Protagonist (2007)

User Rating:

7.3/10   

Director:

Jessica Yu

Writer:

Jessica Yu (writer)

Genre:

Documentary

Tagline:

Character is fate.

Plot:

Jessica Yu's documentary explores the relationship between human life and Euripidean dramatic structure by weaving together the stories of four men: German terrorist, a bank robber, an "ex-gay" evangelist, and a martial arts student. |

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Hans-Joachim Klein	...	Himself
Mark Salzman	...	Himself
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Chris Diamantopoulos	...	Ancient Greek Narrator (voice)
Marina Sirtis	...	Ancient Greek Narrator (voice)

MPAA:

Rated R for language.

Runtime:

USA:90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

USA:R

Company:

Diorama Films

Like Errol Morris merged with Davey and Goliath puppets

I was a big fan of Jessica Yu's previous film, "In The Realms Of The Unreal" about outsider artist Henry Darger. There she used animations of Darger's creepy outsider art drawings to great narrative effect.

Challenging herself to do the same with this film, she's incorporated four moderately interesting (and i do mean moderately) stories of four disparate men and tried to merge them into a 90 minute Greek tragedy with cheesy puppetry and Greek inspired title sequences: "CATHARSIS", "CERTAINTY", "CHARACTER", "COST", "DOUBT"....etc. I would've settled for just one "PRETENTIOUS". The puppets at times had me laughing out loud (Watch for the bank robbery sequence with the quivering shaking teller puppet. It belongs in Team America, World Police.

I much prefer the work of Errol Morris, whom I think Ms. Yu lifts heavily from.

Do yourself a favor, and rent a great film like "The Thin Blue Line" or "Gates Of Heaven" or "Standard Operating Procedure". This will seem pretty thin after those.