Wednesday 4 November 2015

REVIEW - PROPHET'S PREY (AMY BERG)


A shameless shocker about one of the most shockingly shameful human beings alive today. Prophet's Prey is no measured debate, though it is wholly measured in its approach to its subject - there is clear right and wrong, there is truth and there are lies, and Amy Berg's collaborative expose of the truth exposes the lies that seduced a society. This is a definitive document on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and Berg's awareness of that is central to its definitiveness; she engages with the most knowledgeable sources, including private investigator Sam Brower, writer Jon Krakauer and several eye-witness former church members to hone her search for the truth down to the most salient details. Prophet's Prey proceeds like a summary of an investigation, a chronicle of CliffsNotes that is nonetheless informative and invaluable. Berg's sober, respectful tone is ideal - the material is sick and sensational enough - and the film amasses a blunt, brooding power as it progresses, shifting from one sorry situation to the next with weary detachment, supported by simmering fury. It's like the testimony of one of her sources rendered incarnate in film form, recalling a history of abuse with a horrible combination of regret, resolve and resignation. It sounds conflicted, but you will be too - where to shift to from here, where into the future? Men have become martyrs behind bars, babies are born and thus numbers continue to rise, awareness escalates but to what end? The solution itself is conflicted - sensitivity and severity.

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