So I’m not going to recap what this film was about, if you haven’t seen the film it’s useless to read this anyway. Firstly, let me assure you that I did find this film very effective and emotionally pulling. Rarely in film (although maybe more often in documentary) do you see this type of patriarchal hero fail, especially because of his own patriarchal goals. However, I will not concede that because of the good intention of the filmmakers, and the stress and fast-paced nature of editing, necessitates that certain aspects of this film should be ignored. We do not read media with these compromises in mind, so I am not going to analyze this film with those compromises in mind.

I would like to expand of some issues brought up in class. Because of the editing techniques, many believed that the two filmmakers went to Sudan with Stidle, to follow and document him in the quintessential documentary fashion. Only in class did we realize that little of the footage in the film was actually shot by the filmmakers, relying instead on Stidle’s own documentation in Sudan.

It would be convenient to view all of the footage in this film in binary terms, (documentary and staged, Africa and the U.S. [them and us], etc) however that would also be misleading. To limit to a binary is just for convenience sake. This film transgresses this dual-tone way of thinking. For example, take the “action” shots of Stidle brandishing his personal camera, while the film camera lies on the ground looking up to Stidle. Why are these shots in the film? We know Stidle knows how to use a camera. Is it to assure us he is the author of the photographs we see in the film? Documentation of his own documentation? Is that how great our sense of mistrust for the photographic image really is? Because this clip of Stidle is arguably an image that lies to us (as we were told in the lab, these filmmakers did not join Stidle in Africa, so these clips were filmed in the U.S. afterwards), how do these images then speak to our own sense of trust with the filmmakers? Do we not mind, or does the image always have to be ‘truthful,’ can it be reenacted, does the obvious nature of the reenactment need to be expressed to us? Or does the image owe us nothing; can these things be sacrificed in the face of an impending crisis and the ticking time bomb? Why was the obvious reenactment in Gibney’s film questioned and dissected while the (albeit small) bits of reenactment in this film, which easily deceive, were accepted? What is the tipping point?

The truth of Stidle’s images is also something we are given the option of denying, while at the same time we are impressed to believe these images. We are even offered this choice of disbelief within the film, when we see a Sudanese official question the validity of these images. Something this film does, and I’m not sure it means to, is point to the insecure status of the camera. Is the camera an object of power (think action shots of Stidle, the camera’s expressed relation to a gun) or is that idea of power false (think of the questioning of the photographs, and Stidle’s own failure to initiate an immediate change with them)? Stidle’s own weapon is turned against him in this film, and there is no resolution of the issue of the camera’s status. Obviously, meeting with the filmmakers clears a lot of foggy issues up, but the probability of meeting personally with them as we did is pretty slim. We are offered many contradictions of the identity of the camera, and by the end, as also expressed in class, we are left feeling hopeless.

However, this sense of hopelessness is refreshing and quite generous of the filmmakers. If the hero had won, if the weapon of the camera was conceived within the film as successful, then this film would be an irresponsible congratulatory pat on the back. This film successfully acknowledges that this issue is still pending, and can be addressed by the viewer who is also a citizen. This feeling of hopelessness only enforces the viewers own investment in this issue, and therefore, hopefully, their participation.