Unrelenting in its critique, but it's also more muted in tone than that title might suggest. Peck's slightly droning narration contributes to that effect, as does an approach that's more free-associative than truly essayistic.
It's a whirlwind of meaning about how the world got this way, a moral and philosophical appeal to reason, wrapped up in a documentary best viewed unhurriedly, in order to let it all sink in.
Peck is working on a grand scale and a sort of geologic time, measuring our history in acts of cruelty. He does so with a visual imagination and an unblinking-ness that will leave those viewers who are up for the challenge dazzled and, perhaps, changed.
Exterminate All the Brutes is a daring, imaginative and defiantly challenging artwork -- one that often feels like it belongs as much in a museum as on a TV or laptop.
More than 1,000 years of genocidal events are a lot to consume, but Peck creates a cohesive journey that shows how original sins manifest into present-day racial injustices.
