"It's hard to be objective, but you want to be fair." - An Interview With Alex Gibney

Alex Gibney's Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God begins with the story of Father Lawrence Murphy, a well-liked and respected priest at St John's School for the Deaf in Wisconsin who committed sexual abuse against 200 deaf children in his care. This in itself would be explosive material for a documentary, but Gibney takes it further, methodically drawing links that show how the Vatican was complicit in these crimes, as it protected Murphy and other priests who were guilty of abuse around the world. Mea Maxima Culpa is a perceptive, well-researched and enraging film film that acts as a powerful companion piece to Gibney's Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side, and confirms his status as the foremost documentary filmmaker working in cinema today. I met the director when he presented Mea Maxima Culpa at the London Film Festival.

As I watched Mea Maxima Culpa I was filled with rage, and I wanted to ask you how you cope with the emotional impact of things you see and hear while making a film like this. Can you detach yourself emotionally and be objective in your approach?

It's hard to be objective, but you want to be fair. My favourite line about this issue is from a physicist named Richard Feynman who said, "It's important to have an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out." In that regard, why shouldn't there be a sense of righteous anger about these crimes, particularly the crime of the cover-up? At the same time, that can't lead you to falsely create monsters when there are human beings there. So it was very important for me to explore the shades of grey in this story, whether it be through Archbishop Weakland, a flawed man who tried to do the right thing, or even Cardinal Ratzinger, a weak man and ultimately unwilling to challenge the bureaucracy of the Church, but who nevertheless was angry enough to try and do something. He failed, ultimately, he had a failure of nerve and courage, but it's interesting to me that he sent his prosecutor out. So by understanding that human dimension, that was my way of trying to reckon with the idea that these are human beings trying to protect the power of an institution – wrongly and immorally, but they're human beings.

There are obvious parallels to be made with Taxi to the Dark Side, and one of the most shocking aspects of both films is that there is no sense of empathy or compassion for the victim as these people try to protect themselves.

It is the most shocking thing. There was actually a scene from the film that we had to remove, it's one of those horrible things when you're trying to get a film down to time. We talked to a Franciscan monk, and there was a lovely scene of an Italian woman talking to him as they were walking through the streets of Assisi, and she was saying to him, "Aren't you concerned? Doesn't your heart go out to the victims?" He said, "Oh yes, my heart goes out to the victims, but it's the lawyers. They're just trying to get money from the Church." He moved past the victims so quickly to "it's just the lawyers trying to get money from the Church," and then that letter from Father Murphy to Ratzinger saying "I'm an old man, let me died in peace" and they're like, "Yeah, that's right." The concern is not for the victims, the concern is for the priests. It's appalling.

I grew up in Ireland as a Catholic so I'm well aware of the hold the Church has over that country, and the sight of people turning against it in Ireland is an extraordinary thing to see. It feels like a huge turning point.

Oh, it's huge. Honestly, it has been a sea change. I visited Ireland on and off, and in the last few years in the wake of these reports, that I think the government has done a great job with, the rage of these people has been so extreme. I was interested as I going through Ireland and talking to people, it came up over and over again, where they're talking with great affection for the local parish priest who they knew, but they always spoke with great derision and contempt for "Them." That was the phrase they always used, "Them," meaning the hierarchy, these people, these motherfuckers who ruthlessly protected the reputation of the Church by burying these crimes and allowing more children to be hurt. It's the most appalling crime and I think that moral indignation is so intense, and Kenny's speech, in which he talks about the rape and murder of children, is such a powerful moment. You can't imagine that happening ten years ago.

There is an interesting line in the film where one of the interviewees says, "Heaven knows what they would have done if this had been a spate of murders," and it's an interesting question because they are already covering up one of the most grievous crimes imaginable. How far would they go to protect themselves?

One of the reasons we included those notes of the therapist for Father Murphy, where he comes up with a rationalisation for his crimes, is as a way of saying that when they believe they are good, there is no end to the rationalisation people will come up with about why their crimes are acceptable. It would be interesting to see what kind of rationalisation they would come up with for murder. But as it's pointed out in the film, many people believe that abusing the sacred vows of confession is akin to a "soul murder." That is a kind of a murder, which the Church does in theory reserve its greatest punishment for, and there is no statute of limitations for the crime, but of course, all investigations into that crime have to be held in absolute secrecy. Even the victims are sworn to secrecy, which tells you something very gruesome.

There is this idea throughout the film that the Church is above the law of man, essentially.

Yes, and somehow superior to other human beings. Holy Orders is a sacrament that puts you on another spiritual plane to other human beings.

When you look at people protesting and displaying such unprecedented anger against the Church, do you think the cracks that have appeared in its reputation can be healed, or will they only grow from here?

Well, I think they can be healed...I guess it depends. People like Diarmuid Martin have impressed by their willingness to do the right thing, and many people still cling on to their parish priest. The question is, what of the larger institution that they represent? You're seeing some priests now breaking away, and without the permission of Rome they are just setting up a church someplace and inviting people to pray. They're doing everything but not sending the money back to Rome. Unless the Church reforms in Rome, why should people continue to pray at the local Catholic church? Unless they say, "We're seceding now, we're the Catholic Church of Ireland and we have nothing to do with Rome." It seems to me that's the only way forward unless Rome reforms, and Rome shows no sign of reforming.

Essentially, the Roman Catholic Church's biggest flaw is that it presents itself as flawless. You feel they could help themselves by simply presenting a more human and honest face.

That's what Weakland says in the film, a moment I so very much admire. He says, "Take the pedestal away from the Pope," and he says, "We're human beings. Christ wasn't afraid of humanity, and we shouldn't be either." The Church represents itself as a perfect society, which is just a horrible idea and as I think someone says in the film it's kind of a heresy.

It's inhuman.

It is inhuman. It's saying "We are God." They're not, they're men. They're celibate men with venal ideas about how things work.

We spoke about the thematic links to Taxi to the Dark Side and there is also a structural parallel, as you begin with a single case before slowly expanding to investigate the larger scandal.

That was very much our intent. Taxi to the Dark Side was a murder mystery, and I suppose this is a sex mystery. You're following the crime up through the ranks, and it's a little bit like Chinatown, you know, you start with a photographer shooting infidelity and the next thing you know you're dealing with water in the Owens Valley. It's actually the same editor as Taxi to the Dark Side and we thought a lot about those parallels. It was very hard in this one and in Taxi to get the balance right with the intimate story. In our first pass I think we had an 80-minute story about Milwaukee and a 10-minute story about the rest of the world, and we had to make a shift there, but structurally they are very similar.

Finally, I know you have a number of projects in the works and two of those are films about Wikileaks and Lance Armstrong, stories that are still developing. How has it affected your process to be working on subjects that are in a state of flux?

It's hard. I think we're pretty close to being done with the Wikileaks story. For the Lance Armstrong film we need to do more interviews and we have to restructure. But neither of them are that far away, and I would look for both of them next year.

LFF Review - Compliance

When the words "Inspired by true events" appear at the start of Compliance, they are written in a font size that takes up the whole screen. You can understand writer-director Craig Zobel's determination to make sure everyone in the audience has got the message, because without the anchor of real events holding it in place, so much of the film seems too incredible to be true. The entire narrative thrust of the picture is built upon characters making inexplicably stupid decisions and consistently proving themselves to be remarkably gullible and open to suggestion, and if Compliance were a fictional film I'd be undoubtedly chastising the screenwriter for such flaws. That "true story" disclaimer is essentially Zobel's "Get Out of Jail Free" card.

The thing is, there's a difference between believing what you seen because you know the story is true and believing what you see because of the convincing way it is presented, and I'm not sure that Zobel pulls off the second part of that equation. The plot concerns Becky (Dreama Walker) a perky and likable young woman working behind the counter at a nondescript fast-food restaurant in Ohio. She is taken to an office at the back of the shop  by her manager Sandra (Ann Dowd), who tells says that she has a police officer on the phone, and that Becky has been accused of theft by a customer.  Shocked and confused, Becky is willing to turn out her pockets and empty her purse to help clear her name, but the cop on the line remains unconvinced by her pleas of innocence, and he orders Sandra to strip-search her.

It's that this point that you have to remind yourself that an incident like this really did take place, because as you watch the drama unfold onscreen it seems impossible to swallow. Sandra, blossoming under the sense of authority bestowed on her by "Officer Daniels", asks Becky to strip while another female employee enters the room to act as witness. It's a very difficult scene to watch, with the discomfort of all three women being palpable as Becky removes her clothes and Sandra checks them, before the naked and scared girl is handed an apron to partially cover herself. Things escalate dramatically from here, with various male characters being introduced to watch over Becky and being asked to commit increasingly invasive and humiliating acts. At no point does anyone question or challenge the disembodied voice on the end of the phone.

There are potentially some fascinating insights to be gleaned from the way people willingly submit to authority figures in situations like this (the Stanford Prison Experiment comes to mind), but Compliance is not the film to do it. The picture is staged in a manner that simply shows and tells us what took place, with Zobel focusing his attentions on maintaining tension and putting us audience members in an unpleasantly voyeuristic position. He does this effectively, but I never felt the gut-wrenching emotional pull that he was clearly going for, even though all of the actors perform commendably well in their thinly sketched and ultimately passive roles. I think one of Zobel's key errors early on is to reveal the caller (Pat Healy), therefore removing any lingering sense of mystery around the officer's identity and simply turning the film into a repetitive series of scenes in which people are prompted to do things to Becky while she sits there and takes it.

It becomes a bit of a drag. Instead of wondering what we would do in such a situation – the goal of most button-pushing dramas like this – we just sit there marvelling at the witlessness of these people. Compliance is a solid piece of filmmaking that exerts a queasy fascination simply because of the nature of the story it tells, but it is a failure of storytelling; it is not simply enough to rehash the facts, you need to give us a reason to invest our time in this picture. If Compliance doesn't hit you on an emotional level then there's nothing else to take away from the film, and the final twenty minutes is particularly deflating, as whatever dramatic tension it may have possessed dissipates in a weak, unfocused finale that offers no conclusions on the incident. "When they told you that you had to take your clothes off, is there a reason you didn't just say no?" a real police officer asks towards the end as he interviews Becky. "I don't know" she replies, "I just knew it was going to happen." That's the only occasion in Compliance when somebody asks why, and it's not really enough.

LFF Review - Wadjda

Sometimes the simplest stories can be the most rewarding. Wadjda is a film about a young girl whose only desire is to own a bicycle so she can race her friend. It sounds like a minor picture, but consider the circumstances under which Wadjda was made; this is a film made in Saudi Arabia, a country with no cinemas, and it is a film about female independence made by a Saudi woman. The existence of this movie in itself is something to celebrate, but what's more worthy of applause is the skill with which Haifaa al-Mansour has told this story in her feature debut, and the way she has woven layers of political subtext and cultural insight so delicately into the narrative. It is a fine filmmaking achievement in every sense.

Through her short films and TV appearances, al-Mansour has been an outspoken advocate for women's rights in Saudi society, and Wadjda explores these themes by showing us the daily obstacles faced by a mother and daughter. The title character, played with feisty charm by Waad Mohammed, is a 10 year-old who lives with her mother (Reem Abdullah) in Riyadh. Her parents are still together, but her father is often absent and the mother is troubled by the nagging suspicion that he is looking for a second wife, one who will be able to bear him a son. In Saudi society, women's prospects are limited to the roles of mother and wife from a very young age – one of Wadjda's classmates has already been married off – and we wonder how an independent spirit like Wadjda will be forced to conform in years to come.

Right now, all she wants is a bike, and this motivation is the driving force behind the story. She pleads with her mother for the 800 Riyals needed to buy it, but she is told in no uncertain terms that riding a bicycle is not a pastime for girls, and that it can even damage her ability to have children. Undeterred, Wadjda begins looking for other ways to make money, but every attempt seems to contravene some aspect of the strict moral code imposed upon her. She makes armbands to sell at school; she demands cash to facilitate a meeting between an older girl and a teenage boy; she even enters a Qur'an recital competition that is offering a cash prize. These enterprising route almost inevitably land her in hot water with the school's headmistress Ms. Hussa (Ahd Kamel), who strictly lays down the law even as rumours circulate that she may not be so virtuous herself.

The manner in which al-Mansour drops brief but telling examples of the everyday patriarchy and oppression faced by Saudi women into the screenplay – from being told they cannot touch the Qur'an if they are on their period, to the way in which they must serve food to a roomful of a men without being seen – is an impressive feat, as is the fact that she has brought this tale to the screen in such an accomplished fashion. In a country where women can't drive, mix with men they are not related to, or been seen with their faces uncovered in public, the director often had to hide out of sight while directing exterior scenes for her film. But there is no hint of such obstacles in the finished product; no shaky camerawork or evidence of scenes being caught on the fly. Her direction is composed and fluid, simultaneously conscious of the tale she's telling and the environment in which it is taking place.

Throughout Wadjda, the female students at Ms. Hussa's school are told not to raise their voices outside in case men overhear them – "Your voice is your nakedness," they are warned – but al-Mansour's clear, perceptive voice is one of the most welcome sounds in this year of cinema. This witty, involving and moving drama develops beautifully towards its emotionally satisfying climax, and it is a tremendous breakthrough for both Saudi cinema and female filmmakers. All of that in a simple story about a girl who just wants to ride a bicycle.

LFF Review - Laurence Anyways

"Is beauty important to you?" Laurence (Melvil Poupaud) is asked towards the end of Laurence Anyways. "Is air important to your lungs?" he replies, and at this point we might hear the director's words coming from his lips. Beauty is clearly of great importance to Xavier Dolan, the enormously talented Canadian director who has just made his third feature at the age of 23. His films are full of images that just pop out of the frame; he loves to shoot attractive actors and actresses; he uses colour to dazzling expressive effect; and he frequently reverts to slow-motion in order to linger on his stylistic flourishes. Dolan has a gift for capturing moments of remarkable, vivid beauty, and he isn't shy about flaunting that gift for his audience.

Such brash confidence won't endear him to all viewers, and many critics of Laurence Anyways will undoubtedly suggest that the director is a wayward talent that needs to be reined in, but the reckless ambition of the film is one of its virtues. Working on a bigger canvas than ever before, Dolan's latest film is a 160-minute melodrama about a relationship that's tested when Laurence (Melvil Poupaud) tells his girlfriend Fred (Suzanne Clement) that he has been living a lie for too long, and now wants to live as a woman. As if that wasn't a complicated enough issue for an inexperienced filmmaker to tackle, Dolan elects to make it a period film, beginning in 1989 (the year he was born) and running to the year 2000, and shooting for the first time in the Academy ratio.

I'll admit, I was sceptical about Dolan's ability to make this work – after all, I thought his much shorter Heartbeats felt lopsided and baggy – but to my surprise he does make it work to an astonishing degree. In truth, I'm not sure of he always has a firm grasp on the complexity of his characters or their motivations, which is perhaps where his paucity of life experience rubs up uncomfortably against the scope of his ambition, but the characters remain vivid and fascinating enough to carry the picture. While we have to take Laurence's desire to transform into a woman on trust, Poupaud (a last-minute replacement for Louis Garrel, who it's hard to imagine working as well in the role) is fully invested in every moment; charming in his awkward femininity, and touchingly vulnerable. The opening shot of the film consists of people staring with curiosity, surprise or outright disdain as Laurence walks past them as a woman, and Dolan makes us feel the prejudice and threat of violence that stalks those who dare to be different.

Dolan, here staying behind the camera for the first time, draws hugely impressive performances from all of his actors, including Nathalie Baye (as Laurence's caring but cold mother) and Monia Chokri (delivering the deadpan goods in a small but important role). Suzanne Clement, who is exceptional throughout, delivers an incendiary display in one notable scene, when she angrily defends Laurence against prying questions. This moment is an example of the dramatic bombs that Dolan drops throughout Laurence Anyways; what's remarkable is that they cohere into something that feels recognisable, consistent and real, instead of blowing the picture apart. The film stands as the best rebuttal to critics who have found his previous features to be superficial. Here Dolan has found the substance to match his considerable style.

Style, and beauty, remains paramount in the director's thoughts, of course. The slick, vivid visuals are complemented by the period soundtrack and costumes (Dolan also acts as costume designer on his films), making Laurence Anyways an aesthetic pleasure for all of its 160 minutes. It feels like a major leap forward for a director whose talent and confidence was never in doubt, and while many will advise Dolan to pass editing duties over to someone with a firmer hand, I'm happy for him to keep making his movies his way. There are scenes and images in Laurence Anyways that arguably don't need to be there – a sky full of discarded clothes, a butterfly emerging from a person's mouth – but Dolan includes them simply because he can, and what's wrong with that? Storytelling discipline may come later for Xavier Dolan or it may not, but this feels like a film made by an exceptionally gifted 23 year-old, and right now it's just thrilling to watch him spread his wings.

London Film Festival 2012 - Part 3

Accession

Accession is easily one of the toughest viewing experiences I've ever had. Michael J. Rix – who wrote, produced, directed, shot and edited the film – has made something that will be too much for most audiences to handle. The opening 15 minutes of Accession introduce us to John (Pethro Themba Mbole) by showing us his daily routine, which consists of trying to make money, walking around a lot, drinking beer and having unprotected sex with random women whenever he can. When John discovers that one of these women is HIV-positive, he doesn't take her advice and go to the clinic for a check-up (we seem him warily loiter outside a few times before turning away) and instead he listens to a drinking buddy who informs him that sex with a virgin is a certain way to cure the disease. At this point it's easy to see where Accession is going but that still doesn't prepare you for the shocking impact of John's actions, which the director has said were inspired by a series of rapes in South Africa by HIV-positive men who believed this deed would cure them. Rix's camera stays close to his lead actor and he employs some interesting aesthetic tricks, notably the use of colour, which gradually bleeds out of the film as John sinks into a personal hell and drags innocent victims down with him. Accession is a sledgehammer of a movie that contains a couple of scenes I simply couldn't watch; it crosses a line that makes it impossible to consider the film in any kind of reasoned, objective way. I suppose it must be classed as a success, in that Rix achieves exactly the effect he's going for, but it's hard to recommend such a stomach-churning and deeply upsetting picture.

Ernest & Celestine (Ernest et Célestine)

Bears and mice live in parallel worlds in Ernest & Celestine, the wonderful new film from the makers of A Town Called Panic. Bears live above ground, running shops and the like, while mice live below the surface, where young rodents are scared straight with stories of "The Big Bad Bear." One brave little mouse remains unafraid of what lies above, however, and the tenacious Celestine (Pauline Brunner) forms an unlikely friendship with the always hungry bear Ernest (Lambert Wilson) when they discover they can help each other achieve their goals. Although it has its fair share of chase sequences, Ernest & Celestine is a long way from the relentless anarchy of Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar's previous film. Here aided by co-director Benjamin Renner, they have brought Gabrielle Vincent's books to life with a lovely watercolour palette that respects the film's storybook origins while allowing ample room for sly visual gags (I loved the "camouflage" shot). Ernest & Celestine is beautifully produced, from the visuals to the score, and it benefits from perfectly pitched vocal performances from Wilson and Brunner, who breathe real life into their characters, but its real value lies in its storytelling skills. Through this tale of characters from different worlds forming a bond that makes them both outcasts, the film successfully manages to explore themes of prejudice, tolerance and friendship without being heavy-handed about it or condescending to its young audience. Such a neat balance of entertainment and depth is all too rare in contemporary family entertainments, and it's hard to imagine many such films matching Ernest & Celestine in 2012.

The Hunt (Jagten)

The Hunt is essentially The Crucible in a contemporary setting, but when the "witchcraft" causing mass hysteria is a topic as sensitive as paedophilia, wouldn't a more sober and restrained approach be appropriate? Too much of The Hunt is driven by contrivance and inexplicable decisions by its characters, which makes much of this potentially gripping film feel rather unconvincing. It's hard to believe in the circumstances that surround an original complaint of sexual abuse against nursery school teacher Lucas (Mad Mikkelsen), and it's even harder to buy into the way things subsequently escalate. Almost everyone in this small town immediately assumes that the well-liked Lucas is guilty of the mumbled half-accusation dreamed up by 5 year-old Klara, and so he finds himself out of a job, at risk of losing access to his own son, and threatened with physical violence when he goes out to buy groceries. Director Thomas Vinterberg (who never comes close to matching the dynamite impact of his debut Festen) doesn't allow for any ambiguity over Mikkelsen's presumed guilt, so the whole film consists of watching this innocent man suffer at the hands of a misguided mob. There are no authority figures involved to bring a sense of due process to the matter, and Klara's later attempts to atone for her accusation ("I said something silly. He didn't do anything.") are unquestioningly taken as the remarks of a damaged child who has repressed her trauma. It's a shame Vinterberg has chosen to stack the deck in this way because he does a fine job directing the film, bringing a powerful intensity to a number of tense scenes, and Mikkelsen – who won the Best Actor award at Cannes – is outstanding in the lead role, but The Hunt is a film undermined by its own fraudulent foundations.

Mekong Hotel

"My spirit was trapped underwater. It was dark and cold." "I didn't know that you were a Pob ghost." This conversation, which occurs between a mother and daughter, should clue you in to the fact that Mekong Hotel is an Apichatpong Weerasethakul film. Actually, perhaps I shouldn't really describe it as such, because it feels more like a sketch, or a half-finished exercise, than a fully formed film. The hour-long picture was developed by Joe from a script that he couldn't get funding to finish, so we see some scenes from that being played out by a small cast of actors, with the gist of it being that a woman haunted by a Pob ghost likes to feast on human and animal entrails. But these scenes only make up half of the film, and the rest of the time we see the actors out of character, sitting around and discussing whatever happens to be on their mind at the time, while a lilting guitar melody plays and the director occasionally cuts away to a calming landscape shot. I'm not sure what Apichatpong got out of assembling Mekong Hotel and releasing it like this, or what viewers are likely to get from watching it. The film is a minor diversion, and hopefully the next time he comes back to the festival it will be with something a lot more substantial under his belt.

Rust and Bone (De rouille et d'os)

Jacques Audiard's last two films were character studies focusing on one man mired in a life of crime, but his new picture harkens back to the earlier Read My Lips, as Audiard expands his focus to examine a relationship between two damaged people. Stephanie (Marion Cotillard) is a killer whale trainer who loses her legs in a freak accident, while Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) is a brutish drifter with a young son in tow, who tries to make ends meet through security jobs and bare-knuckle boxing. They're an odd couple from the start and their relationship never feels entirely real, despite the impressively committed performances from two terrific actors. There are frustrating gaps in the characterisations and their motivations, and from the moment Stephanie makes a call to the nightclub bouncer she met on one drunken night out, Audiard's depiction of this burgeoning relationship feels on shaky ground. Perhaps the fact that the film has been adapted from a couple of short stories by Craig Davidson goes some way to explaining its lack of cohesiveness, but whatever flaws may be evident in Rust and Bone's storytelling, Audiard frequently manages to direct his way out of trouble. One late twist is absurdly telegraphed, but Audiard still manages to turn it into an exhilarating sequence, and the film is full of similar moments in which his command of visual filmmaking manages to conjure transcendent moments from unlikely material. He also uses music brilliantly, and while I could never have imagined a Katy Perry song moving me to tears, Audiard's inclusion of Firework at one poignant moment is a perfect example of what he can do at his best. You may not be entirely convinced by Rust and Bone, but you're certainly guaranteed to feel something.

The Wall (Die Wand)

Narration can be a great tool for filmmakers, but unless you're using it in a particularly clever or potent way, I always feel it should be a last resort. Surely filmmakers working in this visual medium should look for non-verbal ways to tell their story or express their protagonist's thoughts and feelings? All of which leads us to The Wall, a very promising film that's crippled by its appallingly misjudged use of the central character's interminable voiceover, which is a terrible pity as it hardly puts a foot wrong elsewhere. The film starts with an ingenious premise: an unidentified woman (Martina Gedeck) is spending a few days at a remote alpine cottage with friends, but when her companions fail to return from their trip into town her attempts to look for them are thwarted by an invisible wall that has somehow sprung up around this location, trapping her inside. She sees cars and people on the other side of this barrier but she is unable to reach out and communicate with them; she must learn to adapt and survive alone. Director Julian Pölsler confidently lets the film unfold slowly without the need to accelerate matters or generate any sense of false drama. We see this woman care for the few animals that remain trapped with her, toil away on the land, learn to hunt and do all she can to stave off the mental and emotional effects of complete isolation. The film is narrated in flashback, with the character musing on the events of previous months (she is unsure how much time has passed) as she writes in her journal, but in a huge misjudgement, Pölsler uses far too much of this text as voiceover. Gedeck's tough, emotionally dextrous performance is compelling enough on its own and perfectly capable of making us understand the state her character is in, but running lines like "I was overcome by despair" over a shot of her weeping uncontrollably only dilutes the effect. This storytelling choice is even more baffling because The Wall's incredible visuals are often its strongest asset, with gorgeously composed shots filmed across a variety of seasons capturing the surrounding landscape in all of its magnificence and danger. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that it looks so good, though – an incredible nine people are credited with the film's cinematography.