This film was very emotionally heavy in a way that the others were not. it is hard to see/hear about humans losing their lives under any circumstances, but it was the animals who really ran this film (in every way possible). I think the form of story telling through interviews and first hand accounts was really powerful in the impact of the film. I was engaged throughout the entire film and did not start to doze at long drawn out exposition or still images of something that was being talked about. Instead, the film relied on the stories told through these outside voices and their materials, that they somehow kept through all these years. Maybe they knew that they had a story to tell and were just waiting for the right time, because they had something to say at all times. They did not seem to forcing this information at all, instead they were compiling these stories in the best possible sequence to prove a point and expose the entire picture.
I found this form to be the most powerful of the films we have seen so far, and I hope that more filmmakers see this as a form of social discourse but also as a model for entertainment in the documentary field. You have to capture a crowd in order to keep them. and many films fail to keep the audience engaged, no matter how important and unique the content is. Its all about the way you present the information in film!
-Caitlin
