Dawson City: Frozen Time

Music was really moody and complimentary towards the images on screen, the premise itself is extremely interesting, and seeing clips from some of these movies was interesting for the film nerds that would actually seek this out. Unfortunately, the way the info is presented (mostly in text) gets a little tedious and the story itself isn't told in the most effective and engaging way. It's unfortunate that I have to label this as a little boring because it should have been so neat.

The fact that these movies were found is of course a fun curious fact. But the whole history behind how these movie ever ended up there isn't as interesting as this documentary seems to think it is. The fact that the documentary is interesting comes more from just watching the discovered clips and pictures from those times. The movie is at its best when its edits clips from various of the old discovered movies together to illustrate a point or show what happened.

Atmospheric 'documentary' explores cinema's unique capacity as a mnemonic medium to capture the past by relaying motion in time as well as historical information. Morrison's editing of the found footage is extremely fluid, and he frequently links these decayed images in a highly suggestive fashion. It's unfortunate that after a certain point it just settles on being an interesting, if overlong, mood piece and stops probing the deeper complexities (and mysteries) raised by this great discovery.

Interesting story, but overall a dull documentary.

I was intrigued by the discovery of nitrate film, but then it spends more time being a silent history film which was not what I wanted. I would have preferred a Ken Burns-style narration instead of hunting for small text captions. The pacing felt off, mostly because we were using later films to show the gold rush era and then jumping to contemporary photos and home movies. Fav scene: "they disposed of the films in the usual manner" and then cutting to a guy standing by a rushing river.

This event and the history of Dawson City have actually more potential than realized here. Morrison could've created a poetic narrative about early 1900s, the destructive nature of capitalism, its contradictory relationship with 'gaze' & 'archive' both preserving and destroying the things it captures, etc. Instead, the film only amounts to this: 'Oh! Here we have an interesting (gets boring and repetitive through the end) story to narrate uncritically and quiet linear'. Was a disappointment.

I love found footage to begin with, and this has the added bonus of being full of unique historical tidbits.

Somewhat clunky documentary is saved by the subject matter . Make sure to also check out Decasia, if you like this type of 'lost footage- found'

So much interesting content but does a poor job at explaining its purpose. Feels like it needs some narration and a re-edit. Although I was fascinated, I found it difficult to watch more than 30 minutes at a time...but great if you enjoy black and white photography.

Absolutely fascinating. I want to binge watch all of the features here, I just... with all of this rare, and largely forgotten films, some of them are good, some of them are bad, but that’s not the point, if I don’t watch them, if I don’t remember them…. who will?