Alpert (the musician and record executive) giving them money to carry on their ways.

"The Yes Men" is filled with cinematic tension, primarily around Bichlbaum's attempt to pose as a WTO official at a conference in Finland. There, he wants to show off a "Management Leisure Suit" that features a phallus-like monitoring device. What Bichlbaum experiences shocks him -- though not in the way he had imagined. "The Yes Men" troika of directors (Chris Smith, Dan Ollman and Sarah Price) follow Bichlbaum, Bonanno and their supporters without judgment. There's no narration here. There's no Michael Moore-like bombast. The filmmakers let the audience decide whether Bichlbaum and Bonanno are really making a difference with their pranks. There are some obvious shortcomings in the film (why, for example, didn't Smith, Ollman and Price try to get an on-camera response from the WTO?). But "The Yes Men" achieves what any good documentary tries to: It's thought-provoking, insightful and entertaining at the same time.

-- Advisory: This film has rough language and images that are potentially disturbing.

-- Jonathan Curiel

Documentary. Directed by Jim de Seve. (Not rated. 82 minutes. At the Lumiere and Act 1 and 2 in Berkeley)..

Gains and losses happen so frequently in the fight for gay marriage that it's hard to keep up. The documentary "Tying the Knot" suffers from trying to. Its last several minutes are a rush job of updates on court decisions and legislative efforts. But this documentary by Jim de Seve succeeds anyway, by putting a poignant human face on the struggle for equal rights.

"Tying the Knot'' has two plain-spoken, quintessentially American subjects at its center. Both have lost their partners and been denied their share of what that partner left behind. Mickie Mashburn, a Tampa, Fla., policewoman, was prohibited from receiving her lover and fellow Officer Lois Marrero's pension after Marrero was fatally shot by a robber in 2001. Mashburn stays remarkably poised as she and her supporters make a case before a pension board. It's the home movies that get you. They show the couple 10 years earlier, clad in tuxedoes and brimming with emotion during a commitment ceremony. Marrero's sister was there for the ceremony -- and back a decade later to contest Mashburn's claim to her sister's pension.

Sam, an Oklahoman who built a ranch and raised a family with his partner, Earl, has experienced even sadder circumstances. Earl's will left everything to Sam, but Earl's cousin challenged it on a technicality and won. A cousin! That's not even immediate family. A marriage decree might have prevented this from happening. Common decency certainly should have.

The usual suspects from the religious and political right pop up in archival television footage, as do Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The latter has attained such a dewy glow in the memories of liberal-minded people that they might have forgotten he signed the Defense of Marriage Act. Far more heartening are shots of gay people in Toronto, Massachusetts and Amsterdam (and, in one of the rushed moments, San Francisco) celebrating marriages, no matter how fleeting their legality.

One Dutch newlywed puts the issue in perspective. He says the Dutch base the degree of a country's civilization on how it treats its minorities. By that standard, how civilized is the United States?

-- Advisory: This film contains graphic language from gay-marriage opponents.