Friday, February 15, 2008

Top 5 Indie Movies You Probably Haven't Seen But Should, Installment 1.

Mail Order Wife
2004

If you like thinking about the complex ethical issues involved in making a documentary, this movie is for you. If you think that last statement was too boring to bear, this movie is also for you. Mail Order Bride is neither a documentary nor an overly thinky movie. It's a movie that tricks you into thinking it's a documentary for the first 30 or 40 minutes or so, until you realize its premise is far too absurd to be real. The result is a feature film that blatantly addresses pretty much every politically and culturally sensitive issue involved in making a documentary film, while managing to wholly avoid ever using a snoozefest of a word like "ethics." I highly recommend it. I'm more naive than most people so I watched the whole thing in an utterly astounded state, then called a friend to rant about how fucked up it was before she could interrupt me to be like, "uh, duh, it's fake." But don't worry. Knowing it's fake from jump should not dispel any of the enjoyment yr likely to garner from it.

No comments: