Docs Ireland — A–Z of films

The smoke, the blasts, the spinning of ejecting shell casings, yells that become cries, the front-line as it becomes frantic.

If it wasn’t for the excellent, immersive sound design from Chu-Li Shewring, you could easily believe you were watching a piece of silent movie found footage.

Doppelgängers demands a lot of its audience, but it has a lot to give in return.

The stories are highly personal and individual. It is the background observations, as much as anything, that makes the experience of viewing them sequentially crushing, and leaves one in awe of the fortitude of people still surviving there.

Anyone who has seen Herzog's Fitzcarraldo will know of the director's fascination with doomed quests and magnificent obsessions, and in Treadwell he has found his dream subject.

Aeppli’s work brings scams, superstition, abuses of power, real world horrors and the magic of storytelling together in one heady brew.

At each point when one might think that the key to this fascinating subject has been found, another door is opened, leading to yet more unexplored angles.

Whilst the film sets out to explore the psychology that drives people to do this sort of work, what emerges is more complicated.

There are some great stories here, and whilst fans will already be familiar with many of them, they include a few surprises.

It feels organic, spreading outwards from that centre which might swallow everything.