Female Film Critics 24/375
Enemies of the State is the strange saga of Matt DeHart, whose tale of government persecution is narrative quicksand. Wisely, the filmmakers stage this odd story in all of its intricate confusion as a kind of documentary thriller, complete with reenactments, that leave the viewer to try to tease out the truth of the matter.
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The beauty of documentarian Sonia Kennebeck’s Enemies of The State is watching all the intricate details of espionage suspect Matt DeHart’s story being both created and then dismantled. Someone says in the film, “There’s no way of knowing where the truth lies,” but in the latter half of the documentary, you get pretty close. As Matt DeHart would tell you, disinformation is a powerful tool in the world of espionage. Turns out it’s useful in filmmaking too.
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Investigative journalist and filmmaker Sonia Kennebeck has released her third documentary, Enemies of the State, a confidently executed film that voices a fundamental lack of confidence in the very concept of the ‘truth’ itself when it comes to human beings, their strengths, their passions and their very real darknesses. The film follows the tight-knit DeHart family, devout Christians whose lives were turned upside down when their home was raided in 2010 by the FBI on the grounds that adult son Matt had solicited child pornography.
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