A real-life nightmare scene out of Kafka.
Comment
08/10/09
Strange Culture (2007)
90
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:21
Fresh:19
Rotten:2
Average Rating:7.4/10
Runtime: 75 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Lynn Herschman Leeson returns to Sundance (Teknolust premiered at the 2002 Festival) with Strange Culture, a brilliantly conceived documentary that breaks conventional rules out of the necessity to... [More]
Starring: Tilda Swinton, Peter Coyote, Thomas Jay Ryan, Josh Kornbluth
Director: Lynn Hershmann-Leeson
Reviews for Strange Culture
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05/07/09
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10/18/08
...[this film is] a slightly surreal reflection of what must have been the post-2004 experience of being Steve Kurtz.
09/21/08
Outrage overkill that gives as much weight to the government trashing Steve's house and locking his cat in the attic as it does their desecration of the First Amendment.
02/03/08
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01/07/08
As sad as it is to realize that youth activism in this country is dead, it's sadder still to find yourself agreeing that they have a point.
11/09/07
Top CriticCrossing conventional boundaries of dramatization and documentary, Hershman Leeson's movie makes Kurtz's case available to "broader audience."
10/19/07
Somewhere between documentary and dramatization, fact and impression, Strange Culture molds one man’s tragedy into an engrossing narrative experiment.
10/05/07
Top CriticA terrible personal tragedy and a penetrating case study in the intolerance and paranoia that still surrounds avant-garde art in America.
10/04/07
Slipping in and out of character, variously embodying, studying, and commenting on their counterparts, the actors manage both dramatic reenactment and its deconstruction with aplomb.
10/02/07
As disjointed and affected as Hershman-Leeson's other work, the film nevertheless efficiently illustrates how internal paranoia is employed to silence art and dissent.
09/30/07
A timely wakeup call - Kurtz's own '5/11' as he terms his personal nightmare - to remind us just how dangerous and threatening the terrorism of the US government is right now, towards its own people.
09/27/07
[The] experimental touches, such as dramatic re-creations with Thomas Ryan Adams and Tilda Swinton playing Steve and Hope, distract from the issues at hand.
09/21/07
A chilling example of how an average person's liberties can be curtailed in the era of the Patriot Act.
09/14/07
Echoing the 2006 Oscar-winning German film The Lives of Others, Leeson's film is a scary testament to the power of fear.
09/14/07
The real-life events chronicled in Strange Culture support the argument that the federal government is more inclined to create fear than contain it.
09/08/07
Hershman-Leeson’s film amply lives up to the task of exposing and criticizing this governmental wrong that typifies the current context of paranoia while also highlighting the massive divide that continues to grow between art and government.
08/30/07
Hershman Leeson crosses fiction and non-fiction for her astonishing, exasperating third feature.
06/28/07
Filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson spins an essay on art, government, play-acting, and paranoia; it's easily her best film yet.
04/26/07
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| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie | Date |
|---|---|---|
| — | The Descent: Part 2 | 04/12 |
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