Just finished watching the third part of Exodus: Our Journey to Europe on iPlayer.

One part of Hassan's story about the brutality he recieved in Syria really got to me. Incredibly brave guy to have gone through all that and attempted and failed to get into the UK so many times.

That Shining documentary is terrifying. Brilliant stuff.

Watched this recently - has been labelled the Vegan Maker.

It won't turn me, however I am haunted by two scenes. The 1st (1:07:20) shows a circus elephant going berzerk and being gunned down, the second (1:15:50) in which a conscious pig is tied down and subjected to a blow torch for God knows what so-called scientific reason. It has left its mark on me.

Fucking tragic that it's relegated to iPlayer

trippy wrote:

Aye, it's an all time fave. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse is similarly brilliant. I think I prefer both to the films that spawned them.

Give dangerous days a watch if you enjoyed those. It's great.

Also - My Best Fiend (sic) by Werner Herzog - about his relationship with Klaus Kinski. The natives offered to kill Kinski for Herzog during filming of Fitzcaralldo. There's a "making of" for that film called Burden of Dreams that I haven't yet watched but is supposed to be excellent.

davyK wrote:

Also - My Best Fiend (sic) by Werner Herzog - about his relationship with Klaus Kinski. The natives offered to kill Kinski for Herzog during filming of Fitzcaralldo. There's a "making of" for that film called Burden of Dreams that I haven't yet watched but is supposed to be excellent.

I've seen and loved My Best Fiend and will look out for Burden of Dreams, thanks. Also like the film about Herzog eating his shoe. He's a legend.

I highly recommend the rather weighty Herzog book "Conversations with Paul Cronin". It covers a lot of ground and is really great, especially if your internal monologue can do a passable Herzog impersonation.

Herzog also did a series of Death Row inmate interviews that are very good.

Roujin wrote:

Aight Slags, Adam Curtis' new film is available on iPlayer from 9PM on the 16th. Prepare to strap in and feel the outrage of accumulated injustice beamed straight into your faces all over again!

(Sorry for the trews link, those who fond Brand to be unpalatable)

Lol.

Good early-90's doc on the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, the discrepancies in the story, the bungling of the investigation, the harrassment of the Coroner who maintained Kennedy was killed from shots fired from behind (rather than convicted shooter Sirhan Sirhan, who was in front of Kennedy), harrassment and brow-beating of witnesses and a brief detour into true 'out-there' country with the strange inability of convicted assassin Sirhan to recall anything about the shooting and the CIA's attempts at creating a real life Manchurian Candidate via hypnotic suggestion.

beano wrote:

I do worry that Curtis is gonna release a Koyaanisqatsi that catches me out and I left sat there at the end going, "Eh?"

That's was my reaction after I watched it- what I didn't say was I had to start it three times because I kept falling asleep. It was no where near as compelling as Koyaan..

I loved Bitter Lake, and It Felt Like A Kiss which was similar in that it was more about the atmosphere and the emotion than making a focused, concise, coherent point. Bitter Lake did have a point to make obviously, but it took plenty of long, wordless diversions from that point.

I think Bitter Lake was always intended to be an iPlayer exclusive, as it gave Curtis a chance to stretch out and experiment & the Beeb something to market the iPlayer with. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think it was quite clearly a different type of film from Curtis and if he'd wanted to edit it into his usual 3-part hour long series he could've done. It does go on a bit admittedly.

All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace was a far more obvious Curtis misstep, that just seemed a bit poor and messy to me. Maybe a rewatch would be kinder to it, I haven't bothered to return to it since it was on telly.

Even when he's not at his best there's always a few moments of beauty, awe, perfect synergy between picture and music and just plain editing magic. I wish the BBC would go to town on a full Curtis boxset, although I know it'll never happen because of the music rights issue.

I felt like a lot of the segments in between the delivery of the information in Bitter Lake were pretty effective. Here's a bit of information about "shitty socio-economic/political interference X" here's a clip of what Afghanistan was like back then which you almost involuntarily end up mentally comparing to the kind of images you see coming from the country today to help make the point.

I think drawing the documentary out like that, gave an appropriate amount of time for the points that were being made to sink in. I think if it was cut down to an hour where it just went from point to point to point, the impact of each statement would be lessened.

I mean that documentary about shitty social housing developments he made in the 80s called The Great British Housing Disaster, was just under an hour iirc, and was entirely appropriate in length imho because it wasn't trying to explain the last 50+ years of meddling in a country.

Imho, obvs.

I usually like Curtis but didn't get far with Bitter Lake at all. Didn't seem to be going anywhere. All the montage stuff can be very effective, but you still need to get to the point.