Nobody's Business (1996)

Director:

Alan Berliner

Release Date:

20 November 1997 (Germany)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot Keywords:

Independent Film

Awards:

6 wins

Cast

Alan Berliner	...	Himself
Oscar Berliner	...	Himself

Runtime:

60 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Cine-Matrix

Everyone's Business

After seeing this documentary "Nobody's Business" by Alan Berliner in 1996, I find myself love this documentary. This sixty-minutes-long film talks about the director Alan Berliner's father and his background. I think the basic element in this film is to identify the director and his father's families. The son persuaded his father to face his past and his lost memory. Thee director used his personal story as basis (his father, his grand father, his family, and so on) to talk about human's communication and the relationship between a father and a son. I think this movie is about the memory his father had. In contemporary society, people do not care about other people and their families - just as the title of this film, and the director tried to show that people are actually connected to each other. Sometimes, we may have to concern about other more. As the movie goes on, it also showed the loneness of people (he took his father as example). Basically, the editing and the sound use in this film are fantastic and unique. My most impressive scene is that when the father and the son had argument, and the images are cut to boxing scene. This brilliant editing made audiences understand what is going on at this moment and the boxing scene also represented their conflicts. This movie at its surface level is to show a story between a father and a son. However, behind the scene, it actually showed "generation to generation" - that means the problems and questions the director and his father may have also existed in all other people and their families. Although this seems to be a serious issue, the director used very interesting and humorous way to discuss this serious issue and introduce his family. Moreover, the clever editing and sound use are to grab audiences' attention and then they would not feel bored. By and large, this documentary is really interesting. The director used his father and his family as examples to remind other people (including me) to try to talk to and care about their families and relatives more whom they haven't talked to for a long time. It is everyone's business!