So maybe you could talk about the experience of seeing the movie at a screening, and cheekily talk about how the reviewer next to you stole your bottle of water while you weren't looking, and drank it even though it was already half full. Clearly, he thought they were giving out free half bottles of water they had stored under each seat? And then how that same water stealing reviewer sat so close to you, you thought maybe he should have bought you dinner before the movie, if he really wanted to try and get to second base? Well no, you can't talk about any of that, because other than making the viewing experience uncomfortable, it doesn't reflect on the movie at all, so hardly works in a review.
You could talk about how the movie, rather than being a celebration of life, reminded you uncomfortably of the taint of death that surrounds most elderly Jewish gatherings, and how the documentary did capture the feeling of being trapped at your family's holiday dinners. Perhaps, again, an unfair way of judging a film, but what some people might find cute and endearing, you find grating, and actually a little bit gross.
You could also talk about, perhaps more fairly, how this is the first documentary by a New York Times writer, Andrew Jacobs, who wrote a four part series on the same subject. And how, perhaps, by spending so much time with his subjects, and so much time on the subject itself, lost the necessary distance to determine what his POV on the subject was, instead opting to merely document, rather than presenting some sort of opinion. But that gets into a larger issue of whether documentaries have to present a point of view, rather than just presenting events as they happened, and letting the audience sort things out. And we certainly don't have space to waste in a review on that particular debate.
No, what you can talk about, therefore, is how there is no narrative flow or drive to the film, that the film-makers probed, but only so much. It's unclear who the characters are in the film, or why, beyond our natural affinity to feel sorry for Holocaust survivors, we should care about these people, or their attempts to save a decrepit, broken down lodge that's past its prime.
The crux of what went wrong is in the phrase spoken by one of the colony residents, Olga, as she prepares a meal: 'Life is not easy. But it can be beautiful, even when it's not easy.' Jacobs has attempted to capture this juxtaposition, and perhaps he was successful on the page. Not so on film.
One last little note, and something that again, could have provided a direction for Jacobs. The Summer at the colony begins with a musical performance by a past-her-prime cabaret singer, who performs the title song from 'Cabaret,' as the assembled colonists laugh and non-ironically cheer. Cabaret. A song from a musical about the Nazi occupation of Berlin. A song that is meant as a juxtaposition itself, that exemplifies the phrase spoken above by Olga. This is a shocking, jaw dropping moment that is never followed up on or referenced.
Jacobs knows enough to present these moments... But he doesn't know what to do with them.
