Customer Reviews

Beyond Hatred

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Highly recommended... for insomniacs. How a film could be this dull with such compelling subject matter is quite a feat. I quite literally fell asleep about a half hour into the proceedings and had to come back and finish it later. The first 30 minutes were so tedious I was itching to scan ahead. Lethargic non-direction filmed in "classic verite style" (bah!) is pretentious to say the least. Stationary camera focused on uninteresting people talking about uninteresting things doesn't always make an artistic statement. Family seems void of emotion, talking about the victim as if he were someone they had read about not someone related and at times it felt rehearsed, they do smoke a lot though. I've heard of forgive and forget but these are pod people - zombiefied! It's astounding this film boasts to be winner of Best Documentary at Berlin Film Festival and winner of Special Prize at Sarasota Film Festival. I award it the Grand Prize in "How Not To Make a Crime Documentary" for it excels in that category. I kept thinking how much better this would have been had a director like Errol Morris had a hand in it. Long passage of narrative with stationary camera which seem to be time lapsed are not understated but incredibly dull. In the hands of a master like Morris a whole new effect might be obtained. Seriously, I cannot believe the reviews on this thing... maybe we're talking about different films. Possibly the worse document about a crime and its aftermath I have ever seen. Give me Andy Warhol's "Sleep" or "Empire" next time I want to take a nap. And yes, the ad work and case are misleading on this; shots of folks just sitting around a table puffing on cigs would be more appropriate for the cover art.

i bought this dvd thinking i would get to see something of the killers backgrounds but instead i got a boring viewpoint coming from the victims parents. i thought perhaps the court scene might do some justice but i got zilch. don't waste your money on this crap.