Underplayed Gems

The Ballad of Oppenheimer Park (2016)

The Ballad of Oppenheimer Park poster
Original title
La balada del Oppenheimer Park
Directed by
Juan Manuel SepĂșlveda
Genre
documentary film, comedy film, Western film, adventure film, historical film
Country
Mexico
Runtime
1h 11m
Rating
6.0 of 10 from 1 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
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How it feels

A documentary about First Nations people living in a Vancouver park. They rest, perform, and protest on ancestral land while playfully teasing the filmmaker. The movie uses Western genre conventions in an experimental way.

observationalplayfuldefiantmeditativeexperimentalwryintimate

What happens

The Ballad of Oppenheimer Park (Spanish: La Balada del Oppenheimer Park) is a 2016 Mexican documentary film by Juan Manuel SepĂșlveda. It chronicles the lives of several First Nations people occupying Oppenheimer Park in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. They rest, recreate, perform, and protest in the park, on land that belonged to their ancestors. Throughout, they tease the filmmaker, who spent two years filming in the park, and use performance to ridicule stereotypical representations of their identities. The film is experimental in its narrative structure and plays with Western genre tropes. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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