Welcome to Top10Archive!
Movies often depict the darker aspects of
our world, but we can enjoy them for the fictional
works they are.
What of the real evils and unsavory aspects
of humanity, though?
If they were filmed, would you risk glimpsing
the madness caught on camera?
The 10 documentaries in this installment can
fulfill every dark curiosity you may have,
but be warned - they are not for the faint
of heart.
Warning!
The content in this video may not be suitable
for all audiences.
Viewer discretion is advised.
10.
The Bridge
In 2006, Eric Steel released a somber documentary
film that spanned 365 days and captured over
10,000 hours of footage of the San Francisco
Golden Gate Bridge in 2004.
The film recorded 23 of the known 24 suicides
off the bridge in 2004, and featured interviews
with the family and friends of those that
were identified.
At one point in the documentary, a woman is
seen traversing the upper railing to the lower
railing, only to be pulled back to safety
by a photographer.
The Bridge also features an interview with
Kevin Hines, a man who survived his suicide
attempt off the bridge in 2000; and the testimony
of a man who traversed the railing but was
talked out of jumping by police.
Throughout the film, people are seen leaping
from the bridge, with the film crew only succeeding
in preventing six jumps.
However, in most cases there was either no
warning or no time to prevent people from
jumping.
9.
The Impostor
Released August 24th, 2012, The Imposter is
a documentary film depicting events where
Frédéric Bourdin impersonated Nicholas Barclay,
a thirteen year old Texan boy who disappeared
in 1994.
The film contains interviews with Bourdin
and members of the Barclay family as well
as reenacted dramatic sequences and snippets
of television news footage.
Despite speaking with a French accent and
not having the features of Barclay, such as
blonde hair and blue eyes, Bourdin is able
to deceive the Barclay family.
In the documentary, Bourdin elaborates on
the various stages in his impersonation and
wouldn't go on to make a full confession until
private detective, Charles Parker, and FBI
agent, Nancy Fisher pressed inconsistencies
in the case.
Bourdin would later be identified through
Interpol records as a French twenty-three
year old who had a history of false identities
and passing himself off as a juvenile.
8.
Zoo
Seattle director Robinson Devor released this
documentary in 2007 at the Sundance Film Festival,
which would later be called "the horse sex
documentary".
Originally titled "In the Forest There is
Every Kind of Bird", the documentary was instead
released under the title "Zoo", which was
derived from zoophile, or a person with sexual
interests in animals.
The film depicts the true story of Boeing
engineer Kenneth Pinyan, who died in 2005
of peritonitis due to perforation of the colon
after engaging in sexual acts with a horse
in Washington State.
A police investigation led to a farm, where
videotapes and DVDs showed several men engaging
in sexual acts with the resident Arabian stallions,
which in turn, led the state senate to criminalize
bestiality.
Zoo combined audio testimony with speculative
re-enactments, trying to liberate Pinyan from
the public ridicule, and instead focused on
the serious nature of Pinyan's death.
7.
Interview with a Cannibal
This documentary interviews Issei Sagawa,
a Japanese man who murdered and cannibalized
Renée Hartevelt, a Dutch classmate, in Paris,
France.
Issei casually depicts details of events leading
up to murder of Renée and subsequently his
eventual arrest by the French, and release
from the Japanese.
Before the murder of Renée, when Issei was
23, he broke into a foreign blonde woman's
apartment with the intent to cannibalize her,
but was caught by police and charged with
attempted rape, where he choose not to confess
his true intentions.
Issei would go on to explain how he murdered
Renée Hartevelt, ate parts of her body that
looked appetizing, then dismembered and stuffed
her into two suitcases for disposal in the
lake in Bois de Boulogne.
Issei was arrested and determined criminally
insane by the French, and later deported to
Japan due to public outrage at the expenses
needed to keep Issei in custody.
Japan declared Issei sane and was released
from the hospital without care, where he makes
a living off of the public's interest in his
disturbing crime.
6.
Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan
This documentary runs for approximately thirty-five
minutes and depicts a practice in Kyrgyzstan
where women are abducted to become brides.
Bride-kidnapping is considered the traditional
way of getting married with nearly half of
all marriages in rural areas occurring in
this way.
The custom involves a man gathering his friends
to kidnap the woman, then bringing the girl
back to his place where his mom and aunts
try to convince the girl that marrying their
son is the right course of action even if
the man is a total stranger.
The custom ends when the bride has said yes,
and the family of the abductor visits and
satisfies the bride's family with gifts and
food to apologize.
While being illegal to kidnap your wife, Kyrgyzstan
police either don't realize this or believe
it is an old tradition.
Most women are humiliated when kidnapped,
often with family or friends involved in the
abduction, which has caused a rise in prostitution
and suicides within the region.
The women shown abducted in the documentary
seem genuinely distraught and resistant, making
it hard not to elicit a reaction.
5.
The Hammer Maniacs
In 2010, the Chilean television channel MEGA
aired a documentary titled The Hammer Maniacs
that ran for one hour and twenty-five minutes
as part of an investigative series.
Better known by most as Three Men One Hammer,
journalist Michele Canale flew to Dnepropetrovsk,
Ukraine, interviewing a range of people involved
in the case which included the parents of
the killers, detectives associated with the
case, and Lidia Mikrenischeva, an elderly
lady that survived the attack perpetrated
on her, thanks to her dogs scaring off the
attackers.
Lidia would later identify the killers dubbed,
"The Hammer Maniacs", Viktor Sayenko, Igor
Suprunyuk, and conspirator Alexander Hanzha.
The documentary gained notoriety for showing
a wide assortment of previously unseen photographs
and video material, of which one showed the
callous and the nonchalant nature of the killers
as they murdered Sergei Yatzenko.
Viktor and Igor were charged with 21 murders,
while Alexander was convicted of 2 armed robberies
that took place before the murder spree.
4.
The Man Who Ate His Lover
Body Shock is a documentary series about the
lives of extraordinary people, debuting The
Man Who Ate His Lover on March 1st, 2004.
The documentary focuses on Armin Meiwes, a
German computer repair technician who gained
international notoriety for killing and eating
voluntary victim, Bernd Jurgen Armando Brandes,
an engineer from Berlin.
Meiwes posted an advertisement on the internet
for, "a well-built 18 to 30 year old to be
slaughtered and then consumed," to act upon
his sexual fantasy, to which several people
responded but backed out.
Brandes, who had the desire for someone to
"bite his penis off" and to be killed, eventually
responded to the advertisement.
The two would meet in March 2001, where they
videotaped the sequence of disturbing events
where Meiwes cut off Brandes's penis, both
partaking in trying to consume it just to
ultimately fail, to the eventual cutting of
Brandes's throat three hours later.
Although the title states "lover", little
evidence of this is apparent, and appears
more to be two men acting on their fantasies.
3.
The Act of Killing
When the government of Indonesia was overthrown
by its military in 1965, Anwar and his friends
were promoted from small-time gangsters to
death squad leaders, where they helped kill
more than one million alleged communists.
They emulated Hollywood films, which they
adored, when performing their killings.
In The Act of Killing, Anwar and his friends
agree to tell the story of the deaths caused
by their hands, not as testimony but to star
in the films they loved to imitate.
Anwar and his friends develop the fictional
scenes about their experiences of the killings
and adapt them to their favorite film genres,
where they play themselves, and play their
victims.
The fiction film-making process provides the
film's dramatic arc, and the film set becomes
a safe space to challenge these men about
what they did.
Most dramatically, the documentary warrants
an unexpected emotional journey for Anwar,
from arrogance to regret as he confronts the
full implications of what he's done.
2.
The Dying Rooms
The Dying Rooms is a 1995 television documentary
where three people go undercover into Chinese
state orphanages after rumors of child neglect
and abandonment escalated from China's one-child
law.
Traveling from orphanage to orphanage, the
documentary discusses the impact of China's
one-child law while showing scenes of several
children tied to bamboo seats with their legs
splayed over makeshift potties, or babies
in cribs lined up next to each other smelling
heavily of sour milk, urine, and unwashed
bodies.
Most children that are abandoned or neglected
are girls and handicap children, but their
conditions and well-being could easily improve
with increased funding and staff from the
Chinese government.
In the last orphanage visited, the undercover
individuals find a room off to the side where
May Ming, meaning No-Name, was abandoned twice
within her short life, starved and neglected,
until she passed away four days after being
filmed.
China has recently changed its one-child policy
and denies that these dying rooms exist, and
insist that these reports are fabrications.
1.
Earthlings
Released September 24th, 2005, Earthlings
is a documentary film that question's humanity's
right to use other animals for pets, food,
clothing, entertainment and scientific research.
Through the use of hidden cameras, the documentary
chronicles the day-to-day practices of some
of the largest industries that rely on animals,
drawing parallels between racism, sexism,
and speciesism.
Earthlings takes our number one spot of disturbing
documentaries due to the nonchalant depictions
of animal abuse and treatment, the gruesome
scenes of slaughter, and inhumane acts perpetrated
by humans against these creatures.
Through these shocking and heart-wrenching
scenes, the documentary makes a compelling
argument as it depicts the true nature of
the human impact on the Earth.
The documentary ends with the emphasis that
animals - like humans - can feel pain, and
the consequences of our actions have adversely
affected our health.
Earthlings challenges our current way of thinking,
shedding light on the despicable practices
humans have committed against nature.
