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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:36
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Globe and Mail review, one of the better ones that I have read.
... So amid the flames of controversy already fanned by Fahrenheit 9/11, this much at least is clear: The jury was fibbing. When the film won the Palme d'or at Cannes last month, the festival jurors (headed by Quentin Tarantino) insisted they awarded the prize for purely aesthetic and not political reasons. Nonsense. Aesthetically, this isn't a great documentary, although, during the first half, there are great moments in it. But the latter part is scattered and frenzied, rather like an excited dog tearing off after too many rabbits at once — a thematic hunt that's all chase and scant context.
Still, the Cannes jury may have made the right decision for the wrong reasons, because Moore is surely on a polemical mission here. He's always been admirably keen to do more than preach to the converted; however, this movie is a political act (any artistry is just a means to an end) addressed to the sizable portion of the U.S. electorate whose political understanding has been forged exclusively by White House rhetoric and the compliant media. The rest of us will find little new in these frames, but we aren't his intended audience. Whether that audience will be reached and their hearts and minds changed — that is, whether a political act will have a political result — is how the film demands to be judged. On that question, decided by voters not by critics, the jury remains out.
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At about the midway stage, we're led back to the beginning, to all that preening before the TV cameras, and discover that Bush is preparing for his March 19, 2003, announcement of the Iraq invasion. As he delivers it, Moore splices in shots of the Baghdad streets, where the city folk smile and innocent children frolic in a neighbourhood playground. No mention is made of Saddam's repressive regime, and Moore's implied argument is evident: Whatever the relative mindset of Iraqis on the 19th, they were a hell of a lot happier than on the 20th. Cut to the bombs bursting, and to an appalling sight — weeping civilians loading a child's tiny body atop the other corpses in the gruesome bed of a pickup truck. Then back to the TV cameras, and to another made-up face — Donald Rumsfeld — waxing lyrical about "the care, the humanity, that goes into our conduct of this war." The juxtaposition is gripping, and we hear his smug words for what they are — obscenities.
Nothing else matches that intensity. Instead, for the remaining hour, the focus gets blurred...
Over all, we're left with a strange irony. As an exercise in filmmaking, this picture bears a curious resemblance to the very debacle under review — ultimately, it too is a mess of well-documented wrongs in search of a graceful exit strategy. Aesthetically, the movie is a bit of a quagmire. However, since Moore has apparently graduated from mere satirist to citizen politician, artsy deficiencies are no longer his concern. The box office may still be his consolation, but the ballot box is now his crucible. And that awaits him. June sees the opening of Fahrenheit 9/11, but only November can take its true temperature.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv.../Entertainment/
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E_T
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Orlando, Florida
Mar 2001
time: 00:36
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You know, I had gone to see the Movie last night. In my case, he was preaching to the choir. BUT, I did realize one thing that will hurt us for a very long time to come, and it's this:
Because of serveral different Idiological differences, there was no way that Saddam and Osama would have worked together, in any fashion. And Now, with Saddam out of the way and the hate that we have stired up, from Iraqis that would have not bothered us, we have now made it possible for Osama to have plenty of new recuits in Al-kida (sp).
So, even if there was "justification" (at least in the minds of the people who started this war), the end result, several years down the road, will show that the whole thing was such an increadable blunder.
But then, you need to keep some form of enemy out there, to stir up the fear gradiant, so as to keep the people from asking too many question...
E_T
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25-06-2004 07:42
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