Spookers (2017)
Telling the story of a New Zealand haunted house, director Florian Habicht nurtures the stories that blossom from the branches of this gnarled tree.
BAPFF: Jalanan (2013)
The opening of Jalanan recalls The Act of Killing with titles displayed over Indonesian urban landscapes informing us that 7,000 of Jakarta’s 12 million inhabitants work as buskers. This documentary stoops under the poverty line to follow three such buskers over roughly a half-decade. Like The Act of Killing, it’s the work of a foreign…
Double Feature: Life Itself (2014) and 20,000 Days on Earth (2014)
In order for a documentary to be great, is it obliged to be innovative? Some of the best documentaries I’ve seen over the past year – Stories We Tell, My Winnipeg, The Act of Killing – are innovative in one way or another, whether it’s through a self-reflexive examination of the process of documentary-making or…
On Festivals
Today heralded the end of a great Australian festival that has lasted over two decades. I’m not referring to the Big Day Out, whose cultural capital was irrevocably eroded by the influx of teenage, Australian-flag-wearing bogans a decade ago and has limped its way to extinction ever since. No, I’m talking about the Brisbane International…
Double Feature: Inglourious Basterds (2009) and The Act of Killing (2012)
“Why do people watch films about Nazis? To see power and sadism! We can do that! We can make something even more sadistic.” – Anwar Congo The Act of Killing, one of the best films of 2013 – and certainly its most confronting – has been the target of significant criticism recently (A.J. Schnack’s article…
The Gatekeepers (2012)
“In the war against terrorists, forget about morality.” The Act of Killing and The Gatekeepers have a lot in common. The Gatekeepers doesn’t have the surreal style of Oppenheimer’s film. Its presentation is traditional: talking heads, stock footage, computer animation. The titular “gatekeepers” are six ex-leaders of the Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet; men who…
The Top 20 Films of 2013
My Top 20 films of the year are listed below. For most them, clicking on the title will take you to my review of the film from earlier in the year. One qualifier before I begin: this doesn’t neatly fit into a “films of 2013” from a cinematic release perspective; thanks to film festivals and…
