Haider 2014
I had high expectations which I hated because that usually just sets me up to be disappointed. But somehow this exceeded my expectations. Each character was so fully examined even if just one or two actions were shown – they were perfectly picked to enable the viewer to understand the reliable characters. Then there were the unreliable or at least the characters that we are unsure of. Each was given a perfect amount of mystery that at any moment I wasn’t sure of their intentions. The one thing I was sure of, I was wrong about. This is the ultimate revenge film. My only issue was understanding all of the societal issues at play. They do a good job of explaining it all to the less knowledgeable like myself – but I did take a break after the first 30 mins or so to read up on some of the history there so I could follow it all easier. The foreshadowing is perfectly applied. I have to say the mother’s dramatic antics to get her way is one of the most clever personality traits as it’s so important in the film. It keeps her mysterious and slightly unhinged and ultimately it determines the movie’s finale. I don’t know how else to explain that without spoiling it but the thought process that brought that to fruition is brilliant. Haider’s wedding dance is unforgettable.
This Place Rules 2022
I appreciate Andrew making this film and showing, as well as he could, both sides of the situation. No matter how strongly i feel about any issue, I never feel a documentary is informative unless I’m given equal amounts of time to each side. He definitely does that, as hard as it had to be at times. I’m glad he called out the guy in the end about projecting his own issues by calling everyone a pedophile – that was important to know. But his message was more than left vs right and Trump or Biden – it was about the corruption of our country on the poor and uneducated and he probably should have ended it on that old man whose sign read “this is just the beginning” because what he says is basically what Andrew sums up at the end. But that message seemed overpowered by the rest. I avoided all of this after I spent a year getting more and more upset at the media and realizing it was affecting my mental and physical health. Lately I’ve paid more attention but this documentary drudged up a bit of what is eating at me about the country I live in. However, I didn’t find him pretentious or leading in any of the interviews. He handles Alex Jones in a way I could never have done but in that portion, he had his biggest example of his message and he only said a few things and he didn’t really drive it home. But all in all it’s worth watching.
WORDS OF EXPRESSION 