Film Reviews by PC

"Be Natural" was a potentially interesting, and important, documentary about Alice Guy-Blaché, but was spoiled by unnecessary very fast edits throughout most of the film, which quickly became pretty exhausting and tedious. It's as though the director had tried to compress a three hour film into 90 minutes, without leaving anything out.

It's a great shame, and also ironic: the documentary was a significant opportunity to highlight the importance of Guy-Blaché's pioneering work and her impact on the film industry, after what appeared to be decades-long attempts by others to erase her contributions and achievements from history, and yet the modern-day director of the documentary messed it up.

If you can stand the roller-coaster ride of visuals and very fast editing for an hour-and-a-half, then you might be able to snatch a very interesting history of one of cinema's most important creative pioneers.