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Ama (21 KP) rated Detroit (2017) in Movies
Sep 11, 2017
Shattering
The first couple of questions when writing a review here are What's good? and What's bad?
Now, as you've seen I have given this film a full score, but I could not for the life of me put into a sentence what was good about it. It's not a nice film. Nothing about it is good. Except the way it makes you feel with it. But then even that is not a good thing. It's ugly.
I watched Detroit yesterday at the local cinema. I had seen the trailer, knew it was gonna be a tearjerker, knew I would hate the world and myself after watching it.
What I realised is that I completely underestimated the film.
About half an hour to an hour in all I wanted to do was to turn it off. I had an urge to just turn the cinema off, go home and potentially have some chocolate.
It wasn't the fact that the film was bad (I repeat, I gave it a full score), nor was it surprising narrative (again, I had seen the trailer and my tiny bit of historical knowledge filled in the gaps), but something in the way it was presented somehow evoked that feeling of wanting it to go away.
When I walked out of the cinema and forced myself to think about it, I realised a couple of things (all of which eventually made me come to the conclusion that that might have been deliberate).
First of all that film was lit like a feature film and shot like a documentary. This means that watching it, my brain was trying to fool me into thinking this was real a lot more than it usually would. It's film like a documentary, so it's a documentary so this is exactly what must have happened, right? There was a camera at the scene, right?
Well, of course there wasn't. Of course it was still a feature film and of course before the credit it was even stated that besides the testimonies of the parties involved, there was still dramatic licence taken. But that didn't change the fact that it shook me. It shook me because that little shake of the camera that was a little more intense that I was used to and that little zoom every now and then to get closer to an action as though the camera had only just noticed it all lead to that convincing idea of this being real and having happened exactly as I was seeing it.
The acting was splendid. Again, upon contemplating the film, I wondered what it was like for all of these black people (the term used deliberately) to play these roles, having grown up in that country themselves. I wondered what it was like for Will Poulter to become an asshole from the work 'Action!' and while that isn't any different than any other set, somehow, in Detroit, it seemed like so much bigger a deal. On this note, kudos to all the actors in this piece. There was none of you that felt out of place or irrelevant. Each of you portrayed a character dealing with the situation at hand differently and on a spectrum that showed how truly diverse humans are - even if united in a cause, be it on the white side or the black.
I could go on for hours (which I did, with the friend I went to see it with) about how this film made me feel and how much insecurity in the current world it made me feel, but there is no point in doing that. Feelings are best felt, rather than read so just watch it and I'm sure you'll understand.
I do want to say this though:
This film made me realise that the world we live in today is not the product from its past, but rather a work in progress towards what is to come.
I in no way mean that I did not know that previously, but there is a difference between knowing and understanding.
On this note, this film is not for the faint hearted but it is one of those important films that need to be watched at the moment.
Now, as you've seen I have given this film a full score, but I could not for the life of me put into a sentence what was good about it. It's not a nice film. Nothing about it is good. Except the way it makes you feel with it. But then even that is not a good thing. It's ugly.
I watched Detroit yesterday at the local cinema. I had seen the trailer, knew it was gonna be a tearjerker, knew I would hate the world and myself after watching it.
What I realised is that I completely underestimated the film.
About half an hour to an hour in all I wanted to do was to turn it off. I had an urge to just turn the cinema off, go home and potentially have some chocolate.
It wasn't the fact that the film was bad (I repeat, I gave it a full score), nor was it surprising narrative (again, I had seen the trailer and my tiny bit of historical knowledge filled in the gaps), but something in the way it was presented somehow evoked that feeling of wanting it to go away.
When I walked out of the cinema and forced myself to think about it, I realised a couple of things (all of which eventually made me come to the conclusion that that might have been deliberate).
First of all that film was lit like a feature film and shot like a documentary. This means that watching it, my brain was trying to fool me into thinking this was real a lot more than it usually would. It's film like a documentary, so it's a documentary so this is exactly what must have happened, right? There was a camera at the scene, right?
Well, of course there wasn't. Of course it was still a feature film and of course before the credit it was even stated that besides the testimonies of the parties involved, there was still dramatic licence taken. But that didn't change the fact that it shook me. It shook me because that little shake of the camera that was a little more intense that I was used to and that little zoom every now and then to get closer to an action as though the camera had only just noticed it all lead to that convincing idea of this being real and having happened exactly as I was seeing it.
The acting was splendid. Again, upon contemplating the film, I wondered what it was like for all of these black people (the term used deliberately) to play these roles, having grown up in that country themselves. I wondered what it was like for Will Poulter to become an asshole from the work 'Action!' and while that isn't any different than any other set, somehow, in Detroit, it seemed like so much bigger a deal. On this note, kudos to all the actors in this piece. There was none of you that felt out of place or irrelevant. Each of you portrayed a character dealing with the situation at hand differently and on a spectrum that showed how truly diverse humans are - even if united in a cause, be it on the white side or the black.
I could go on for hours (which I did, with the friend I went to see it with) about how this film made me feel and how much insecurity in the current world it made me feel, but there is no point in doing that. Feelings are best felt, rather than read so just watch it and I'm sure you'll understand.
I do want to say this though:
This film made me realise that the world we live in today is not the product from its past, but rather a work in progress towards what is to come.
I in no way mean that I did not know that previously, but there is a difference between knowing and understanding.
On this note, this film is not for the faint hearted but it is one of those important films that need to be watched at the moment.