Users Review: A Pensive, Tech-Wary Doc Where the Pictures Say More Than the Words
Stunning imagery but stunted philosophy mean this beautiful but meandering doc yields less than meets the eye.
Jessica Kiang, provided by
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Courtesy of Sundance Institute
We’ve all been alone inside our heads a lot recently, and the question “why am I having weird dreams” has reportedly surged as a Google search over the past year. Natalia Almada’s “Users,” which won the directing award for U.S. Documentary in Sundance, is perhaps best appreciated as one of those peculiarly vivid dreams. Like them, it is made of uncanny imagery and strange echoey mood. But also like them, it comes apart under the scrutiny of the more logical, waking mind, and dissipates quickly in daylight.
click to enlarge Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Jack Mitchell
This year the 2021 Sundance Film Festival was virtual, and its offerings trimmed down from previous years. It included 73 feature films, 50 short films, four Indie Series, 23 talks and events, and 14 New Frontier multimedia projects. We watched 38 of the 73 films, including most of the award winners. Here are some sneak peaks of our favorites to look for in the year to come.
A
iley
Some things are excruciatingly difficult to articulate in words, and can only be expressed in an abstract manner such as dance. Things such as the lonely success of Alvin Ailey, a gay man born in the depression in 1931 who, against all odds, was able to realize his dream. Choreographer, former Ailey company member, and friend George Faison reflects on their groundbreaking w
By Lapacazo Sandoval, Contributing Writer
Published February 18, 2021
Shaka King, director of
Judas and the Black Messiah, an official selection of the Premieres section at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Glen Wilson.
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I can’t stop thinking about what the late, murdered Illinois Black Panther chairman Fred Hampton (played by Daniel Kaluuya) said: “Where there are people, there is power.” This is the reason, I think, the United States of America considered him dangerous and their enemy and ordered his killing.
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Confederate statues and symbols linked to the United States’ history of racism, including the confederacy and the horrific enslavement of Africans, have faced removal in recent years.
But now leaders and activists are turning their attention more specifically to the racist actors throughout the nation’s long history of oppression. A poignant and recent example is the call to change the name of the the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
United States flags hang in front of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Edgar J. Hoover Building May 9, 2017 in Washington, DC. On the recommendation of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey Tuesday. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
William O’Neal.
J. Edgar Hoover, who was the head of the FBI during the notorious events.
Rush, a former Black Panther, was not only affiliated with the political movement, but he also had ties to Hampton as he carried out his lasting legacy. He has seen the film and shared his opinion that it be required viewing.
“[It] is a very important movie. This movie must be seen by all freedom-seeking, justice-seeking, good-hearted Americans because it really is a movie that shows all to see this brilliant, young, courageous Black man,
Fred Hampton, who was an upstanding, courageous man