Covers a small handful of subjects related to photography, criminology, and surveillance, but frustratingly spends most of its time on the least interesting ones. Whenever it picks up on something good that stimulates curiosity, that is too soon dropped and it returns to tedious scenes repeatedly featuring a corporate salesman, and boring police training sessions. It has about three important questions to ask, and asks far more that are really not fully formed. Even the good questions raised are not direct, but more like "how does the future see the past?" or "what do we see when we see a picture?" In other words, woolly-headed academic or philosophical matters which the film should clarify or provide some insight into, but instead just drops in unexamined because they sound important and might add some plausible weight to the emptiness. Seems to be a critique of surveillance technology and an indictment of capitalism's effort to sell its way out of societal failure, but I am reading that into it, as nothing is explicitly stated or advocated for in this film. As others have said, it is slow and boring. The historical snippets are great, but they make up roughly ten percent of the screen time. Not very good film making, not an illuminating documentary, just trying to seem that way and coming up very short. Aesthetically, the annoying, loud, spacey music, long dull shots, and ponderously lazy writing and editing make this a chore. Needed a lot more thought and work before release.
Review of All Light, Everywhere
