‘A Thousand Cuts’: Film Review

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It almost feels like a cheat, or an unfair advantage, to have such unfettered access to a documentary subject like Maria Ressa. Not to downplay the impressive craftsmanship that makes director Ramo…

” feel more like a political thriller than an off-the-cuff investigation into embattled journalism in the Philippines, but Ressa’s seemingly boundless energy, good humor and intelligence make her basically a power plant for the manufacture of inspiration in embattled times. You may go in knowing little about her — perhaps just that she was one of the four “Guardians” to be named Time’s Person of the Year for 2018.

Ressa, along with three other female journalists, runs Rappler, an online news portal she co-founded in 2012 that soon became the staunchest debunker of the misinformation and “fake news” that helped Filipino strongman Rodrigo Duterte gain power in 2016. In the years since, Rappler and its journalists have become specific targets of Duterte’s ire, even as Ressa has become increasingly celebrated overseas as a champion of free speech and a shining example of journalistic integrity.

Despite all of these supporting characters, and the spreading shadow of Duterte himself, whose oddly avuncular energy is so wildly at odds with the violence, corruption and hatefulness he preaches, it is Ressa who emerges most vividly from “A Thousand Cuts.

“A Thousand Cuts” is highly relevant outside the Philippines too, clearly outlining the similarities between the assault on press freedoms there and the deepening divisions between the political right wing and the Fourth Estate in the U.S.

That cautionary parallel is a reminder that, as global community, we have already lost so much, and the film ends on a note of ostensible defeat. Despite that, after watching “A Thousand Cuts,” it feels almost impossible to believe that with people like Ressa on our side, the values of free speech, lawfulness and justice will not somehow triumph in the end.Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival, Jan. 26, 2019. Running time: 120 MIN.: A Cinediaz, Motto Pictures, Luminate Media, Concordia production.

 

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