What is a documentary?

I have always known that I have loved documentaries, and have always enjoyed watching life, and the way that it is documented. As a young child, I used to love to watch the news. When my mom would suggest that I watch something more age appropriate, and that the news was too heavy for a seven year old, I would reply that I put more value on watching real life being documented than the fact that it was heavy. But until this week, I always had a very specific idea of what a documentary is. It was generally a talking head piece, but really, it was anything that was widely accepted enough to make it onto Hulu or Netflix. This week has already revolutionized what a documentary means. This moment of realization came during the viewing of the Persian Series 1-3 and A New Year. When viewing these pieces, I at first thought that they were nonsensical in nature. In addition to this, I have rarely been a huge fan of surrealism, as I generally prefer the realism that I associate with documentary. However, these pieces resonate with one of the definitions of documentary that is given in Introduction to Documentary by Bill Nichols. This definition states that documentary work is a "creative treatment of actuality." While this definition can be stretched and applied to many things, I had never before considered that documentary work could be a work of showing feelings, thoughts, or reactions, especially in a surreal way. For example, the film A New Year was an exploration of a teenage girl's world, and the way that she interacted with her world. It was very much a work of documentary, as it explored her real life, and the things that she was experiencing at the time. This is a piece that I would have never considered to be a documentary, but after this week's discussion, I have realized that the term "documentary" is extremely broad, and really can deal with anything that explores reality. This realization, of the depth and breadth of documentary film, was my realization for this week.