Premise: A documentary about the Japanese cult that attacked the Tokyo subway system in the 1990s.
I love a good cult story. How did it grow? What did they believe? Who was their leader? It's all fascinating stuff. And if there's a series or movie about it, something wild happened with the group. It's hard to mess this kind of story up.
AUM: The Cult at the End of the World does a fine job covering the AUM cult in under 2 hours. I got the feeling watching this that it could've easily been a multi-part doc series. There were so many corners of AUM left under-explored. And it's a good sign when a doc leaves me wanting to learn more. The filmmaking was pretty straightforward. They knew to let the story drive the movie rather than try to inject their own special flair.
The main limitation of the movie is one that's common of this kind of movie. I wish I knew more about the leader. Whenever I'm watching a doc about a cult, the question I'm implicitly asking is "Why did people follow this guy?" I can't say I came away from this movie with an answer. They paint Shoko Asahara as an interesting man, but there's little direct footage of him that captures the charisma that enchanted his followers.
I did appreciate the ballsy move of the movie to call out the Japanese press at the time for normalizing AUM. Surely, they must see the irony of making an entertaining documentary of AUM then complaining that giving a platform to these cults is dangerous.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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