How NOT to make a pseudo-documentary

Rating: 5/10 (12 September 2003)

I've read review after review stating that this movie is made in a documentary style. I don't agree. The purpose of a documentary is to convey information. Generally there will be a narrator. If there isn't, then there will at least be an introduction; a background of some sort.

There is none of this. To many who weren't already familiar with the events and background to the massacre, this movie must have been a frustrating and confusing affair. Scenes shift leaving you with no firm sense of the geography of the action, which is really crucial to understanding events on a purely physical level.
Worse, the film tries to have it both ways by having 'characters', except these characters are so poorly realised that even the major ones are sketchy in the extreme, and the incidental ones are sometimes plain bewildering. I felt little compassion for most characters in the movie, because: the producers evidently didn't feel it was important enough to give the slightest background or character development. Even if this HAD been a real documentary, the narrator would have at least told us SOMETHING about the subjects being filmed.
Oh, I don't know. Really - I don't know how anyone could make a movie about such an emotionally charged and compelling subject, and end up making it dull, but I found myself alternating between boredom and annoyance for at least the first half of the movie. Admittedly it did pick up somewhat towards the end, but even then the emotional impact was blunted by a total lack of identification with any of the characters.
There were a few exceptions: the British army officer who asked "why not just let them march", and then sat impotently and listened to the thing unfold. But again I find myself thinking, this could have been done so much more effectively in a conventional dramatic narrative.
It wasn't a bad film: the acting was excellant, from the POV of it appearing genuinely spontaneous (in fact I suspect much of it was improvised) but my main impression was of a well intentioned film with a talented crew and cast simply going wrong because they tackled it the wrong way.