The Viewing Booth

The Viewing Booth - Sheffield Doc/Fest

A deeply layered rumination on filmmaking, media, and the ways in which we can view both; Ra’anan Alexandrowicz’ The Viewing Booth was my first film of the 2020 Doc/Fest and I don’t think I could’ve picked a more thematically fitting one to kick it all off with.

The documentary is made up from sessions in which American student Maia Levi reacts to various videos distributed by ideologically opposing groups, all focused around the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s a documentary format that I don’t think I’ve seen used before and I found it to be one of the film’s greatest strengths (of which there are so many). In a typical documentary the audience focus would be on the subjects of the video, which works well enough, but seeing it through the perspective of another person with her live responses and thoughts, leaves way for so much more thematic exploration and helps to expand on the ideas Alexandrowicz wanted to put across in a really nuanced and clever way that deserves a lot praise.

The relationships between subject and camera, video and viewer, and film and filmmaker are what I took away to be the film’s main exploration, from reading other reviews it seems that each viewer has had a somewhat different interpretation which is testament to the personal and touching filmmaking on display. I really adored it, though the film is undeniably quite challenging at times due to the nature of its difficult subject matter. In all honesty I don’t know a great deal about the conflict other than the basics, and if you’re like me I doubt you’ll come away knowing any more about it. If anything, this film makes me want to learn more about the situation (perhaps by way of watching Alexandrowicz’s previous few films which seem like more straight forward documentaries on the subject).

I was honestly quite blown away as the credits started rolling, and it left me with so much to think about. The Viewing Booth is well worth your time. I was also filled with a whole lot of optimism for the rest of this very different Doc/Fest, I can’t wait to see the other films on display.

Written by Ben Matthews