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Reviews
The Exodus Decoded (2006)
Lavishly produced documentary investigates the events in Exodus
Certainly a lot of work went into making this, and the image effects and reconstructions are expensive and lavishly detailed. But looking really good and being true are certainly not the same thing. The most suspicious thing about this documentary is that it seems to have held a forgone conclusion from the beginning that the events depicted in exodus happened exactly as described and the many details happened in a specific order as described. Then it tries to find evidence piece by piece that this happened using supposedly scientific methodology. But this is exactly the opposite of scientific methodology, which in its pure form never really presupposes a definite outcome. a scientist revises his hypothesis when the most straightforward explanations for observable facts uncovered seems to disagree with his initial hypothesis. Yet here more and more stuff is gathered from everywhere from Thera to Greece to Egypt and across disciplines ranging from tectonics and other earth sciences to archaeology to ancient linguistic subtleties to each piece just happens to corroborate each of the details in the foregone conclusion! Are we supposed to believe the filmmaker is an expert in all of these areas? I certainly wonder how James Cameron got bamboozled by all this hooey and bankrolled the production.
The Gatekeepers (2012)
Israel's security agency heads--beginning to present are interviewed about life, terror and death, and tough decisions
I already knew the bare outlines of Israeli politics and modern Israel's history from reading news magazines over years and from history class-- but this goes quite a bit into detail of several crucial events with archival footage of the various house bombings, assassinations, bus suicide bombings, and street riots superimposed over the words of the leaders of Shin Bet itself-- getting all their own words in actual interviews is an incredible accomplishment if you think about it. There have only been six leaders of this Israeli national security force in Modern Israel's history. All six spoke candidly to interviewers here. While at first I thought the film was starting to get very detailed and even long winded, this misgiving vanished as more unfolds and footage is shown of families being raided in the night-- arrests made, bomb victim human beings-- the movie zeroes in on its focus and holds it laser-beam tight. By the last half hour I found the focus of the documentary powerful, artfully and factually describing as skilled editing of images is seen and interviews heard I can't think of a more powerful documentary I've seen, really. The head of Shin Bet is something like the head of the US's CIA and FBI rolled into one-- and clearly they are very powerful commanders who make life and death decisions which effect people directly. - the movie subtly examines both the morality and the effectiveness of both tactical and strategic strikes on the opposition to Israel's government and statehood--zeroing in on internal Israeli and West Bank events rather than anti-Israel sentiment in the larger Arab world. The film is brilliantly directed.