Get On, Clip In, Fall Off

Fahrenheit 9/11, again

After having finally seen Bowling For Columbine last week I was looking forward more than I thought I would to seeing Fahrenheit 9/11 when it opened in the UK this weekend. It's being shown on a surprisingly large number of screens, so off I trooped to the Kingston Odeon this evening. The cinema was full but not packed (the small front block where I always try and sit was more or less empty) with a mixture of people who were probably, like me, there to see what all the fuss was about.

It's easy for Europeans to go into a film like this with that unpleasantly patronising "Ha! Let's see what those stupid Americans have been up to now!" attitude rather than with an open mind. People who do will be disappointed to find that this film does little to reinforce their prejudices about the USA in general. There are no mentions of freedom fries, SUVs or the Second Amendment - Moore's focus is entirely on the Bush Administration, its agenda and financial connections and how this contrasts with the human stories of the people whose lives they put on the line in the singleminded and obsessive pursuit of an invasion of Iraq at all costs.

Yes, Moore is an unashamedly political animal himself, but this film wasn't made by the BBC so doesn't have to be totally impartial. I'm not going to write a full review as I'm not very good at doing that anyway, and besides there are about a bazillion reviews out there already, but it's obvious that Moore does have an agenda and he never attempts to conceal this. Everyone knows that, so it shouldn't come as a surprise to people. Neither, however, is Moore anti-American, regardless of the willingness of the right to use that tag as many times as they can in the hope that it'll stick. Both F9/11 and Columbine portray Moore himself as loving his country but bemused and angry at what's happening to it rather than as some kind of raving America-hating obsessive.

Ultimately, anyone's opinion of this film is going to be at least partially determined by their political views. That said, I don't see how anyone with a gram of conscience in their body would be anything other than outraged at one grotesque contrast which really leaped out at me. On one side, America's corporate leaders holding a conference to gloat about how much money can be made from government contracts in Iraq. On the other side, mothers and fathers and siblings in the depressed towns of America which those same corporate leaders largely helped to destroy through the closure of local industries mourn their children, killed in Iraq after joining the armed forces as one of the only options available to them other than unemployment.

It's a good movie, in short. Go and see it and you'll have done more than a lot of the folk out there who seem to consider themselves qualified to comment on it. Do, however, keep an open and questioning mind - which is a good thing to have anyway, right?

And yes, just about the whole cinema applauded at the end.

Posted by mpk at July 11, 2004 10:20 PM | TrackBack