While the promised story sounded fascinating it was a broken promise. What started off as unsubstantiated family stories, after the filmmaker's investigation, remained unsubstantiated family stories. No real proof was offered for anything and nothing was told to us that a general knowledge of history and common sense didn't already tell us, except for a few names of people who never did make it big in their particular field.
Couple that with constantly tilting, zooming, undulating motion of the camera on mostly impersonal historic still photos, surprisingly impersonal personal photos and lifeless re-enactments, it was one amateurish waste of time.
It did contain some great period music, but we did not need the entirety of several songs playing over the dizzying camera work without advancing the story in the least.
Over all it was 85 minutes of someone completely in love with a family legend that while sad and tragic, is really very commonplace in history and could have been told in full in about 7 minutes. And should have.
Couple that with constantly tilting, zooming, undulating motion of the camera on mostly impersonal historic still photos, surprisingly impersonal personal photos and lifeless re-enactments, it was one amateurish waste of time.
It did contain some great period music, but we did not need the entirety of several songs playing over the dizzying camera work without advancing the story in the least.
Over all it was 85 minutes of someone completely in love with a family legend that while sad and tragic, is really very commonplace in history and could have been told in full in about 7 minutes. And should have.