There are stories about the world around us that we carry with us since our childhood. The origins of these stories are sometimes so distant that it is no longer possible, or needed, to determine whether they are based on fact or fiction.

One of the stories i seem to have believed in for as long as i can remember is that of an otherwise gentle dolphin that one day hit its trainer hard in the upper body and broke a few of her ribs. Not only injured, the trainer was sad and surprised by the unusual behavior of her dolphin. That is, until she went to the hospital and the doctors found a tumor next to the area that had been injured by the dolphin. The story goes that the dolphin noticed something and that without the dolphin’s intervention, the tumor may have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Dolphins are amazing and wonderful animals. They remind us that animals that are capable of self-awareness deserve better rights than the ones they have today. How are human beings capable of murdering such intelligent creatures? How is this justified?

I recently reviewed The Age of Stupid, and deemed it to be fairly average in quality from a cinematic standpoint (message aside). The Cove reminds me of Man on Wire and shows us what a quality documentary feels like. It is enthralling, riveting and emotionally, incredibly powerful. It also makes its point well and leaves a clear message for action.

After watching The Cove, there is no reason for you to not:
- donate to your favorite animal or whale and dolphin NGO
- become more aware of the efforts of the IWC, regardless of how ineffective it can be sometimes
- refuse to visit marine centers such as Seaworld that encourage the trade of dolphins and place human selfish amusement before the well-being of these sensitive creatures
- watch your fish consumption
- and of course, refuse to eat whale and dolphin meat

A great film.

It is the year 2050, and we seem to have turned Earth into Mercury. One man remains, isolated in an indestructible tower that has been built to preserve humanity’s legacy: famous works of art, DNA samples of animals, plants and fauna, and naturally, a large digital media archive…This man proceeds to tell us about the many ways in which we screwed up the planet, calling us stupid in the process. I recently came across a solar modules manufacturer whose slogan reads: don’t leave the planet to the stupid. So, is humanity stupid? Are we indeed not realizing the extent of the damage that we are inflicting on our Earth due to our consumption habits?

My field of work these days is directly related to social and environmental issues. As such, i keep abreast of the latest when it comes to global warming, habitat loss, and our fossil fuel addiction. While i leave a bit of room in my beliefs for the skeptics, i am nonetheless very convinced by the fact that we are headed in the wrong direction and that we must quickly turn to renewables and change our consumption patterns. Yet, despite these beliefs, i find these references to the stupidity of the ‘non-believers’ or of those who do not care, banal and not particularly useful. Moreover, i found this documentary to be somewhat devoid of interesting facts and compelling stories (and full of bad CGI and low-quality infographics). It is perhaps because i watch documentaries on similar subjects relatively often, documentaries that explore a particular subject in much more depth, that The Age of Stupid felt too general and broad. I was not convinced or moved by the stories (Iraq and Africa being the exception) and learned very little. The man from the future felt very gimmicky and did not help tie it all together effectively. I certainly do not think that anyone stupid would watch this and become less stupid.

The Age of Stupid made the headlines thanks to the astuteness of its marketing campaign and Indie release system. The endorsement of many celebrities and politicians helped bring this low budget documentary to a record number of screens across the globe, getting a Guiness record in the process for biggest film premiere ever. Local groups of activists here in Berlin, some of whom i know, helped organize the premiere and ensured that as much publicity as possible was generated via the blogosphere and social media platforms. And most of these bloggers rated the film highly, only too happy to find a common outlet for their beliefs and message, which they have not been able to do on such a scale since The Inconvenient Truth.

I share these beliefs for the most part but, as someone who watches lots of documentaries, from a purely cinematic standpoint, i found The Age of Stupid slightly underwhelming.

The Age of Stupid: Trailers: Global Premiere from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

I just had a flashback to 1982. I am coming out of the movie theater having just watched Blade Runner with some friends. My head is spinning, my imagination flowing. Blade Runner has just taken me to another world, a world richer than that created by any other movie before, and very few since. And all i can think about is that Ridley Scott is perhaps my favorite director. Or maybe third, after Kubrick and Coppola.

Forward to 2009. I just finished watching Body of Lies, Scott’s take on terrorism, intelligence services and the US’s involvement in the Middle East. And all i can think about is that Ridley Scott has become one of my least favorite directors. I still like him more than Michael Bay though.

Scott has become the expert in, and has perhaps invented, a new genre in cinema. The false epic. The shallow political deepness. The smoke and mirrors saga. Whatever. Films such as 1492, Kingdom of Heaven, American Gangster, Gladiator, and Body of Lies are nothing but big commercial vehicles shrouded in a pretension of intelligence and resting on a fairly unstable historical base. That is not to say that they are bad films. Scott is an extremely talented filmmaker, and his films are always perfectly crafted. But they have lost so much of their uniqueness and artistic inclinations since Scott started as a film maker. Where is the envelope pushing and non-conformity of The Duellists, Alien, Blade Runner, and even of Legend? Well, it is long gone, perhaps when Scott found fame with Thelma and Louise. Scott may have pulled a Nicolas Cage on us, succumbing to the dark forces of fame and commercial appeal. In this he resisted only a little bit longer than his brother Tony who has been making blatantly commercial films for the past 30 years (True Romance and The Hunger aside).

Body of Lies tells the story of an American intelligence agent in the Middle East, played by DiCaprio, who sets up a fake terrorist organization in an attempt to capture the mastermind behind several bombings in the West. DiCaprio does a fairly good job, as he usually does, although he unfortunately rarely seems to rise anymore above the level of fairly good. But i admire his on-screen professionalism and his off-screen political activism. Russell Crowe plays DiCaprio’s boss, a cultural stereotype who almost by himself is supposed to tell us everything that is wrong with the US’s policy in the Middle East. But the role is poorly written and Crowe’s performance ends up being for the most part boring and uninteresting.

Body of Lies is what i would call a ‘Tom Clancy’ political film, meaning that it is not a political film at all. It is an action-driven yarn with big explosions, car chases, fast editing, good cinematography, big name actors and, with regrettably, only a semblance of political depth.

I suppose it is only natural to dismiss documentaries such as Zeitgeist for being overly sensensionalistic, deceitful and for making the viewer feel powerless in the face of such potential truths. Most ‘official’ critiques that I have read regarding Zeitgeist speak only of fear-mongering and distortion of truth, but very few, if any at all, speak about the implications that are raised were any of what Zeitgeist discusses to be true. These implications are so far-reaching and mind boggling that it is indeed far easier and much more ‘rational’ to just dismiss them as conspiracy theory nonsense and to move on with one’s life.

Like the hamsters on a wheel portrayed in the documentary, we live our lives based on a set of assumptions that we accept as facts. These help us keep a certain stability and they allow us to make sense of the world. We are permitted some level of questioning and we can move the boundaries of these assumptions in various degrees, depending on one’s inclinations towards rebellion, anarchism and non-conformism. But questioning the foundations themselves upon which our definition of truth and reality is based, that is the stuff that most ‘normal’ people will usually associate with the delusional and less intelligent other.

Through my work and interests over the past 3 years, I have begun a process of questioning the reality in which I have been living most of my life. What if most of what I knew about health, agriculture, politics and finance was a lie, a mirage placed upon me to serve the purpose of a few with delusions of world domination and whose main interest it is to profit and to control?

With such thoughts regularly on my mind, it is no wonder that I found Zeitgeist fascinating and powerful enough to make me think: why not? Why isn’t it possible for example, that, for the past 100 years or so, a few very powerful people (Illuminati anyone?) have been trying to control world financial markets and foreign regimes and have even started wars and engaged in terrorist attacks on their own people, in order to obtain more power, control and money? Could it be that the financial system that regulates our planet is based on lies and fraud, a master plan to enslave and impoverish the large majority of the people of this world? Was Christianity created by the Emperor Constantin for the sole purpose of keeping social order, turning in the process what had been so far only recycled myths and traditions into the divisive doctrine that it is today? Are wars started with financial gain in mind? Is what we were led to believe about 9/11 really the truth?

Most of the content in Zeitgeist is not new. Bits and pieces can be found on the net and in various documentaries such as Loose Change, Why We Fight (2005), The War Profiteers (2006), The Corporation (2003), and America: From Freedom to Fascism (2006). What Zeitgeist does is bring all this content together in a way that is compelling and clear. I am not knowledgeable enough about these issues to determine how much the truth has been distorted and how one-sided some of the arguments in the documentary are. It is clear that Peter Jospeh, the filmmaker, is presenting us with his views of things and that in the process he is omitting a lot of valuable counter points. Yet, what is most important here i believe is to keep an open mind and to ask one’s self: what if? What if all of this or much of this content is true? What does it mean for the human race and what does it mean for you as a person? Will you just ignore these possibilities and continue as is or will you start to question and, for some, to act?

If you enjoy the format of Michael Moore’s documentaries, then you will certainly appreciate Religulous, Bill Maher and Larry Charles’ (who directed the incredibly funny Borat (2006)) take on the state of religion in today’s society.

If on the other hand, you tend to idolize documentary filmmakers such as Marcel Ophüls, Errol Morris, or Jean Rouch, it is then likely that the selective and superficial approach that Charles and Maher use to portray everyone they meet as dumb and confused will not leave you impressed.

While i am a little put off by Moore and Charles’ techniques, i find their documentaries nonetheless extremely entertaining. I can see clearly how they manipulate and edit out everything that does not serve their purpose, thereby providing a very black and white view of the topic, and a part of me condemns this as easy and one-dimensional filmmaking. I also think that this strategy is clearly not ideal if one wants to try to convince ‘the other side’ or simply to try to broaden their horizons a bit. In fact, it seems that these types of documentaries mainly preach to the choir. But another part of me also enjoys these cheap manipulations of these people who i so strongly disagree with. A low emotion perhaps, a shadenfreude-type pleasure at seeing bigots be put on the spot, which is perhaps the best we can get since in most cases we will not be able to change their perception of reality.

Bill Maher is not known for mincing his words and he certainly lets loose nicely in Religulous, bombarding incredulous believers with facts that that should make anyone think twice about everything they may have ever been thought or may have ever believed about religion. Religion may have some positives, but when one looks at history and at the state of our society today, it is difficult to see the benefits of a world being ruled by religion. Wherever one turns, there is the intolerance and the prejudice of religion being forced onto others. Whether after watching Gus Van Sant’s fabulous Milk (2008) and being reminded that so many people consider their fellow human beings abnormal because of their sexual preference, or after reading the story of how the Vatican and that clown Berlusconi tried to stop a mother and a father from letting their daughter die after she spent the last 17 years in a coma, it is so unfortunately clear that religion is not making the world a better place and it is not helping people love one another.

Would a world without religion be better? I can’t say that i know for sure, but we have tried religion already and it’s not working. So, why don’t we try something new?

Something happened about 10 years ago. Oliver Stone, who had been one of North America’s most interesting and provocative directors in the 80s and early 90s, suddenly started making boring and average movies. Any Given Sunday (99), Alexander (04) and World Trade Center (06), all felt like the work of a director who had run out of ideas, and out of rage. Perhaps wounded by the constant scorn of critics and by accusations of a lack of patriotism, Stone has turned to facile cinema to continue funneling his political ideas. Unfortunately, the result is a far cry from what he used to be capable of.

His latest film is something not often seen in this medium: the biography of someone who is still alive. This represents quite a challenge as the film must compete in the reader’s minds with the information and knowledge they already have about the person being portrayed, information which is current and much more relevant than if the subject had been dead for 30 years. And if in addition that person happens to be the most hated man in the world over the past eight years, the level of complexity rises even further for the filmmaker and his screenwriter. But that obviously did not stop Stone from wanting to try to tell the story of George W. Bush and how this little insecure man went from alcoholism and skirt-chasing to the highest post in the world.

Regular readers of this blog will know that i hold much contempt for George W. Bush and that i am always very much in favor of exposing his lies and deceit. I have posted several times before about excellent documentaries and filmmakers who have done their best to show the world the damage the Bush administration has done and the amount of corruption and illegal activities it has engaged in. But W. does little to expand on this great work. Instead of confronting the viewer with the brutal truth of Bush’s lies, idioticism and corruption, this fluffy romanticization attempts to be fair and to show Bush, as an idiot yes, but as an idiot who grew up in the shadow of his brother and who was constantly seeking the approval of a distant and critical father….

W. ends up being just like a nice Disneyland ride. Move over Pirates of the Caribbean, here comes W. the ride. Here is George getting pissed during his Yale fraternity induction. Over there is George working in an oil rig. And look over there, it’s George meeting with Rumsfeld, Condy, Powell and Cheney. Don’t they look like nice muppets, all these actors chosen because they resemble so closely the actual protagonists (with the exception of Rumsfeld who looks like the odd piece in the puzzle)? Whether they all act well or not becomes irrelevant, as their actions and manners are made to resemble exactly that of these politicians whom we have come to know so well because we have watched them so often on TV. How can these portrayals compete with the real thing, how can they not appear as wax puppets playing out a script when we have all already been bombarded by videos and cartoons and images of Bush and Cheney and of their every mannerisms? To make matters worse, too many fairly well-known actors have been chosen to play these politicians, creating an even further distinction between the reality of W. the film and the reality of W. as we have acquired it individually over the past 8 years of ‘living’ with him. It is no longer a question of Cheney playing Cheney but of Richard Dreyfuss playing Cheney playing Cheney. As i have commented on before regarding Bobby (06), i consider using too many well-known actors in one film a risky proposition that very few filmmakers can pull off. The effect is simply too distracting and it adds a clear level of superficiality to the experience.

Which brings me to my last point. The above could have worked, perhaps, if Stone had stuck with one direction in his film. Is W. a parody, is it a bit comic, is it serious, didactic, pedagogic, entertaining, a criticism, an apology, a fair portrayal…? W. is confusing because it seems to want to be all of this. But by the time the end credits start to roll, one has every right to feel confused and to wonder what that was all about.

Alfonso Cuaron’s remarkable Children of Men (based on the novel by P.D. James) is an extremely bleak film about a dystopian and sterile near-future where no children have been born in 18 years. This results in extreme forms of lawlessness, inequality, poverty, violence, and illegal immigration and in an overall breakdown of society as a whole. But these problems are the very same ones that currently plague our society as the world tries to understand how to handle the continued rise of capitalism in light of the increasing economical and social instability that seems to accompany it.

A short documentary on the changes that are impacting our society, The Possibility of Hope provides interviews with some of the leading thinkers on globalization, human migration and social and environmental justice (John Gray, Naomi Klein, James Lovelock, Slavoj Zizek…), intercut with footage from various existing newsreels and documentaries and with footage from Children of Men. While offering an interesting montage of visuals on the themes mentioned earlier, The Possibility of Hope has little new information to present, and does not provide any ground-shattering insights on the costs of globalization. It also feels that it was done very quickly, almost as an after-thought.

Nevertheless, it is good to see a prominent (and talented) director who operates within the Hollywood establishment caring for such issues and trying to do something about it.

An incredibly powerful documentary that explores the collapse of Enron.

As with most documentaries that deal with socially relevant issues, the greater theme of human nature and what makes people do the things they do is explored indirectly, through the depiction of a small group of people who thought they could exploit the system to enrich themselves at the expense of others.

Aside from being a very well made documentary, Enron is an intense experience that can only leave one shaking his head in disbelief at the greed, selfishness and lack of empathy that some people are capable of.

It also shows us once again that some corporations can easily get out of control, monstrous money making machines without a heart or a soul, only instructions for making a profit at any cost and without regard for the well-being of society as a whole. A priority for the 21st Century should be to work with the business establisment to ensure that a more socially responsible form of capitalism emerges.

Watching a film by Werner Herzog is never an easy task. It is the antithesis of the traditional Hollywood entertainment-driven movie. Herzog’s films make you work and think, they force you to participate by investing your strength, your intelligence and your entire emotional being into the experience. Through his subject matters, his startling use of imagery and his haunting scores, Herzog demands constant involvement from his audience. An unfortunately too-rare form of cinema, his films continue to raise pertinent questions about some of the most interesting issues today.

Lessons of Darkness captures the devastation of Kuwait in the aftermath of the first Gulf War. More specifically, it is a portray of a wounded earth that is left shedding tears of fire due to the greed and savagery of Man. Not content to decimate and to ruin, Man also turns his bestiality towards other men and engages in horrible crimes which for any reasonably sane person are impossible to comprehend.

As i watched Herzog turning ugliness into beauty with his camera, music and editing, i could not help but weep at a world gone terribly wrong. 14 years before Edward Burtynsky made his Manufactured Landscapes (2006), Herzog used stunning visualization to show only one of the myriad of ways in which Man is impacting this Earth and is redefining the landscape and the entire ecosystem to his liking. Unfortunately for all of us, this redesigning comes without a plan and is driven by selfish motives rather than by a desire to develop a system where Man’s constant desire for progress can co-exist harmoniously with Nature.

While a Technogaianist myself, and thus a believer in technology as a means to achieve this harmony, Lessons of Darkness made me long at times for some of the scenarios that Alan Weisman so eloquently depicted in his seminal book The World Without Us (2007). It is comforting to know that Nature would eventually reclaim what is rightfully hers. But wishing it all away won’t make it go away and we must move forward and attempt to reconcile our innate propensity for greed and egoism with the need for ecological health and stability.

Trouble is a documentary about the events surrounding the G8 Summit that took place in Heiligendamm Germany in June 2007. It received the 2008 Cinema for Peace Award for Best Documentary and was entered into competition at the Milano, Zurich and Braunschweig Film Festivals.
I had the chance of being involved in the making of this film through the organization Mindpirates for which i have worked on and off for the past 3 years. I have a screenplay credit, which is quite flattering considering that the film was made by a large group of volunteer activists. Nonetheless, Trouble provides an interesting look at the various sides that come together during such political events: different opinions, motivations and sometimes, very different means of expressing these views.

It should soon be available online, in the copyleft spirit that underlines all of our work at Mindpirates.

‘The 2007 G8 Summit in Heiligendamm/Germany - A summer fairytale, a blooming corn poppy, a brilliant blue sky. An unbelievably large and menacing fence cuts through the picturesque landscape. Police caravans, journalists, and activists face off for days in these fields like medieval armies. Elsewhere, artists despair over a public tht confuses pop with protest. Bob Geldof, Bono and Herbert Groenemeyer preachon the “Your Voice Against Poverty” stage, while Rostock locals would obviously rather be eating a bratwurst. Left-wing anarchists try to set everything on fire, though they only manage to get to one car and a few trash bins. Interviews with the likes of Muhammad Yunus (winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize), filmmaker Wim Wenders, Susan George (former vice-president of ATTAC France), U2 frontman Bono, and Campino (singer of Die Toten Hosen) are mixed in with questions and commentary from police, activists, and locals. A regional documentary pop film that critically and playfully explores the egoism of a confused protest generation.’

http://trouble-der-film.de/

http://mindpirates.net/

http://www.cinemaforpeace.com/

http://www.milanofilmfestival.it/2008/catalogo/colpe/trouble.php

A sometimes poorly structured and organized documentary with a moderator whose voice would put you to sleep if the topic wasn’t so interesting, The Future of Food nonetheless provides an interesting look into the dangers of genetically modified foods and is a good companion piece to the better We Feed the World (2005).

As people across the globe slowly become accustomed to hearing about genetically modified corn, canola or soybeans and fail to fully understand how it impacts them, corporations such as Monsanto are busy patenting seeds (and thus life; a horrifying thought to ponder. Big pharma is now beginning to patent genes), developing and planting new genetically modified crops, unbeknownst to most, and suing farmers in an effort to pressure them to use these corporations’ seeds. These corporations are also consolidating the food supply, thereby reducing the diversity of our crops and produces and driving many farming communities out of business, both in the Western and Third Worlds. In a word, everything awful that you have ever heard about what motivates corporations is unfortunately also applicable to the world of agriculture and genetically modified foods.

But this is not new. Monsanto’s main pesticide and herbicide, which has been used widely for decades in numerous countries, is based on military technology from World War Two, particularly on nerve gas and on the famous Agent Orange. Has Monsanto ever bothered to try to really understand what this means in the long term for the people eating crops or eating the animals that eat the crops sprayed with this stuff? Probably not. As one Monsanto executive stated about genetically modified foods, their only responsibility is to sell their product and to make money, not to ensure their safety, which they regard as the responsibility of the government. Unfortunately for all of us, most of the individuals with the real power in the two branches of the government that are supposedly looking after our safety (Federal Drug Administration and Department of Agriculture) are ex-Monsanto employees or are directly affiliated with the corporate world, in a manner reminiscent of the Bush’s administration’s various ties to many corporations that benefited from the war in Iraq. We live at a time when compassion and empathy are badly needed, but these are clearly not a corporation’s forte.

Therefore, it is up to us to ensure the safety of our food by living an organic lifestyle, by informing ourselves and by putting pressure on these corporations to increase the safety of their products and to provide us with more transparency on their actions and on which foods contain GMOs. The most naïve thing people can do is to assume that their voice or actions do not count. In the same way that something as simple and easy as replacing the light bulbs in your house can make a difference and reduce your energy consumption, buying organic produces, supporting your local farmers and encouraging sustainable farming can have an impact on the system, as well as on your health.

As I have stated before, we live at what I consider to be the most important and interesting time in our history. Our mastery of science is increasingly enabling us to consider new horizons and to change our destiny in ways that would have seemed impossible not so long ago. I believe in technology and I believe that it can have a positive impact on society. As a futurist, I also believe in the inevitability of progress and that whatever we fear today, we will accept tomorrow. For this reason, I am not opposed to genetically modified foods in the long run, in the same way that I am not opposed to genetic engineering in general. Yet, I believe that we are at the early stages of these developments and that they are currently not safe. Consequently, it is out duty to ensure their safety by pressuring the system. A year ago, driving back from the G8 demonstrations in Northern Germany, a friend asked me why I resisted GMO’s if I loved technology. I answered that I fight it to ensure its safety as quickly as possible, before it does too much damage, rather than to try to ensure that it never happens. I also do it because corporations are out of control and are ruling too many aspects of our lives. Their power must be reduced and their greed controlled. It is our choice to decide if we want to try to make a difference.

http://www.thefutureoffood.com/

http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsanto

http://www.thecampaign.org/

http://www.monsantowatch.org/

http://www.ucsusa.org/

No End in Sight, a winner of several film prizes and on the top 10 lists of many critics in 2007, differentiates itself from the multitude of other documentaries that have come out over the past few years about the Iraq war in that it focuses on why things went wrong once the war started. It does offer the usual evidence that the war had been planned for a long time, at least on the surface, by the neo-cons and that 9/11 and Sadam were just convenient excuses to put this plan into action, but this accounts for only a small part of the documentary.

And what Charles H. Ferguson uncovers and exposes through this precise and meticulous documentary is that the mismanagement of the Iraq occupation is as enraging as are the reasons for going to war in the first place. The arrogance, selfishness and naïve overconfidence of a few key people in the Bush administration have led to one of the most grotesque and unjust travesty of our generation. Regardless of whether one believes in the merits of this war, after watching No End in Sight, it should be clear to anyone that Iraq would probably be a better place today had the Bush administration not acted like children entering a new playground.

No End in Sight is not an anti-war documentary. Although it provides plenty of ammunition to those already against Bush and the Iraq war, it also shows us that there were plenty of capable and well-intentioned people who went into Iraq hoping to make it a better place for the Iraqis. This is a fact that is often forgotten and this documentary reminds us that we must not too easily assume that anyone involved in the Iraq conflict must have by default shared the thinking of the Bush administration. Yet, it also proves once again that Bush and his cohorts are some of the most dangerous men in the world today and that many continue to have power over matters that can impact us all.

How to do justice to the memory of one of America’s greatest politician is a question that Emilio Estevez must have asked himself countless times while planning his movie Bobby. Unfortunately, it appears that he didn’t find a satisfactory answer.

Bobby is built on an interesting, albeit increasingly overused, premise: to capture the last 24 hours of Robert F. Kennedy’s life through the eyes of several people who have only one thing in common: they will be present during Kennedy’s last speech in a Los Angeles hotel during that ill-fated night of June 6th, 1968. Estevez mixes their lives, stories and beliefs with real footage of Kennedy on the campaign trail, as he spreads his message of hope across America.

One of the early problems with the film is that this dozen or so of lead characters are all played by more or less well-known stars, and one can’t help but to start wondering who else is going to pop up next. The viewer becomes trapped in this overabundance of celebrities and begins to watch the stars themselves rather than the characters they portray. In addition, some of these familiar and pretty faces (my god, they were all so pretty in 1968!) happen to be very average actors and actresses, resulting in characters that are simply tedious to watch and enjoy, and in scenes that simply feel too much like they were built for a celebrity to fly in for the day and recite a few lines and express their liberal penchant by simply being there and by appearing in a film about Robert F. Kennedy. Using so many stars effectively is a difficult undertaking and intertwining their stories in a way that is compelling is even more complex. One can’t blame Estevez for trying to be Robert Altman (or to a lesser extent, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu) but one can certainly fault him for failing and for only being able to come up with a result that is as mediocre as Paul Haggis’ Crash (2004).

But what comes out as the single biggest problem with Bobby is that it is an avalanche of cheap and democratic sentimentalism. Estevez tries so hard to capture the impact that Kennedy had on people in 1968 (which begs the question as to why Estevez decided to focus mainly on all these white pretty people, instead of attempting to show Kennedy’s impact on the poor and blacks – the couple of so-called Latinos and Blacks in the film do not feel believable at all. Their comportment and attitude feel to me much more late 20th century than late 1960s) that he can only use amateurish tricks such as showing us people who got into an argument reconciling to the words of Kennedy and to the required late 60’s soundtrack. Oh, you just had an affair? That’s ok, now that I hear Kennedy and how he will change America, I forgive you. Oh, you just got shot, you racist pig? Even though I fired you this morning for being a racist and even though I strongly dislike you, let me make sure that I am the first one in the room to help you as you lay on the floor. In summary, let us all suddenly become better people and embrace as we listen to the message of Robert F. Kennedy. Can someone please pass the soap?

The real footage of Kennedy is actually the most interesting and emotional part of the film. Kennedy was destined to be a greater man than he already was. His vision, his youth, his honesty, his idealism, all had the power to change America and to make a real transformation in issues such as civil rights and racism, the environment, and social justice. He truly believed in the possibility of a better world and seemed untouched by the usual constraints and pressures of the military and business establishments. How much he would have achieved is another question but there is little doubt that America would probably be a different place today had he not been assassinated and had he been elected, instead of Richard Nixon…

Almost 10 years after Frankenheimer’s (The Manchurian Candidate 62, Seven Days in May 64, Seconds 66), Pakula directed his own paranoia trilogy (Klute 71, The Parallax View 74, All the President’s Men 76), as if possessed by somewhat similar demons and motivations, many of which drew from the collective spirit prevalent in the US at the time. It is probable that Pakula was also directly influenced by Frankenheimer’s work.

Indeed, The Parallax View reminds us at times of The Manchurian Candidate in its depiction of deception, fear, conspiracy and of an alternate reality in which the lone (in)sane character tries to uncover a conspiracy. But it reminds us also of the more recent Cypher (02) through its depiction of a world so easily constructed and deceived by large corporations and political entities pursuing their selfish aims at any cost.

But The Parallax View fails to live up to its pretensions and aspirations. The film is a bizarre mishmash of serious, dark and intelligent moments, action-driven mindless scenes, forced coincidences, overly convenient scene resolutions, and strange and often too abstract cuts and dialogues. The progression in time is frequently not perceived, resulting in a film that is often hard to follow. Finally, there is a sense of predictability to it all, making us question how truly intelligent this reporter is, when he seems to be the only one who does not know where this will all lead.

There are nonetheless some quality moments in this film, which is often mostly remembered for its five minutes brainwashing scene during which the viewer is exposed through the eyes of the lead character to a multiplicity of images and words, in a way which has a more profound and direct impact on the viewer, at the very least in the form of a headache, than a similar scene in A Clockwork Orange (71).

One would be hard-pressed these days to not notice the ever-increasing role that China is playing in all affairs of the world. The hunger of this industrial juggernaut for more consumption and production seems to be constantly rising, swallowing in the process so much energy and raw materials that an increasing number of people around the world are now asking about the human and environmental cost of this manufacturing escalation. Naturally, the Chinese are responding that these people should also question the same cost produced by their own countries over the past 100 years, that China has a right to augment its productivity and the ‘well-being’ of its people and that the country is doing more than any others to combat the negative environmental effects of its alarmingly fast entry into the world of mass consumption and production.
Still, the statistics are alarming: 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are in China, coal production to double until 2020, 400 new cities planned over the next 20 years (including 233 Eco-cities, if the Dongtan model proves successful), around 14,000 people dying per year in industrial accidents (Corpwatch), about 60 percent (700 million people) of the population are poor peasants, the second largest producer of CO2 after the US, which it will overtake next year, the list goes on…
How can such an incredibly growth take place without triggering a chain reaction of negative consequences for many of the Chinese people, for the planet and thus, for all of us?

Edward Burtynsky’s fascination with images of nature transformed by man has led him to create stunning photography of mines, quarries, dams, and other human interventions in locations where only nature existed before…In Manufactured Landscapes, he takes his camera to China and attempts to create an ‘objective’ account of its industrialization. He refrains from bombarding us with information about the country in general and about what we see on screen. Instead, he lets his images, moving and still, do the talking, occasionally punctuated by a simple and short voice-over whose economy serves to trigger a thought process rather than to fill our heads with data.
The result is fascinating, beautiful to watch at times, and mind-boggling at other times when the visuals force us to confront the absurdity of a worldwide system that forces most people to react in a similar fashion in similar circumstances: more is better, even if it means exhausting all of our resources in the process. In his very informative book ‘Collapse’, Jared Diamond shows how societies keep on making the same mistake and will drain their resources until it is too late. In most cases, the intention is not to do so. It is simply usually too difficult to assess the gravity of the situation until it is too late, and, often, as is the case with China today, other demands are placed on the society that seem to take priority over anything else.

One of the more powerful segments in the film is about the 3 Gorges Dam. Burtynski’s photographs show a ruined and nightmarish landscape around the dam, where dozens of cities have had to be relocated to give way to the new river. Most of the hundreds of thousands of people affected by this dramatic redefining of the landscape were poor to begin with, and then were asked to dismantle their houses, brick by brick, and transport them miles away where they could be rebuilt. The valley now looks like it has been bombed, a frightening and eerie scenery that could have served as the set of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. But the irony of it all is that, only a few days ago, the news came out, after much suspicion on the part of environmentalists that it would, that the valley has become an ecological disaster (landslides, pollution and water contamination….) and that all houses, which the people have rebuilt brick by brick, must now be moved again, even further away from the river. The cost of the dam and of the various relocations of the inhabitants of the valley must now be approaching 30 billion dollars.

Manufactured Landscapes, although using China as a canvas, is a reflection on the future of the planet, on the course of action we humans decide to take, and whether we are strong enough to do what is necessary to alter the path of destruction that seems to be our preferred choice so far.

This remake of the John Frankenheimer classic is a relatively decent effort by Demme and his screenwriter, who manage to somewhat preserve the sense of paranoia of the original film and the book upon which it is based, while modernizing the story with 21st century issues and themes. The criticism of the Bush administration and of its support of war profiteering corporations, while subdued, is still quite welcome in such a big budget Hollywood film.
While I tend to think that the film would have benefited from withholding the truth from the audience a little while longer, from forcing the viewer to question the authenticity and reality of more scenes, and from being more audacious in its political ‘incorrectedness’, The Manchurian Candidate nonetheless moves along at a solid and entertaining pace.
Just don’t expect the same quality as the original film.

War is an ugly thing and the business of profiting from death is even uglier. Iraq for Sale, directed by Robert Greenwald who previously took on the Fox TV channel with Outfoxed, exposes the lies, deceit and stratagems that took place during the Iraq war to ensure that a few large corporations with ties to the Bush administration would reap billions of dollars in profit by taking over several aspects of the war support operations in Iraq.

In most cases, it would seem that these contracts were awarded without a proper and fair bidding process to corporations that are somehow connected to the current administration, and that the services that these companies offered to the soldiers in Iraq were much below the quality levels of what would normally be expected. Examples are given of terrible living conditions for the soldiers, contaminated water supplied by the company hired to purify it, substandard food served to cut costs, empty trucks driving endlessly on the roads of Iraq so that the cost of driving and of gasoline can be billed back to the taxpayers, Halliburton executives driving leased luxury cars in nearby Kuwait (used as a training centre for their employees) at a cost of 250,000 dollars per vehicle for a three year lease…the list goes on. Ultimately, Halliburton, only one of several companies that have profited enormously from the war (others are CACI, TITAN, Blackwater…), has made billions of dollars in profit since 2001, by gratuitously overcharging a Bush government (and thus the taxpayers) that was more than willing to turn the blind eye. Why isn’t anyone made accountable?

http://iraqforsale.org/
HalliburtonWatch
http://www.robertgreenwald.org/
CorpWatch: War Profiteers site

SourceWatch: War Profiteering

Robert Greenwald is a busy man. Over the past several years, he has directed, produced or helped bring to the screen a slew of documentaries and films with a social angle, garnering award nominations by the dozens. Some of these titles include: Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election (2002), Uncovered: The Iraq War (2003), The Crooked E: The Unshredded Truth About Enron (2003), Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005), Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (2006), and Outfoxed, Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism (2005).

As is always the case with these documentaries, I hope they reach the right audience. I was already well aware of Murdoch’s deceptive tactics and techniques, and particularly, of his main messenger in the US, the Fox News Network. I also got to experience another Murdoch property, the Sun newspaper in London, which was enough to make me ponder human nature and the true meaning of intelligence.

As I watched Outfoxed, I kept wondering how certain people who seem to share with their fellow human beings so many common characteristics, who look similar, talk similar, have similar habits and who appear to be gifted with a certain intelligence (at least those parts of intelligence that allow one to learn and retain facts, and to communicate in a fairly clear manner), can at the same time be so different and so capable of drawing opposite conclusions and theories?

Another question that was on my mind during the viewing was: how many of these people at Fox do what they do with the full belief that what they are doing is right and just and that it involves no deception, and how many do it knowing full well that they are being deceptive and controlling? It is likely that the latter is dominated by people in the higher levels of the company and the former by the lower echelons. Journalists, I suppose along with doctors and scientists, are supposedly bound by a code of ethics. Fox (and The Sun, and some of the other media outlets within Murdoch’s empire) seems to think that these ethics are not applicable to them. They are re-inventing the role of journalism, and in the process, taking us further down the path of mistrust, brainwashing and corporate control of information, and in fact, of reality. Fox is taking Baudrillard’s concept of simulation of reality to a new level, using mass media to create an artificial and modelled reality that feeds on the naivety of its viewers and readers. Manipulation of the masses has always been a favourite means of propaganda and a tool of dictatorial regimes. The US Republican party has found its tool and is using it under the banners of freedom and fairness. Suddenly, the worlds of THX 1138, Orwell’s 1984, Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale don’t feel so far away (see my essay on architectural representations of utopias and dystopias in cinema).

www.robertgreenwald.org
www.outfoxed.org
www.newshounds.us

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance festival in 2005, Why We Fight is a well crafted documentary that unfortunately offers little new information regarding the dominance of the ‘military-industrial complex’ in the US and the plans of the neo-cons in Washington to control the Middle-East, with Saddam Hussein being simply an excuse for implementing this strategy of control and power (see also Fahrenheit 9/11).

Such a documentary would be incredibly useful if one could somehow manage to get the sceptics to watch it. But it seems that most people who will hear about it and will indeed watch it are the people who believe already and simply want to be reminded of the absurdity and sadness of it all.

For more information on this sad state of affairs, read Noam Chomsky’s book Hegemony or Survival and read the American Empire Project blog.

A fascinating look into the life and actions of Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defence under Kennedy and Johnson and the man many have come to associate with the absurdity of the Vietnam war. Yet, as this documentary reveals, war is a complicated and often irrational affair, whereby even the most rational man can make illogical and unreasonable decisions. That being said, I am still not sure that McNamara was a reasonable man in those days, but the point which is made brilliantly by the documentary, is that Man can sometimes be caught up in events that are bigger than he is, and in this process, the lines between good and bad, between our beliefs and our actions, can easily be blurred. Errol Morris, the famed documentary filmmaker, does not try by any means to excuse McNamara. On the contrary, he wants to expose him, but rather than wanting McNamara to simply say ‘I am sorry’, Morris wants him to open up and to uncover what makes a man such as him do the things he did. And this technique works brilliantly. McNamara reveals an ambiguity, a paradox, a certain sadness that one can’t help but associate with something bigger than just McNamara, something that goes deep into human nature…

It was with great interest that I started watching this channel 4 documentary, a response to Gore’s Inconvenient Truth and, really, a response to what the producers and director (a certain Martin Durkin, who, 10 years ago was chastised by the Independent Television Commission for misleading some of the people he interviewed in his anti-environmentalist documentaries, something he apparently did again in this case with Carl Wunsch, who claims to have been deceived) of this anti-propaganda piece of propaganda see as an increasingly dangerous global warming bio-fool movement.

Now, I happen to be one of these bio-fools, but with what I hope is an open mind. So if I hear that some people are saying that global warming is a hoax, I am interested in finding out why they are saying it.
The GGWS starts strongly enough, with some interesting, albeit not new, evidence proving that severe temperature fluctuations have been with us as long as there has been an earth. The documentary then goes on to show that CO2 emissions play only a minimal role in raising temperatures, and that, in fact, temperatures affect CO2 emissions rather than the other way around. Finally, the point is made that solar flares are the source of the current rise in temperatures and that man-made CO2 emissions have, therefore, pretty much nothing to do with the global warming of the earth.

What is the agenda behind this documentary? There is a belief in some circles that global warming and what it embodies is a scam, an effort by many people in this world to deceive the rest of the world, a desire by corporations and organizations to profit from the hype, and an attempt by some to slow down the growth of developing countries. And if we are to believe a certain Lyndon LaRouche and his cohorts of anti-environmentalists, man-made global warming is a hoax created to limit human potential, to control population growth and to curb the rise of technology. The more one looks into this issue, and the more one realizes that the idea of man-made global warming has a lot of enemies, and not only in the more obvious circles of right wing capitalistic ideology. Man-made global warming is now regarded as both a profit-driven conspiracy and, at the same time, as the delusional ramblings of bio-fools who would rather save the planet than humanity.

Let us assume for a moment that all of the above points (I personally agree with the sad fact that global warming has become a profitable path for many, regardless of their true motivation) have various degrees of truth in them. Let us assume that the earth is going through a natural warming period, part of a cycle that started 4.3 billions years ago. Does this justify taking all responsibility away from what we are doing to the planet? Should Man be therefore fully exempt of accountability in regards to his action towards the environment? This is the message of this documentary. And this is a very dangerous message. Fearing for the future of the planet does not make one a Luddite, a preferred term of the anti-environmentalists. The impact of Man on his environment has never been so pronounced and profound. Even if solar flares are indeed responsible, so far, for most of the warming on earth, it does not automatically imply that we must ignore the role played by man, a role which we are only starting to understand. And the precautionary principle has nothing to do with this. There is evidence of direct harm to the planet, whether via CO2 emissions or deforestation or animal extinction. The director and producers of this documentary seem to want to encourage viewers, by putting all emphasis on the earth’s cyclical temperature changes, to believe that it is acceptable to ignore these facts.

Now, let us assume that man-made global warming is indeed true. If we believe this documentary, we can continue to do as we please, to pollute, to suck from the planet its resources and riches, to put man first and nature second. Again, assuming that we are responsible for what is happening to the planet right now, what kind of a future would you rather live in? Isn’t it worth being careful now? Some speak of the feeling of collective guilt that is being pressed upon the citizens of this world. What of it? Can’t the Western world deal with that guilt? Can’t the French, Germans, Americans, British and others learn to drive less, to switch light bulbs, to recycle, and, really, to be aware? That is not guilt. These are good manners for the 21st century. And when it comes to developing countries, we must clearly not hinder their growth by forcing upon them cost prohibitive measures, but rather we must use our own expertise, knowledge and financial resources to help guide them towards a growth that balances environmental concerns with in some cases, more traditional methods. This film would have you believe that the same type of pressure that is put on the Western world is applied to developing countries, but as pointed out by www.realclimate.org, the Kyoto protocol does not apply to developing countries (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled/)

I do not partake in the idea that being an environmentalist means being anti-technology or being in favour of limiting human growth and potential. It is about finding a way to balance these forces so that everyone can benefit, on a healthy planet, from a healthy future where technology can play its part.

A high budget and overlong documentary on the rise of the corporation over the past 150 years. It could have been 45 minutes shorter and still be as effective.

Nevertheless, this documentary has plenty to offer and enough to, hopefully, make even pro-business and pro-capitalism viewers think about the negative implications of a world dominated by greed, money and power.

The Corporation, unlike many documentaries, provides different points of view and gives both sides a chance to express themselves. That I found the pro-business speakers ridiculous (with the exception of the ex-CEO of Shell) is either a reflection of my own bias or an indication that the producers of the documentary selected these people for their self-defeating image and rationale.

A lot of the content of The Corporation is unnerving, at least to any viewer who has the ability to empathize. Emotional Intelligence is a precious but unfortunately lacking commodity in today’s society. If it were available in large quantity, we wouldn’t be facing the kinds of problems that The Corporation highlights.
We live in a world where human beings are willing to sacrifice other human beings and the planet we all share in the name of power and money. The concept of the corporation, initially created to help 19th century slaves has been changed and adroitly moulded by lawyers to serve the need of a few at the expense of the many. Selfishness and greed have redefined our society and have become the prevalent standards to imitate and value.
In a world dominated by ever-growing and increasingly powerful corporations, the individual becomes expandable, governments meaningless and the environment and its riches insignificant. But what is perhaps the scariest of all is the realization that the corporation has become an entity that can and does progress on its own, without necessarily requiring human intervention, a bulldozer on auto-pilot that crushes everything in its path and that only a bigger bulldozer can stop. This means that even when decent people (they exist) obtain high profile positions, they are in most cases unable to change the course and direction of that corporation. Indeed, there is only one direction possible: forward, towards more money for shareholders for whom the concept of enough is never enough.
I can’t help but to think about the countless Science Fiction films I have watched where a killer virus or bacteria is discovered. After analysis, the bad and myopic scientist always admires the beauty of a perfectly constructed organism that can self-replicate, whose cells regenerate faster than they can die and whose inability to feel make it the perfect weapon with total control over its environment.
The corporation today is such entity. And so far, we don’t seem to have found the cure…

Aaron Russo’s documentary starts as a noble attempt to expose, if true indeed, a mind-boggling and little-known fact: that there is no law stating that Americans need to pay income tax.

Russo throws a fair amount of evidence at us and puts forth a strong case depicting the American Government and the Banking industry as a bunch of megalomaniac Big Brother types who want nothing more than to rule the entire world (that part some of us had figured out already).

What i found to be a truly interesting point in the film is that the Federal Reserve Bank is in fact a private organization, not a governmental one, a star chamber of sorts composed of a group of bankers who, having the power to print money, can therefore control much of what happens in the world.

These financial gods have the power, and more importantly, the will and desire, to play with the economies of the world and to try to shape the future of mankind to their liking.
Unfortunately, after that point is made, the documentary starts to drag, suffers from too many repetitions and attempts to make too many points, thereby diluting the initial concept.

Hotel Rwanda is the perfect political film for Western audiences. It ends well. But the Rwanda massacre obviously did not end well. So why have a film ending that might leave the audience with a feeling that things are not so bad afterall?

Read more »

Call me stupid but i found Syriana so hard to follow at times that it took away from the experience of enjoying the film. It is undoubtedly a very well made film, with an interesting point to make and a part of me dislikes the idea of bringing down a political film (we need them). But the constant back and forth and babbling of various people involved in different levels of conspiracy, none of them likeable (perhaps that is the point), prevented me from feeling anything towards the film. Instead of engaging us in the process of discovering the truth, the film creates a cold distance between us and the action on screen, something akin to sitting in a very boring business meeting and spacing out even though you know that probably someone has a point to make. And as much as i like Clooney, that was no Oscar winning performance.

There is a peaceful and serene tragic beauty to this film. From the very beginning, while we partake in the happiness of the characters as they fall in love with each other, we do so with the suspicion that such love can not and will not last, and this knowledge brings us closer to the story and its characters
We watch and observe with serene sadness as the tragedy of two humans beings whose love can not be comsummated, unfolds. Their gender, while helping us to place the impossibility of their love, becomes quickly irrelevant and secondary to their love and to their search for happiness. The acting is splendid, the cinematography ravishing in its majesty but also in its ability to convey the irony of homosexuals finding love in an environment normally associated with traditional male conservatism.
There is absolutely no way Crash (2004) should have won best film at the Oscars, not only because Crash is not a very good film, but also because Brokeback Mountain is quite close to as good as it can get.

This 6 hours made-for-TV film is a splendid study of an Italian family from the 60’s to the present day. It has been a while since i have seen such believable characters developed for the screen and the acting is simply brilliant all around (especially from the two brothers). None of the situations are exaggerated or forced, and if, at times, one does get the feeling that the director wants to get a tear out of us, it is quickly forgiven since he succeeds beautifully. A must see and one of my favourite films of this last year.

If you liked Fahrenheit 9/11, you will like this. Control Room is a film made by a reporter of Al-Jazeera, the largest TV network in the Middle East. This is their view on the reporting of the Iraq war, and the film intelligently discusses, not only the merit of the war, but also what the media’s responsibility is in reporting the truth, or in altering it.

Ken Loach’s influential docu-drama, made for the BBC in 1966, is an emotional downward ride into despair. Extremely effective, it helped raise awareness to the cause of the homeless and that of housing conditions in Britain, considerably lower at that time than in many European countries. Unfortunately, the political agenda sometimes overpowers the film, and we can’t help but feeling a little manipulated…

Remarkable in intensity, poignant in veracity, this 4 1/2 hours documentary by one of the masters of the genre explores how people and cultures deal with the concept of guilt. It is a fascinating look at what makes some people act, or not act, when confronted with certain events and situations and how they decide to deal with their decisions in the years that follow.

Yes, Michael Moore is a master manipulator and i do sometimes get confused, and concerned, by his tactics and do wonder about his true intentions. But in the end, who cares. Someone out there is doing something about a situation that can use all the help it can get, and is doing it, cinematographically, in a way that is accessible and just plain good fun to watch.