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Reviews
Action: The October Crisis of 1970 (1974)
Exciting Events Narrated by the Most Monotone of Narrators
Overall I rate this movie a 7/10, and I feel that might be a bit generous. First, I'll start with the positives of the documentary. The information given in the movie is well laid out and given in a logical, sequential order. There are a lot of videos of events at the time such as interviews and protests. These videos make the documentary very interesting, unlike other documentaries that like to paste still images on the screen and hold them there for five minutes at a time. Seeing the action and strife that struck Canada throughout this crisis was very engaging and made the documentary worthwhile to watch. However, this was offset by the issues of this documentary.
I have had to watch several documentaries throughout my education, but this one takes the cake on having the most monotone narrator I have heard so far. This narration had the emotional range of Kristen Stewart at best. There could be people dying and the narrator would have no inflection in his voice whatsoever. One could see this as being completely unbiased to the events of history and reading the facts as is, but I see this as an effective method of putting people to sleep. I have never heard a more boring way of talking about terrorism in Canada. How do you make something like this boring? I had no idea that such crazy events took place in Canada! Terrorism, kidnappings, murder, protesting, and so much tension in such a short span of time! It baffles me why they had such a dull narration for something that deserved more energy.
The documentary was incredibly informative but fell short of greatness due to a monotone narrator who was either phoning it in, or was too busy to do more than one take.
In Bed with an Elephant (1987)
Interesting Viewpoint on Canadian and American Relations
On a scale of 1 to 10 I would have to say that "In Bed with an Elephant" gets a 9 out of 10. The movie is very interesting to myself as I have not watched many documentaries that show the history of the world from outside the American perspective. This movie makes it clear that the focus is on Canada and is viewed through the lens of Canadians. Seeing how Canadians viewed the United States over the course of history and how the relationship between the two have changed, was a rather refreshing revisit of history I thought I already knew. Whenever history classes in the United States talk about history, the viewpoints of other countries are hardly mentioned. This movie did a good job showing the changing relationship between the United States and Canada from the perspective of Canada.
The material in the movie itself was quite diverse. A lot of time and effort must have been put into researching all the material covered in this movie. This movie also does a great job keeping pace and does not seem to slow down too much. There is never a point where the movie focuses too much on one point in history or visual. Instead, the movie introduces new things that help explain what is happening at any given point (for example, photographs/film of events, interviews with various people, narration). Mixing it up helps this movie keep the attention of the audience, and also helps make it easier to remember what the movie is trying to convey.
The only downside about this movie is that it can be seen as a bit Anti-American. Every now and then you get another reminder that Americans are power-hungry and incredibly nationalistic. I understand that America is not a perfect country, but some of the generalizations made don't do this movie any favors. I suppose this is to be expected when the movie tells the story of history from a certain perspective. That perspective is bound to have a different opinion on the things that have happened. The other downside of this movie is that the narrator is rather one-note. Every now and then you think he's going to have some emotional range with his voice, but then he stops himself and keeps it relatively monotone. This isn't terrible, but it does make the movie slightly boring in that regard. Besides those downsides, I rather enjoyed the movie and the new perspective it showed me.
The Vinland Mystery (1984)
A great film where the only flaw is the year it was released
Overall I would rate this movie at a 9.5/10 (if I could). The premise was easy to understand and all the supporting evidence was presented in an orderly fashion.
I thoroughly enjoyed the story of how settlers came to happen upon early North America years before Columbus ever would. The recounting of what events transpired to get from that point and what happened to the settlers was very interesting. The best part of the movie had to be the footage where they showed the people finding metal and other evidence of settlers living in the area. It's weird how finding a single nail can be a huge discovery. Being able to draw the conclusion that people who worked with wood to build lived in the area long ago from a single nail is quite interesting.
The formatting of the movie was very well thought out. The interviews are spaced out nicely and offer a nice break from constant monologuing from the narrator. My only issue with the interviews is that some of the interviewees are hard to understand at certain points. I felt like they needed to speak up a little. Visually the movie is pretty good as well. The artwork is nice and the scenery is great. Being from 1984, the quality and resolution isn't amazing by today's standards. Fortunately this doesn't end up affecting the enjoyment of the film. The worst part of the movie visually is the beginning where the text is a bit difficult to read. It is readable, but it takes a little more effort to understand what is written. This is a minor nitpick and the only reason I rated this movie 9.5/10 instead of 10/10.
Overall I thought this movie was very informative. It's very easy to forget that Columbus was not the first European to reach the Americas. I wish that movies like this were shown to my school growing up. It's certainly more enjoyable and educational than some of the other films I've seen throughout my time at school. I would absolutely recommend others to watch this movie if they want to watch a History Channel-esqe movie without being bombarded by unnecessary talk of aliens.