You've Never Been Completely Honest
2023 · 10m · USA
Directed by Joey Izzo
Genres: animation, documentary, experimental
Tones: dark, provocative, surreal
A hybrid-documentary blends animation and reenactment to visualize a brutal 1972 audio interview from a secretive corporate workshop at a cosmetics company. What starts as a compliance exercise devolves into a torturous confrontation about employee dishonesty.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A 1972 tape of corporate cruelty, animated into a fever — finally a documentary that refuses the tasteful talking-head distance. Brain Dead producing it is the chef's kiss of irony I demand.
Animating a 1972 corporate brainwashing tape as visceral reenactment is the kind of hybrid-doc gesture I'd cross a room for; the Act of Killing / Adam Curtis lineage is earned by premise alone. Top of the stack for me.
Animating a real 1972 brainwashing tape from a cosmetics-company workshop is a knockout hybrid-doc choice — putting bodies and faces on the audio rather than just analyzing it. The cast (Pat Healy, Phil Burgers) signals serious craft.
Reviews
A harrowing account... the visceral gut punch that is visualizing the brutality of the event.