Sunday, November 4, 2007
Stronger than Fiction
The impact of non-fiction film and its ability to teach and make you feel differently about something has been huge for me. John Grierson believed in the ability of film to instruct and make social change by virtue of that ability.
My view of the Vietnam war was certainly impacted by Hearts and Minds which I saw shortly before graduating from high school. This film had the ability to encapsulate the imagery and issues I had become aware of for ten years prior and verbalized/visualized my instincts ,observations and many of my conclusions of why I knew America's involvement in SE Asia was wrong and criminal.
My hope is that folks will have similar experience with No End in Sight. It has the uncanny ability to take the news events over the past five years and pulled it together in a narrative with first-person accounts from a wide range of participants involved in the Iraq occupation. As the fumbling during the spring of 2003 was shown with detail, I had this strange sense of wanting to go into the television and alter events so they wouldn't lead to the conclusions we are all so well aware of.
Don't let the overkill of music effects and sense of impending hyperdrama of the embedded clip below put you off. Charles Ferguson's film is definitely worth the space in your Netflix cue. I haven't felt this well served by non-fiction film since 1975.
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:30 PM
Comments:
Post a Comment