Caniba is a 2017 French documentary film revolving around Japanese cannibal Issei Sagawa.

Caniba
Directed byVéréna Paravel
Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Produced byVéréna Paravel
Lucien Castaing-Taylor
CinematographyVéréna Paravel
Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Edited byVéréna Paravel
Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Production
companies
Distributed byNorte Productions (France)
Grasshopper Film (United States)
Tocana (Japan)
The Criterion Channel (United States)
Release date
Running time
92 minutes
CountriesFrance
United States
LanguagesJapanese
French
English

Reception

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Caniba won numerous awards at film festivals, but received a mixed reaction from critics, with many critics made highly uncomfortable by the film's detached, amoral examination of its deeply mentally disturbed subject. The New York Times found the film to be "an exercise in intellectualized scab-picking" and its subject "repellant".[1] Variety described Caniba as "a film made for post-screening debates on the liberal-minded documentary circuit, though what, if any, commercial potential distributors might see in it is another question."[2] RogerEbert.com stated that the film was "undeniably fascinating", but had some reservations about its approach: "Victims too rarely get to tell their stories. I don't know that what we need right now is to sympathize with monsters."[3] Slant Magazine, in a three-out-of-four-star review, praised the film's "fundamental openness toward its subject by creating free space for engagement and contemplation", but felt that it "broaches ethical questions that it lacks the resources to address" and that "With no push to either interrogate or contextualize the man, the cool ethnographer’s detachment of the film comes to take on a sensationalistic tenor."[4]

References

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  1. ^ Glenn Kenny (18 October 2018). "Review: In 'Caniba,' a Killer Tries to Make His Case". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 April 2024.
  2. ^ Guy Lodge (19 September 2017). "'Caniba' Review: An Offbeat Cannibal Portrait In Unrelenting Closeup". Variety. Retrieved 18 April 2024.
  3. ^ Scout Tafoya (14 October 2017). "NYFF 2017: "Caniba," "Ismael's Ghosts," "Let the Sunshine In"". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved 18 April 2024.
  4. ^ Peter Goldberg (15 October 2018). "Review: Caniba - Slant Magazine". Slant Magazine. Retrieved 18 April 2024.
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