Headed to Sundance? Consider a documentary

If there is one thing the Sundance Film Festival can’t be faulted for, it’s the variety it offers festivalgoers. This year is no exception, with everything from a sci-fi buddy picture/heist film (“Robot and Frank”) to an Indonesian action flick (“The Raid”) to a movie about an Argentine Elvis impersonator (“The Last Elvis”).

Part and parcel of Sundance’s emphasis on experimental, edgy filmmaking, though, is also a huge disparity in quality.

For potential audience members trying to experience the best of what Sundance has to offer, documentaries are a good option.

Although rarely accompanied by glamorous premieres or celebrity after-parties, the festival’s documentary films encapsulate what Sundance is all about: creative, independent thought and great storytelling.

This year’s nonfiction lineup, featuring 36 documentary films in three categories (U.S., World and the recently added Premieres section, intended for “big subjects”), is every bit as eclectic as the films competing in the Drama category.

With a few exceptions, documentaries tend to be more consistent in quality.

Also, a major plus for anyone trying to wait-list a movie, documentaries don’t typically attract crowds quite as large as the more prestigious dramatic films. And many of these have been receiving decidedly mixed reviews.

In a rare occurrence, the first acquisition at this year’s Sundance Film Festival — reportedly purchased for a whopping six figures — is actually a documentary, called “Searching for Sugar Man.”

It tells the amazing, stranger-than-fiction story of a forgotten ‘70s singer-songwriter named Rodriguez. Amid rumors of a grisly onstage suicide, he disappeared without ever finding out that his album had made him bigger than Elvis in — of all places — apartheid-era South Africa. “Searching for Sugar Man” is a perfect example of the kind of story only a documentary can do justice to.

A nonfiction feature receiving positive buzz is a tragicomic look at America’s high-salary-earning 1 percent, called “The Queen of Versailles,” which, along with “Sugar Man,” premiered last Thursday as one of Sundance’s opening night films.