Strange Culture (2007)

disgusting, overrated, pointless

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

The Amazing Application of the Docudrama Genre in, Strange Culture (2007) (or, government exploitation of event to circumvent expectation of human rights in the fulfillment of social contract.)The making of, Strange Culture, establishes a genre form within a genre, so elegantly does it apply both a storyline and it's backing with factual event but incorporates the "director's cut" inside to the making at the same time. Although a feat not for the faint of heart, the production carries its flow in a highly clarifying manner and with the very warmth of both actors and those they portray, seemingly caught up in a labor of love. Even more astounding when the viewer begins to realize the concerns at hand are wrought upon the innocent by a monstrosity that has come to be made in and by the aftermath of America's single greatest outrage, 9/11, exploited to mindlessly move this society closer to a police state. The government's case against one man becomes solely a pursuit against both the academic world, the world of art and the rights of all to know from whence and by what manner their very food source comes; even the pseudo science employed in tampering with it genetically. A wake-up call we all need that touches upon every right we increasingly only presume to have. That a group of learned professionals, utilizing their own artistic talents, scholarly knowledge base and friendship as colleagues could put together such a talented art exhibition so incredibly poignant to the social and health concerns of their audience would obviously draw the concerns of the powers that be, the kind of elite that own Monsanto. In the end we do not know the designs of this most dubious actionable effort of government against its people was early-on instrumented. We do not know this, but we come to suspect it. The laudable performance of the talented and hauntingly beautiful Tilda Swinton, the superb choice of casting Thomas Jay Ryan in the lead role, and the participation and obvious concern of Peter Coyote are wonderful extra attractions. Writer/director, Lynn Hershman-Leeson, has done far more than a successful job. To attest to this is the placement of a scene in which a group of grad students in a class are asked, "does anyone know about the McCarthy Era?" When no one replies, we immediately know the utter importance of this film.JCH

if a subject is worthy of making a doc about I don't know what's with all the belles and whistles. it was clearly a matter of Ms. Swinson being available to come in for a day. there was some kind of a disclaimer "the Artist who was persecuted is too sensitive to portray himself so he's portrayed by an Actor" well the guy playing opposite her was no Actor so her little ball busting turns didn't play that well. was it really all that they could come up with to depict the defenseless dead Frau as this bitch who has one thing on her mind: complaining about the Art not being done in a timely manner in both of her scenes, like some producer? oh and she not exactly lovingly pushes this brown suit and ugly tie on the Artist contemptuously remarking that she got them on sale as if that mitigates her hopeless attempt in her comme des garcons or whatever and chic hairdo to do something about this tardy ass slob she married who is making a living hell of her self starting detail oriented efforts at office management. in fact the actual husband's brief talking head appearance directly following these scenes indicates that her 'editing' and "gift for pattern recognition" were essential to the team's work. it would have made much more sense for her to be upset that she was not going to be able to have a look at this "material" herself before it "went out" instead of just fretting about a deadline for this show that was already booked as though it would be canceled or something. Actually, Tilly's day playing reminded me a a little of that early comic bit of Meryl streep as the castrating lesbian in "manhattan"! and of course she looked as incongruous opposite the schlub portraying her husband as Ms streep did opposite Mr. allen.for the first 30 minutes or so, interspersed with talking head clips, which actually render them superfluous, we get a bonanza of these totally trite, not ready for prime-time reenactments in "Docudrama" form of 1) a couple of teacher/student scenes (I don't know how low the standards of SUNY Buffalo have gotten, but I would imagine most students at any college aside from maybe the University of Miami would be familiar with "the McCarthy era" from their high school US history class), 2) the obligatory cheesy "artistic integrity" scene ("the McCarthy era" prof who wears a different wild n crazy shirt in every scene a collaborator of the Artist who is far too serious about his Work darling to "go Hawaiian" or to wear a suit for that matter, has misgivings about an Idea, "Ok I get this cause I'm weird and I'm your friend but I don't know if it's such a great CAREER MOVE!" of course as any Artist worth his salt would, our hero has to get really real man, explaining the concept of Artistic Integrity both for us and for the professor. 3) the aforementioned BB. scenes between Tilda and the Artist, 4) the absolute pits: the scene in which the Artist discovers the corpse of his wife. which this performer was not at all up to (a note to the director: when an 'actor' is whimpering and screwing up his face pretending to cry but no tears come use eye drops!) in which they really might have done something to make it less obvious that Ms. Swinon was no longer in the building - all we see is a hand! and 5) the initial confrontations with the fuzz n the feds. After we've sat through all of this double iteration of the preceding information? We're treated to A RECAP of almost every bit of the same, this time in hipster graphic novel format! (the producers of the film apparently refer to this all encompassing style as "docurama" for what that's worth) The "docurama" format sucked in "American Splendor" too as far as I'm concerned but at least in that film they had real actors involved for the long haul not just one star coming in for a day, as in some cheesy B picture in which someone given top billing turns out only to turn up in 2 scenes. And they may have pointlessly, tastelessly and annoyingly switched formats but at least they didn't repeat scenes 3 times apiece!As far as I'm concerned they definitely ought to have just stuck with the talking heads, only for some reason it was deemed OK to "grab" some of the doc footage with really crappy sound and inadequate light and when the artist himself is actually introduced the camera even slips a bit: oops! I mean why not retake the shot or make some kind of cut or something. eliminate him saying, "I'm Steve Kurtz, the Artist" while the camera slips, since they put his damn name in a title on top of his little bit anyway, and didn't have anybody else introduce themselves in this fashion!?!?! I can't deal with this kind of carelessness and neither should you. As you might expect though, when Ms. S was working they actually bothered to use microphones and get proper sound and the lighting was more or less adequate. How much better it would have been to take some of the wasted time to interview some of the fuzz 'n' feds involved (not that it's likely though they would have been as cooperative as Tilly) than to indulge in all this inept playacting and decoration and duplication stretching the film to 70 min (I believe, for you see, I didn't even get to the part with peter coyote, by then I turned it off life is too short and it was better to read about what happened online, just as one other review here suggests might be a better alternative). I loathed this film and was forced to give it the lowest possible rating!

Strange Culture This documentary tells the story of Steve Kurtz, an artist and professor who, during 2004, was arrested as a suspected bioterrorist. Kurtz had called the police when his wife had died of heart failure, and the police arrived to find Petri dishes of bacteria Kurtz was getting ready to use for an art installation piece. The bacteria was harmless, but the invitation to the art opening he had had Arabic on it... hence, bring out the feds. Kurtz is still up for trial, and because he was disallowed from telling his story, this film features actor re-enactments.The documentary itself is only interesting because after each actor re-enacts his part, the cameras keep going and the actors put in their own two-bits... what it's like working on a project like this, what it was like meeting some of the key players "before the ending has come", and what it is to be more personally involved in the story that is going on as we speak. I like this approach because sans actor commentary, the re-enactments felt very misleading.I disagree with the choice of music on this feature, because it is mostly of an ominous and gloomy style. I think the only way to fight "a culture of fear" is to not allow it to make you afraid as well, and this documentary worked quite hard to make its subject very potent and important by using such audio cues to keep the audience's heart-rate going. For that matter, there's a lot I disagree with this film politically, in that it seems (like so many people these day do) to underestimate the simple power of entities refusing to admit their wrong. Such underestimation is a large reason why people don't know how to deal with Bush's decisions and instead decides it must be some form of conspiracy. Sure, there is some amount of multifaceted conglomeration involved in this tragic and disturbing discourse, but it's not like Kurtz was arrested for trying to show the world the truth about the food they were eating (the conclusion this movie hints at). It more shows how inefficient and ironically arbitrary our system of justice can be when people are met with things they don't understand.I suppose it's an interesting documentary, but it's intentions are clear: it is made to make a case for Kurtz before the final decision is spoken, so that people can rally to his cause. For that, I suppose, it's a genuine article, but it also makes it quickly dated and, for another matter, easier to decry bias. Without the full effect of the narrative, what's to say what it all eventually will come to mean? Of course that's an issue many contemporary documentaries constantly contend with, but on the other hand that's why I have such a distaste for them.--PolarisDiB

i was blown away by this movie. It is nothing you would expect. It creeps up on you. It is a truly important film, and extremely timely. The footage is remarkable and varied. It is as if the film turns itself inside out so that you are right there, inside the movie, sitting right next to the actors, who are sharing intimate moments of themselves, candidly and without guile. The identity device is brilliant, and took me by surprise, even though there were clues along the way. The way the various elements were handled, from the comic strips to re enactments to interviews were skillful and well crafted. This is one of the the films that can make a difference because it brings an awareness of the repercussions of policies to a human level. I highly recommend this film.