Second Film

We just finished watching our second film, also a documentary that blended innovative methods of telling the story.

This one is called Strange Culture, and it was a scary and moving tale of an artist who, following the unexpected death of his wife (heart failure in her sleep), was indicted by the federal government and is facing a potential 20 years in prison. He was thought to be a bio-terrorist because his house contained legal scientific materials for an art installation about the perils of genetically modified foods.

The film spoke a great deal about our civil liberties of course, and it is SCARY to think what happened to him could have occurred (and is still occurring) in this country.

Because of a court gag order, the artist (Steve Kurtz) cannot speak about events relating to the case, so they had actors interpret parts of the story. Tilda Swinton plays Steve's wife and Thomas Jay Ryan (from Henry Fool) played Steve Kurtz. I loved how they spliced the actor's own passionate feelings on the morality and legality of the issues at hand.

Highly recommended.