Review: Nobody's business

The documentary Nobody’s Business, had some very carefully crafted editing, which told the story in a way that we could feel engaged and connected with the characters of the film. The film starts with Oscar Berliner telling a joke, of which the punch-line is "can you make a landscape of me?" Here Alan has already given us his thesis for the film, which is to show a landscape view of Oscars life. The next thing we dive into is a moment that shows us Oscars character very clearly. This adds intrigue. The questions Alan has he translates into visuals and takes us on the same journey he was going through. He is never the main voice of the piece, but we become familiar with his perspective through the things that other people are saying. Therefore, the perspective isn’t over manipulated. He’s not trying to convince us of anything, but the story is convincing us itself. 

I really appreciated how Allan did not put together the documentary just by a navel gazing narration and slideshow, or a clear set of questions and answers with objectives, but he took the most telling moments with his father and let us gaze into his life and develop our own thoughts and implications. This is important because we are learning and developing our own opinions and revelations of Oscar the same time Alen is. He takes us on his journey of discovery rather than revealing everything in a lecture type of way in a classroom. This makes the development of the story more exciting, and more important to us. The way he told the story was so important that it couldn’t have worked any other way.

I am Always interested in people and am constantly thinking about meddling in the lives of others. This film does a fantastic job of looking at something so close to Alen Berliner's life without being guilty of the sin of navel gazing. This method of showing and not telling is what puts distance between his own life and our life so that we can ease into the story and learn to actually care about his grandfather even though the story isn’t something that would normally be considered documentary worthy. We never get the impression that he is saying “I'm smart and I have a thing or two to say that will enlighten you about who my father is.” The subject is very close to him but he keeps it void of his own thoughts and opinions so that we can take the journey with him.

The B-roll was an incredibly efficient and creative way to show the story that the director wanted to tell. Much of the B-roll was done through juxtaposition of his father’s interview and the archival footage. Every time Alen and his father were fighting about the interviews we would see some old footage of a boxing match. This adds entertainment value, and continues to pull us into the story. All of the B-roll acts as a catalyst for impressions that we get of Alen’s father through the interviews. They hone or thoughts so that we think about what Alen want’s us to think about without feeling manipulated.