harrowing

It is so expertly crafted, so harrowing, it reads as though it is fiction because something this tragic and awful couldn’t possibly be real.

What follows is a surreal adventure complete with harrowing eugenics experiments and lynchings, hair’s-breadth escapes and unlikely alliances.

The film has been called "the most harrowing – and honest – depiction of modern combat ever made" by the Telegraph, while the New Yorker said it offers a "hyperrealist rebuke of the American war movie".

However, the sheriff who heard the travel ban case described the footage Booth had filmed as "utterly harrowing" and said his conduct amounted to "trafficking and exploitation".

As a Peruvian American filmmaker born in New York City, Rivera derived his fictional world-building from his real-life experience documenting the harrowing stories of migrants in the United States.