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- 2023
- Gravitas Ventures
- 1 h 35 m
- 2023
- Gravitas Ventures
- 1 h 35 m
Summary Documentarian Christine Choy tracks down three exiled dissidents from the Tiananmen Square massacre, in order to find closure on an abandoned film she began shooting in 1989.
Directed By: Violet Columbus, Ben Klein
- 2023
- Gravitas Ventures
- 1 h 35 m
- 2023
- Gravitas Ventures
- 1 h 35 m
The Exiles
66
User Score
Available after 4 ratings
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Where to Watch
Summary Documentarian Christine Choy tracks down three exiled dissidents from the Tiananmen Square massacre, in order to find closure on an abandoned film she began shooting in 1989.
Directed By: Violet Columbus, Ben Klein
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 6 Critic Reviews
66
83% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
17% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 6 Critic Reviews
66
83% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
17% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
The film is an open, honest portrait of personal conflict, contradictions, and suppressed narratives that shed some new light on the student protest movement by bringing the footage—and some of the personal baggage—out of the vault.
While its structure is a little lopsided (the beginning portion plays like a doc about Choy) and the tone tends to sway somewhat harshly between justifiably acidic and politically enlightening, “The Exiles” is an essential look at “philosophical homelessness” and an expert example of documentary cinema as a truth-telling device.
Columbus and Klein present a palimpsest of erratically overlapping perspectives. The results are untidy and unbalanced, but derive considerable energy from that eccentric approach.
It can feel a little scattershot at times, but the film illuminates the considerable cost of dissent, both then and now. It’s at its best, however, when it gives Choy free-rein to speak her mind.
The 70-year-old Choy isn’t the subject of their film so much as she’s the lens through which it looks back at yesterday and the fire that kindles its hope for a brighter tomorrow, but her inextinguishable spirit can be felt burning away behind every scene.
Though a mixed bag as a piece of storytelling, the film’s greatest value for American viewers in 2022 is the truth it conveys to those hoping to preserve (or, let’s dare to dream, improve) a democracy facing immediate and very grave threats.
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Awards
Cleveland International Film Festival
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
Sundance Film Festival
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
San Francisco International Film Festival
• 1 Nomination
