Read more at source.
Read more at source.
It's a curious and surprising project from director Joshua Oppenheimer, best known for his stunning documentary The Act of Killing, in which he and his co-directors ask their subjects to reenact mass murders they were involved in during Indonesia's civil unrest in the mid 60s.
Joshua Oppenheimer: 'Musicals are really the quintessential genre of false hope, and I say false hope because I think it's actually despair in the sheep's clothing of hope.'
Oppenheimer comments on the passivity and disempowerment that comes from the American genre of musicals, relating it to the illusion of democracy and power to shape one's future, which he believes to be a lie.
The idea that no matter what, the sun will come out tomorrow - or its more extreme form in the end, that our future is bright, which is what the family is singing as they kind of stare into the abyss at the very end of the film, desperately trying to convince themselves that that's the case - it's utterly passive because little Orphan Annie, when she sings the sun will come out tomorrow, she's just willing it to be the case and counting on good luck.
