AUM: The Cult at the End of the World

Saw this at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

"AUM: The Cult at the End of the World" is a documentary about On March 20,1995 a deadly gas attack in Tokyo subway sent nation and its people into chaos. This exploration of Aum Shinrikyo, who is responsible for attack, involves the participation of those who lived through the horror as it unfolded. The Shinrikyo group are some of the strangest organizations when it came to religious context and there are a lot of interesting things to explore about this group. This documentary does offer some interesting ideas but they are a little messy.

For starters, the visual presentation of the documentary is well shot. The production, lightening and sound aspects were pretty good and helped to add some flavor of the setting and environment. The filmmakers clearly are passionate about telling the story of the real life Shinrikyo organization and there are some interesting ideas explored. Subjects involved with the group provided interesting stories and facts about what they experienced and some of the dark sides behind the scenes.

But the problems are that the film doesn't have an even structure as it goes all over the place. Where one thing is being discussed and all of a sudden goes to another and forgets about the previous discussion that was mentioned. There are some moments about the corrupted side of the police system and darker sides of the group that were very interesting but they weren't explored to it's potential.

I kinda of wished this documentary was a mini-series rather than just one film because there are tons of aspects that could have been explored. Overall, despite my gripes, I still did enjoy for the most part of the film but there could have been more to it.

Rating: B-

This is the story of a cult and its leader, and their descent into madness and violence. There's a lot of potentially very interesting content here. Unfortunately, the filmmakers don't really handle the content well.

To some degree, it feels like a slow-motion pinball - it touches on various elements and then jumps away before it can go into any depth, but it's so slow in its telling that it feels like molasses. The film brings up the media's role in normalizing the cult; but it moves on before that can be really examined in depth. The film briefly seems interested in what attracts people to cults; but it doesn't take time to explore this. The film occasionally focuses on a former cult member who may have been more involved in everything than what he was punished for; but we don't really get a sense of the evidence. The film brings up the failure of police to stop the eventual tragedy; but we don't get much of an examination of what went into that.

It's like there are parts of four or five better documentaries that are shoved together haphazardly, and the information presented is minimal. This is one where you're better off reading the Wikipedia article than watching the movie. There are worse documentaries, but they're few and far between.