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Joanna Hamilton’s well-constructed documentary “1971” showcases ordinary people who broke into a local FBI office, stole all the files and published them, thereby revealing to the unsuspecting American public the shocking illegal practices of J. Edgar Hoover’s agency. Despite an intensive five-year manhunt, the whistleblowers were never caught: “This,” to quote the film, “is their story.” Told through interviews with five of those involved, copious archival footage and detailed re-enactments of the political heist, the film offers surprisingly cogent, lived-in evocations of a period too often glossed over in impersonal, by-the-book montages. Forty-three years later, “1971” merits an arthouse run.
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Joanna Hamilton’s well-constructed documentary “1971” showcases ordinary people who broke into a local FBI office, stole all the files and published them, thereby revealing to the unsuspecting American public the shocking illegal practices of J. Edgar Hoover’s agency. Despite an intensive five-year manhunt, the whistleblowers were never caught: “This,” to quote the film, “is their story.” Told through interviews with five of those involved, copious archival footage and detailed re-enactments of the political heist, the film offers surprisingly cogent, lived-in evocations of a period too often glossed over in impersonal, by-the-book montages. Forty-three years later, “1971” merits an arthouse run.
Joanna Hamilton’s well-constructed documentary “1971” showcases ordinary people who broke into a local FBI office, stole all the files and published them, thereby revealing to the unsuspecting American public the shocking illegal practices of J. Edgar Hoover’s agency. Despite an intensive five-year manhunt, the whistleblowers were never caught: “This,” to quote the film, “is their story.” Told through interviews with five of those involved, copious archival footage and detailed re-enactments of the political heist, the film offers surprisingly cogent, lived-in evocations of a period too often glossed over in impersonal, by-the-book montages. Forty-three years later, “1971” merits an arthouse run.