I'm not too sure how many Documentary fans we have out there, but we could use some more. Documentaries are often times some of the best films that come out in a given year. They are incredibly powerful, funny... and sometimes they can just plain be boring as hell. Just like regular films can be both. Personally, I loved FAST, CHEAP & OUT OF CONTROL, and will be looking forward to seeing this... rather dark sounding documentary.
Living Tribunal sending in another Sundance report. I just got back from a screening of MR. DEATH:THE RISE AND FALL OF FRED A. LEUCHTER JR. directed by Errol Morris (THE THIN BLUE LINE and FAST, CHEAP & OUT OF CONTROL).
Another solid documentary from Morris about the aforesaid Fred Leuchter, an engineer from Boston who manufactured death machines: electric chairs, hanging gallows, automated lethal injectors, etc. The first part of the film examines the techniques and methodology behind executing people. Leuchter tries to make his machines work as cleanly and humanely as possible. No matter how you feel about capital punishment, this section of the movie should thouroughly creep you out--especially when you see the way Leuchter smiles as he builds his machines.
It is also in the section of the movie that Morris shows us Leuchter's tragic flaw: Leuchter thinks he is the foremost expert in the world when it comes to killing people and that his brain power can solve any problem placed to him.
This flaw comes to bite him in the ass when a neo-Nazi/Holocaust disbliever from Canada asks Leuchter to prove or disprove that the gas chambers at Auschwitz were really gas chambers. If you don't think Leuchter is creepy and unsympathetic by this point, you will by the end of his journey.
Leuchter had just gotten married when he accepted the neo-Nazi's contract and Morris titles this part of the picture "Honeymoon at Auschwitz."
"Terrible place to have a honeymoon," says Leuchter, "Poland." He also says that "We realize that these are national monuments and all of your testing was done with the utmost respect," while Morris shows us footage of Leuchter banging away at the Auschwitz structes with hammer and chisel.
Of course, Leuchter finds no evidence of gassing at the concentration camps--and that freaked me out. Until Morris showed us how flawed Leuchter's testing was and that he overlooked a lot of evidence that would prove that the Nazis really were killing millions of people.
Leuchter gets ostracized, loses his job, his wife and starts speaking at neo-Nazi pep rallies. He is an example of modern-day evil, but Morris has brought us so close to this guy, that we know him as a human being first. And that is the most unsettling part of this movie. A definite recommend and I wouldn't be surprised to see Morris nominated in the docu category next year.
Endearingly Yours,
Living Tribunal
