The anecdotal, multi-narrative approach is useful in personalizing the phenomenon, but the movie still brought me up short. The approach also has liabilities. I wanted more context, more history.
The startling spike in anti-Semitism over the last two decades is certainly a vast and vital topic for documentary exploration, but director Laura Fairrie’s Spiral proves a largely underwhelming look at an overwhelming problem.
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Village VoiceSimon Abrams
Village VoiceSimon Abrams
Fairrie’s unfocused examination of anti-Semitism illuminates little.
Spiral is a classic example of diffuse, all-over-the-map storytelling that avoids addressing its fraught subject in any fresh way; indeed, the core topic often disappears from the narrative altogether.