Sincerely... What does all that has been said before has to do with anything?
The racists and the zoologians of black people get together and fight. One hates blacks, the other loves blacks, both strive not to see black people as real people. For the record, you can dislike some black people!
Let's talk about the movie and, because it is worth it, about its press and promotion. Certainly, the starter of this thread has a point. As a documentary, based on it's poster and promotion, it didn't seem very profound or interesting to me in Mar del Plata Internatrional Film Festival this year, but I went to see it thinking it would be an entertaining way to spend the time. I expected only more MTV commercialized and predigested crap, with pretty colors. I found a really good movie, certainly not "one of the best docummentaries ever made" (that's realy a LOT to say), but a sensitive, curious and VERY personal insight on the social phenomena it records. Some may not like La Chappelle's visual style, but it certainly is his, and that's a true artist's signature (you see it, you know it's his). It is a manipulative film, it's reliance on montage makes it evident, and the only place it is badly used (it's clear in the fact people notices it and talks about it, thus meaning it didn't go through as the rest of it)is the african dancing scene. That scene is for me completely justified, since it doesn't try to make any point beyond the explicit one, they are part of a same story, things linger in the recedes of social memory, and it suggests an association (not genetical, not cultural, only what you see).
The real forte of the film is in its way of documenting from the purely visual, without the need to rely on the voiceover or the excessive verbosity. It's purely cinematographic, saying what it wants to say through images and montage. And its message is effective, since La Chapelle's MTVness and videoclip visual style permeates and enters in dialogue with the culture it tries to narrate, making it an integral part of the movie.
See it, it's good, even if it seems silly and commercial from its press.
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mkm9109
18 years ago
very well said. and kill_bill_is_ill, how the HELL can you judge a movie by its cover. its sounds cliche but thats seriously what u just did. wat was even wrong with the cover anyway?
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