L.A. Times: Documentaries are Sundance’s real strength

The Los Angeles Times’ film critic Kenneth Turan posits that documentaries, not the indie featres Sundance is often known for, is actually that festival’s strength.

The best things in Park City were the festival’s horde of documentaries, always a Sundance strength but better than ever this year, and at 40-strong, so wide-ranging in subject matter and style that seeing a chunk of them was like getting an advanced degree in the ways of the world. If there is a better place to experience the documentary form, it doesn’t come to mind.
If you immersed yourself in documentaries, as I unapologetically did, you could also get the un-looked-for pleasure of having these films dialoguing with each other, offering perspectives in combination that enhance what they offer on their own.

Turan also notes that “it’s an open secret among Sundance veterans that the dramatic competition is not the best place to be going in Park City if you want a satisfying movie experience. Combine the relative youth and inexperience of the competition directors with the festival’s fanatical determination to keep that section free of commercial taint and you frequently get films where aspirations outweigh execution.”