I was looking forward to this film as its premise seemed pretty interesting. While I didn't like it as much as I thought I would, I still enjoyed my time with it and I may watch it again someday.
Interestingly enough, this film doesn't show much of the shooter. Save for a few shots, you only see his gun firing from above. The focus is instead on the victims and the survivors of the shooting. Some of the perspectives include a pregnant woman who was shot and left to bleed out on the pavement throughout the shooting, a newspaper delivery boy who was wounded by the sniper, a man who sent out radio broadcasts about the shooting as it went on, and a few people who attempted to get to the top of the tower to stop the shooter. I enjoyed these stories and, while I found some of them more interesting than others, they all had something to offer. Some of the concluding statements from the survivors at the end, in particular, were quite powerful. Also, in terms of pacing, this documentary is an easy watch as its 82 minute runtime goes by fairly quickly.
While watching this film, I was reminded of "Waltz With Bashir", another animated documentary I've seen. I found the animation in that film thematically appropriate as the somewhat distant feel the animation brought to the film was all at the heart of the main protagonist's inability to remember his role in the Lebanon War. The animation in this film, by comparison, didn't feel as necessary to the film as it did in "Waltz With Bashir" and, as a result, I didn't feel the same connection towards it. Now, don't get me wrong. The animation was still a unique directorial choice, so to a degree, I appreciated the approach. However, inserting a couple live action clips into the first couple acts, showing some animated people or objects moving across a live action background in a few scenes, or slowly relying more and more on live action in the final act left me emotionally cold and unable to determine what the significance of all those transitions were. It might have been better to utilize live action only in the final act as opposed to sporadically throughout the first hour.
In some respects, I was left cold by certain parts of this film, but to another degree, the perspectives of the people involved in the shooting resonated with me quite a bit, so overall, I thought this documentary was good.
Interestingly enough, this film doesn't show much of the shooter. Save for a few shots, you only see his gun firing from above. The focus is instead on the victims and the survivors of the shooting. Some of the perspectives include a pregnant woman who was shot and left to bleed out on the pavement throughout the shooting, a newspaper delivery boy who was wounded by the sniper, a man who sent out radio broadcasts about the shooting as it went on, and a few people who attempted to get to the top of the tower to stop the shooter. I enjoyed these stories and, while I found some of them more interesting than others, they all had something to offer. Some of the concluding statements from the survivors at the end, in particular, were quite powerful. Also, in terms of pacing, this documentary is an easy watch as its 82 minute runtime goes by fairly quickly.
While watching this film, I was reminded of "Waltz With Bashir", another animated documentary I've seen. I found the animation in that film thematically appropriate as the somewhat distant feel the animation brought to the film was all at the heart of the main protagonist's inability to remember his role in the Lebanon War. The animation in this film, by comparison, didn't feel as necessary to the film as it did in "Waltz With Bashir" and, as a result, I didn't feel the same connection towards it. Now, don't get me wrong. The animation was still a unique directorial choice, so to a degree, I appreciated the approach. However, inserting a couple live action clips into the first couple acts, showing some animated people or objects moving across a live action background in a few scenes, or slowly relying more and more on live action in the final act left me emotionally cold and unable to determine what the significance of all those transitions were. It might have been better to utilize live action only in the final act as opposed to sporadically throughout the first hour.
In some respects, I was left cold by certain parts of this film, but to another degree, the perspectives of the people involved in the shooting resonated with me quite a bit, so overall, I thought this documentary was good.