From the start then, Rousseau catches the elusive essence of Sebaldian dogma: which is to be both elusive and precise, documentary and fabulous.
As an expression of their responsibility to the dead, they can insist on a scrupulous rendering of historical detail; many therefore can be comfortable only with precise documentary efforts at re-creation.
Five is a 90-minute science fiction horror movie that deals with a very complex topic in a short time frame and is more poetic allegory than precise documentary.
Here is a geekily precise specialist documentary presented by Keanu Reeves, interviewing a range of film-makers including David Lynch and Martin Scorsese, on the relentless march of digital technology.
Visually precise and politically amorphous, the absorbing documentary "Abendland" opens with a self-reflexive image of a surveillance camera perched over a green field.
But he attacks the problem with the dry wit he cultivated as a Monty Python comedian, the precise observational skills he later honed making travel documentaries, and jaw-dropping cinematography.
In other words, the world's greatest 16-minute documentary about Judas Priest fandom currently stands at the precise midpoint almost to the day of the filmed history of rock 'n' roll.
"Winged Migration," which was nominated for an Academy Award for documentary feature, is, like Mr. Perrrin's English, more poetic than precise, with minimal narration and music that sometimes threatens to soar off into the stratosphere.
This riveting Bafta-nominated documentary follows Tim Jenison's piercingly inquisitive attempts to prove that the precise lighting and finely honed detail of Vermeer's 17th-century paintings were the result of early proto-photographic experiments.
Morgan Neville's affectionate, entertaining, frequently bitter-sweet documentary shines a spotlight on the (largely African-American) backing singers whose precise verbal pyrotechnics have been the magic ingredient in everything from Da Doo Ron Ron to Gimme Shelter.
Throughout the films, we are given precise dates onscreen, and the writers, Peter Buchman and Benjamin A. van der Veen, have clearly delved into a wealth of documentary sources; it was news to me that Che smoked an avuncular pipe as often as a sexually smoldering cigar.
