Review

  • The first half of this documentary reads as a kind of sly, long con in which the film maker has somehow managed to get funding for a multi-year, multi location field trip. He can't believe his luck and starts off thinking much of the initial story is some kind of elaborate hoax.

    Much to his surprise as he and the other investigator quite literally dig deeper they are rewarded by a much bigger story that is actually quite shocking.

    However we can't quite be sure if the super witnesses are the real thing or actors playing a part. The secondary story seems to me to be the quite serious and deserving of a follow up.

    The initial story around the death of the UN's Secretary general at the time does give us more context and that part of the story has quite rightly attracted a number of headline stories.

    The secondary tall tales seem quite feasible but the tone of the overall expedition / documentary seem more mockumentary like. The format seems il suited to the secondary and more mysterious context and politics.

    This is very much like that moment in Jaws where the character says - "we're gonna need a bigger boat" but he does recognise this but only in an oblique way.

    This discordant contrast between the jokey tone of the initial story and the wider context makes it hard to know what it is that we have just seen. At times the style is very meta with Mads Brügger ( director & one of the investigators) unsure what to do with all of the revelations.

    I personally hope that some other journalists or investigators follow up on this. If the director gets to film a part 2 I'm up for it.