This was a really sweet documentary about Tim Heath, an inventor/tech-geek and Mormon who travels to Nepal to marry Surita, who he met on a Mormon dating website and has never met in person. His friends and religious leaders tell him he's crazy but he thinks he's found true love and that's worth the risk. Some of the people in the audience were laughing at Tim and writing him off as a weirdo who is being used because he's incapable of finding human contact elsewhere. However, the film-makers deserve a lot of credit for not judging Tim in their film, but rather presenting him as a sensible man doing what he thinks is right. I was quite moved by Tim's journey rather than pitying or ridiculing him.
Another fascinating documentary sensitively covering a subject that could easily be ridiculed, this time about a family in Kiev who are determined to keep their house and land while big construction companies demolish everything around them to create modern flats. This film both keenly develops its characters - a surprisingly modern Ukranian family - and gives a rare insight into the modernising drive in the Ukraine since the end of communism.
I have to say I was a little bored by Personal Velocity, which profiled two bike riders, one reckless and one sensible after losing a friend (or lover?) to a bike accident. The camerawork - showing bikes weaving in and out of traffic - was impressive and the characters were well-developed but I feel like the film had nothing to say really.
No comments:
Post a Comment