Wherein Ben flies solo and I give the library a buzz
Ben sed:
have struggled to find my opening sentence and this lame offering is it. This is a must-see film, a great cinematic essay. Against the decontextualization of everything on behalf of postmodernism's reduction of reality to a virtual shoping spree, this film delivers a chunk of our actually existing world with ramifications that register off the chart.
We are so long past bullshit about objectivity in documentary film-making. Like I said, this is an essay. And the concrete is placed in just enough context to give the critical "big picture," the local case is shown to have global systemic causes.
But just like a literary essay of yester-year, the exposition of this is not some dry, analytical affair. So much of persuasion is rhetoric and the good documentarians today have enough command of cinematic grammar to fashion - what else to call it? - art. There is some amazing photography and the overall edit is masterful. The film is lean. Everything not only contributes but gains momentum and eventually comes together. Like I said about Lee's Levee, it has an argument. I am simply drawing attention to the brilliance of it's composition. The images are not subtle - how could they be? Shit, each one tells a thousand words and the words are all about oppression, poverty, degredation, desperation. But Jesus, how in hell did they even get the footage they got? And Christ, they cut the pieces together with outstanding craft in order to best enable the information to coalesce.
It is because things do not just speak for themselves that this excellence in documentation is so vital. This is journalism that knows neutrality is a myth and, dialectically, by taking an attached point of view, shows us greater truth about the whole. Have I made it clear that I am recommending the fuck out of this film?
I will not get into the content. I just want to mention I had no idea about the subject matter of DN , thought it was about religious fundamentalism in the US (again). You corrected me somewhat insofar as you told me it is about ecological crisis is some way. That is right. But DN is even more about imperialist political economy, down on the ground in Tanzania. The particular environmental disaster associated with Lake Victoria is only addressed in passing, in the context of the fishing industry that is the monocultural economy of the place - boom, and off we go. All down on the ground, so bloody awful down on the ground.
And since I was just talking about meta-conscious frame-busting in my review of The Prestige, there is a moment of filmic feed-back loop in DN that is so powerful it's staggering. Not this, context-is-always-shifting shit of the dilettante. This is, let's-return-that-to-where-we-found-it-for-even-more-of-THAT-REAL-context. I will not ruin your experience of this moment in the film by going into detail. Yes, I'm actually respecting the spoiler code for once. Just remember me when you watch the film. And please, you must watch this film.
We are so long past bullshit about objectivity in documentary film-making. Like I said, this is an essay. And the concrete is placed in just enough context to give the critical "big picture," the local case is shown to have global systemic causes.
But just like a literary essay of yester-year, the exposition of this is not some dry, analytical affair. So much of persuasion is rhetoric and the good documentarians today have enough command of cinematic grammar to fashion - what else to call it? - art. There is some amazing photography and the overall edit is masterful. The film is lean. Everything not only contributes but gains momentum and eventually comes together. Like I said about Lee's Levee, it has an argument. I am simply drawing attention to the brilliance of it's composition. The images are not subtle - how could they be? Shit, each one tells a thousand words and the words are all about oppression, poverty, degredation, desperation. But Jesus, how in hell did they even get the footage they got? And Christ, they cut the pieces together with outstanding craft in order to best enable the information to coalesce.
It is because things do not just speak for themselves that this excellence in documentation is so vital. This is journalism that knows neutrality is a myth and, dialectically, by taking an attached point of view, shows us greater truth about the whole. Have I made it clear that I am recommending the fuck out of this film?
I will not get into the content. I just want to mention I had no idea about the subject matter of DN , thought it was about religious fundamentalism in the US (again). You corrected me somewhat insofar as you told me it is about ecological crisis is some way. That is right. But DN is even more about imperialist political economy, down on the ground in Tanzania. The particular environmental disaster associated with Lake Victoria is only addressed in passing, in the context of the fishing industry that is the monocultural economy of the place - boom, and off we go. All down on the ground, so bloody awful down on the ground.
And since I was just talking about meta-conscious frame-busting in my review of The Prestige, there is a moment of filmic feed-back loop in DN that is so powerful it's staggering. Not this, context-is-always-shifting shit of the dilettante. This is, let's-return-that-to-where-we-found-it-for-even-more-of-THAT-REAL-context. I will not ruin your experience of this moment in the film by going into detail. Yes, I'm actually respecting the spoiler code for once. Just remember me when you watch the film. And please, you must watch this film.
To Which Dan Sez: I consider myself both forewarned and forearmed. I have put the dvd on hold at the library.
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