Word: koresh
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Buzzards circled overhead and the wind blew hard on the day the Branch Davidians died. Before the sun came up, state troopers went door to door, telling people to stay inside. Over their loudspeakers, the tired negotiators called one last time for David Koresh and his followers to surrender peacefully. Then they got on the phone and told him exactly where the tear gas was coming, so he could move the children away. The phone came sailing out the front door. They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them...
...when the Branch Davidian compound burned to the ground, a vast majority of Americans assumed that the conduct of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was just, David Koresh was a religious fanatic, and the Branch Davidians were a legitimate threat to the public. But this tale was told from only one perspective...
Waco: The Rules of Engagement thus does what few others did, asking why these people became Branch Davidians. The members become people who made rational choices rather than blind, impersonal drones who followed Koresh. A portion of the film even documents the history of the Branch Davidians, showing it to be not a cult, but a more established religion. The documentary is most balanced in these passages, treating these people fairly and with sufficient compassion...
...film even dares to have sympathy for the vilified Koresh. The film first presents him ambiguously, quoting Biblical passages. Part of this sympathy may be due to the means of attaining footage. Since the footage largely came from the Branch Davidians themselves, Koresh may have censored it. But that which Gazecki retains shows Koresh as a complex man, far from the villain portrayed by the media...
Even when presenting the history of the Branch Davidians, the documentary does not completely condemn Koresh. Gazecki contrasts the two sects that split (one of which formed the Branch Davidians), showing the leader of the other sect as a disreputable criminal. By this comparison, Koresh seems less villainous. Even when detailing Koresh's greatest flaws, the soundtrack shifts to melancholy music that laments rather than condemns the situation...