Children of God (1994) is a documentary about the cult of the same name, who's disturbing practices have been reported to include extreme sexual abuse. This documentary was informative, however it felt lacking and quite bland. Although, I do suspect this is because it came out in the 90s.
This film included a heavy subject matter and it's a cult I've been reading about for a while. The documentary successfully shows the horrors of being manipulated into a cult and how controlling they can be.
It was well and clearly narrated, but got hard to pay attention to at times. It ended very abruptly and I would've liked the documentary to be longer in order to add more detail and delve deeper into the history of the Children of God.
There was a lot of archive footage and photos used, which was interesting to see, but the documentary itself wasn't exactly well edited and didn't flow well. However, the archive footage used was unsettling and really showed how much of a sick individual David Berg was.
It also used face to face interviews for most of the film in which we focus on a family that luckily was able to escape the cult. I liked these parts a lot, and it made me feel so sorry for all, especially the children, abused in this cult. The words from the ex-members hit very hard, and I hope they're doing well nowadays. But, some of the interviewer's questions were rather insensitive and the questions could've been approached better.
This was really the only techniques I saw used in this documentary, which leads me on to my final point. This doc was most likely considered good for the time it came out, but it shows how much documentaries have changed and progressed since then. For me, this format hasn't really aged well.
This film included a heavy subject matter and it's a cult I've been reading about for a while. The documentary successfully shows the horrors of being manipulated into a cult and how controlling they can be.
It was well and clearly narrated, but got hard to pay attention to at times. It ended very abruptly and I would've liked the documentary to be longer in order to add more detail and delve deeper into the history of the Children of God.
There was a lot of archive footage and photos used, which was interesting to see, but the documentary itself wasn't exactly well edited and didn't flow well. However, the archive footage used was unsettling and really showed how much of a sick individual David Berg was.
It also used face to face interviews for most of the film in which we focus on a family that luckily was able to escape the cult. I liked these parts a lot, and it made me feel so sorry for all, especially the children, abused in this cult. The words from the ex-members hit very hard, and I hope they're doing well nowadays. But, some of the interviewer's questions were rather insensitive and the questions could've been approached better.
This was really the only techniques I saw used in this documentary, which leads me on to my final point. This doc was most likely considered good for the time it came out, but it shows how much documentaries have changed and progressed since then. For me, this format hasn't really aged well.