Errol Morris' irreverent look at the owners and patrons of pet cemeteries is often more a lampoon than a legitimate documentary, giving the impression that its director didn't mind making complete fools out of his subjects. The pet burial business can't help but invite a certain amount of mockery, but Morris goes out of his way to ridicule the people he interviews, in a series of deftly edited running monologues calculated to allow each person on the wrong end of the camera enough time to unwittingly expose his or her private neurosis. The tactic would be reprehensible if the results weren't so often hilarious (and, sometimes, inadvertently touching), although what some of these folks must have thought after seeing themselves in the finished film is anyone's guess. Morris certainly proves that truth is not only stranger than fiction but a lot funnier besides, and if his aim from the start was to find a vehicle for exposing human vanity and insecurity the film would have to be considered a stunning success.
Review of Gates of Heaven
Gates of Heaven
(1978)
the film that prompted Werner Herzog to eat his own shoe in appreciation
22 November 2010