A STRANGE CATHEDRAL IN THE THICK OF DARKNESS (2011, Charles Najman,
Haiti, documentary, A+30)
This essay film about the earthquake of Haiti reminds me of
Jean-Marie Straub, Terrence Malick, and Werner Herzog. It reminds me of Straub
because it presents men reciting poetry in a certain landscape. It reminds me
of Malick because it presents poetic voiceovers. It reminds me of Herzog
because it presents the craziness of the world, though it looks at the world in
a much more subjective way than Herzog’s films.
As for the theme about earthquake, A STRANGE CATHEDRAL IN THE THICK
OF DARKNESS overwhelms me with sadness like AFTERSHOCKS: THE ROUGH GUIDE TO
DEMOCRACY (2002, Rakesh Sharma, India), GIBELLINA – THE EARTHQUAKE (2007, Joerg
Burger, Austria/Italy), and THREE WEEKS LATER (2010, José Luis Torres Leiva,
Chile), which are all documentaries about earthquakes. It is interesting that
the tones and the focuses of these four films are very different, but they are
all very effective in their own ways. AFTERSHOCKS is the most serious one, and
it made me cry a bucketful of tears, while A STRANGE CATHEDRAL IN THE THICK OF
DARKNESS is the most poetic one. AFTERSHOCKS focuses on the exploitation by
some politictians on the earthquake victims. GIBELLINA focuses on how artworks
CANNOT heal the earthquake victims.
I still need to see WHO KILLED OUR CHILDREN? (2008, Pan Jianlin,
China) and RED WHITE (2009, Chen Xinzhong, China), which are documentaries
about the earthquake in Sichuan.
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