White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch

-

 White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch [2022]

Direction by Alison Klayman

Language: English


This was one of those things that gets recommended to you on Netflix that you watch to kill time. Whilst I don't anticipate this documentary winning an Academy Award or something of that nature, it looked flashy enough to the point where I thought that it would be worthwhile to watch it. I had my own little Abercrombie & Fitch phase when I was younger, and, having watched this documentary, I'm almost ashamed to say that I had one. And whilst visually the documentary was enticing, there were some problems that were quite obvious to me. 

Firstly, I felt like the pacing of the documentary was not quite right. The movie focused heavily on the 1990s and early 2000s, which made sense considering that those were the times were when the brand was at its biggest. However, the documentary goes onto discuss events in the late 2000s and 2010s. It was almost as if the documentary felt sort of rushed after a while: rushed, but almost as if time had dilated, where it felt like the last 10 minutes felt like an hour. I think the reason that was true was because the movie sort of lost its hook, and almost repeated the same points over and over again. 

In terms of content I feel that the documentary was lacking a little bit. The documentary focused on villainising Abercrombie & Fitch, but some of the people they called to interview were very blasé about the topics they talked about: content such as racism was handled very lightly by some people interviewed, and considering a main theme of the documentary was racism, I think it was a gross oversight to involve people that had an almost ignorant viewpoint of the subject: it detracted from the entire narrative of the plotline. I think that the choice of people that were interviewed could have been refined a little bit: somehow only two of the original models were interviewed, whilst people with less of a connection to the company were featured quite prominently. I feel as if the writers of this work should have approached it in a different way: maybe by changing the focus or the lens through which the argument was presented. That would have had massive benefits to the actual viewing experience. 

This was exacerbated by the fact that there was evidently so much to unpack: racial inequality, fatphobia, assault. A few of these things were only mentioned briefly, and quickly covered up. As such, there was an element of the documentary that felt very ingenuine. There were elements of the documentary where I felt that it was almost a PR stunt - it was ridiculous. 

The subject matter was interesting, but the way it was put together and executed left a lot to be desired.

4/10




Popular posts from this blog

Moonlight

-
Image
  MOONLIGHT [2016] Starring: Mahershala Ali, Janelle Monae, Trevante Rhodes, Ashton Sanders, Naomie Harris Direction by Barry Jenkins Language: English In 2016, I turned 11. I had watched La La Land in the cinema, but was too young to watch Moonlight. I loved musicals even then, and so I thought I was supposed to love the movie. So I resented Moonlight when they were the ones that ended up winning the Oscar on that fateful day in 2017. The movie has always been in the back of my mind: I've been wondering about it of late, and it was only until it came up on my Netflix recommended list that I decided to watch it.  Side note: I didn't realise that A24 was involved in the production and distribution of so many critically acclaimed films! Moonlight, Lady Bird, Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Whale, Aftersun. The list goes on and on. A24 is my kind of production house, that's for certain.  What can I say about Moonlight? It was alright, I guess? I don't know. I watche...
Read more

Days of Being Wild

-
Image
  Days of Being Wild [1990] Starring: Leslie Cheung, Maggie Cheung, Andy Lau, Carina Lau Direction by Wong Kar-wai Language: Cantonese, Mandarin I was very lucky to find that in my city, a local independent cinema was having a Wong Kar-wai retrospective, where they were showing Wong Kar-wai's most influential movies in a bid to increase tourism to Hong Kong. I had originally wanted to watch 'In the Mood For Love' on the big screen, yet it sold out almost instantly. In response, I watched this instead, and I am so glad that I did.  If the movie does anything well, it is character development that excels. Although the movie was quite short, I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of symbolism Kar-wai was able to pack into it. All of the characters felt very fleshed out, but not the the point where their storylines became repetitive, as is the case with may Western movies. Kar-wai's craft, in my opinion, is giving the audiences small hints throughout his movies, meaning t...
Read more

Bunty Aur Babli

-
Image
  Bunty Aur Babli [2005] Starring: Rani Mukerji, Abhishek Bachchan, Amitabh Bachchan Direction by Shaad Ali Language: Hindi After reviewing a few movies, I have realised that I only watch Bollywood movies if I have listened to the songs beforehand and have enjoyed them! In this case, members of my family have singing Kajra Re  since I was born! In other reviews, I have mentioned how I tend not to enjoy crime/action films. However, a crime film put together with some incredibly extravagant choreography, a budding romance and you've got me hooked. Finally, I have seen a movie that isn't just a soppy romance in its entirety! What is interesting about this movie is the shift in narrative: the writers of Bollywood films, to this day, have an obsession with the western world. You'll be hard pressed to find a movie that doesn't take you to the streets of New York or London for a dance number. Most movies often centre around the movement of NRIs (non resident Indians) to and fr...
Read more