Change Your Image
ewisone
Reviews
The Kindness of Strangers (2004)
Can we be altruistic? A topic investigated during this exceptional documentary
The boxing day tsunami was a tragedy that sparked world wide humanitarian action, and inaction. The tsunami and its aftermath resulted in an extreme environmental change, and people's reaction to the disaster provides unique insight into human nature, including altruism. During The Kindness of Strangers, people trying to alleviate the distress of those affected by the tsunami are interviewed along with prominent academics (such as Richard Dawkins) who comment on research findings and their applicability to the humanitarian efforts portrayed in the movie. The documentary offers insight into the action and inaction of people able to help those in need, and investigates how this reflects on altruism in human nature. An exceptionally well balanced documentary. Its unfortunate, however, that government officials were not able to be interviewed regarding their role in the disaster relief effort.
Suicide Killers (2006)
Watch The Power of Nightmares and Jesus Camp with Suicide Killers
The interviews during this movie were very interesting, and a clear picture emerged of blind subservience to text taken out of context. The relationship between repressed sexuality and suicide bombing, aggression and weapons was interesting, though not persuasive. Unfortunately I did not finish watching this movie with a "new" understanding of suicide bombers. Interviews did not elicit unique information and the academics were unable to provide evidence based theories of suicide bombing (using psychoanalytic theory in a documentary about suicide bombers is very questionable I think). Therefore, I recommend watching The Power of Nightmares and Jesus Camp with Suicide Killers, as these two documentaries put Suicide Killers into context. There was also a documentary about the London suicide bombings which was very good, I think its called July 7th Bombings, but I can't find it on the net.