Joshua Oppenheimer &#8211; Early Works &#8211; A collection of 12 films (1995-2003) DVD9

четверг, 8 декабря 2016 г.

Joshua Oppenheimer – Early Works – A collection of 12 films (1995-2003) DVD9

For most filmgoers, Joshua Oppenheimer emerged fully-formed out of nowhere with his landmark 2012 documentary The Act of Killing. A horrifyingly intimate portrait of elderly death squad leaders in Indonesia, it fused fearless journalism with surreal, fantastical black comedy – a mix which earned the film the support of Werner Herzog and Errol Morris, two of the only directors whose work is meaningfully comparable to it. The chief pleasure of this collection of twelve early films by Oppenheimer lies in seeing the director develop, to watch the precedents to a work that initially seemed to be unprecedented. That's not to say that these films lack merit on their own, or for viewers who haven't seen The Act of Killing and its spiritual sequel The Look of Silence. The best of them are good by any metric, but even the weakest become substantially more interesting when watched as part of Oppenheimer's learning curve.