Which type of narration, silent or active, is most effective? For what ? In my opinion, despite the preference for documentaries such as SiCKO, Inside Job, Supersize Me, An Inconvenient Truth, Food, Inc. and Fahrenheit 9/11, overall silent narration is most effective for documentaries. While I appreciate the actively narrated documentaries and opinions of filmmakers such as Michael Moore and Al Gore, I believe their opinions can and often do overshadow the documentaries they create. In Moore's case, for example, most of his well-known documentaries begin with an opinion of him. In creating the idea for SiCKO, Moore likely had some sort of negative experience, whether direct or indirect, that fueled his desire to create a film highlighting the inadequacies of the American healthcare system. With an already biased opinion, Moore never deviates from his beliefs throughout the film and ultimately chooses to edit the documentary in a certain way and only include certain facts in order to make it seem like his beliefs are 100 % factual. With this biased view of a documented subject, it entirely depends on the viewer's personal opinions whether they will enjoy the biased documentary or not. Essentially, active narrative films primarily present the viewer with the filmmaker's opinions and the facts they use to support their beliefs, meaning that viewers don't really get a chance to formulate their own opinions. In comparison, silent narrative films focus much more on visual images, as well as the words and emotions of the people documented in the film. Without constant narration from the filmmaker, viewers have the opportunity to look at the characters in the film and see them as they are... middle of paper ...... it's much more difficult for me to be able to understand the lives of the people shown in My Flesh and My Blood. Conversely, I had numerous meetings with North American and African (South Africa and Malawi) health systems, allowing me to better identify with the stories within SiCKO. Having observed health care processes and conditions that range from one of the best (Canada) to one of the least resourced and funded (Malawi), I am able to understand many of the flaws highlighted by Moore in his film, while having my own perspective on what I consider to be a poor health care system. Additionally, as someone who enjoys constantly debating various topics, I have a much greater opportunity to do so through the film SiCKO than through My Flesh and Blood, which likely reflects my stronger emotional attachment to the film of Moore and the effect he had on me..