This a very powerful short documentary. They use the fact that they can’t gain physical access to the individuals they are speaking to as a device to create what occurs on Manus Island through realistic animation instead. This, combined with the powerful stories of the people from Manus Island and the texture of their voices allows for a powerful, expressive document of what occurs on Manus Island.
This performative documentary follows the steps of Waltz with Bashir, another documentary in the same light which uses the same animation technique to piece together missing visual information about the filmmaker, Ari Folman’s experiences in the Israeli Defence Force. This powerful documentary does the same with animation, however there is a greater sense of danger and immediacy in the voices of those being interviewed, giving the animation a greater sense of reality and the documentary greater clout.
The fact that they had to animate this documentary also adds to the overall critique of detention centres that they are trying to make through out the documentary, as they were never allowed to actually see the detention centre, and were instead forced to recreate it through animation.