I work for a pretty cool place where we have the pleasure of housing many guest speakers. We recently had Betty Medsger visit and speak about the story behind the documentary 1971. I was extremely intrigued and wanted to see the documentary and I believe it was just added to Netflix. The historic story that rings familiar the recent NSA information is well made earning the Not Quite Golden, Ponyboy rating.
What happened in 1971?
1971 is the story of a group of activist that burglarized an FBI office that let to the first form investigation of an American intelligence agency by its own government.
The film is a combination of interviews, stock photos, and reenactments that really help to tell this story. The reenactments are well constructed and well performed and really help visualize the story. That’s not to say there aren’t some cheesy moments. The story helps pull the viewer back in regardless of the reenactment of a guy sitting on the floor nudging the door enough to slowly move the file cabinet.
The film features the directorial debut of Johanna Hamilton. The documentary features strong camerawork by Andreas Burgess and Kirsten Johnson, but nothing fancy. This basically describes the film in general it’s well made and keeps it simple letting solid through line of the story carry the interest of the audience. The structure is a basic chronological construction that works very well with the story. Hamilton does a good job of piecing the film together with editor Gabriel Rhodes.
This documentary isn’t perfect, but it’s definitely able to pull you in. This group of “hippies” breaks into an FBI office and steals files that proves their conspiracy theories to be true. It sounds like something out of a spy movie and you can almost picture Daniel Craig or Tom Cruise stepping in to make a film about this. I definitely recommend that you give this film a watch.
Berkreviews.com 