OR: Great Theater Regardless
(Note: Minor Spoilers included)
Considering the uproar over Fahrenheit 9/11 I went to the film expecting to see something between a very flawed film with no redemptive social value and the second coming of Cecil B. DeMille (the film did win the jury prize at Cannes). However, the film is neither what the neocons want you to avoid or what the Democrats want you to see. It is a great film for what it is, though, unless you do see it, you will miss the whole point of what Mr. Moore is trying to say.
This movie is not, purely, a documentary. Documentaries explore issues or events from all points of view giving "equal time" to those points of view to show why something happened or how. Fahrenheit 9/11 is not attempting to be "fair" the same way Super Size Me is not attempting to be fair to fast food restaurants or McDonalds. But, if you think the movie is about Bush, get Bush, destroy Bush, then you also have missed the point and that is sad because the cloud that prevented you from seeing the point of the movie you brought with you.
Fahrenheit 9/11 is an indictment of the idea of war. George Bush is not the thematic center, although he does a nice job providing humor about the inadequacies of the system we live in. Also providing more than adequate support are Al Gore, both political parties and much of the media which seems more interested in making money than providing a safeguard against the abuses of government. The movie is very much a parody of war, the same method used in Blazing Saddles being a parody of westerns and A Mighty Wind being a parody of PBS Reunion Concerts.
As a movie then, given the intention of the director to indict the Iraq War and the War on Terrorism as something half-baked (which is what parody is) how does it stand up? Well, in some ways, the movie is very successful. As someone using only non-directed film clips (which is to say, he had no actors saying lines written by him) this movie has ingenious moments of both humor and sadness, delivered in the context of here's what I think we were and are doing, does that jive with what you believe we should be doing?
The second half of the movie is very pointed at the very human cost of war, within the parody of the same, which is a very unusual and dangerous technique because the human cost, people dying and lives destroyed is not easy to deal with visually or psychologically. Much of it is statements and interviews with soldiers and their families will leave you with great unease, even outrage. But whether or not you believe the war is justified is not as important as examining the toll of human life that it continues to exact. It is not enough to simply listen to casualty statistics on the news (3 dead, 4 wounded) and not realize how dangerous the implication for you it is if you act as if nothing has happened. Those 3 dead and 4 wounded were real and they and their families will be forever changed by the war.
Moore asks of you, the viewer, a dangerous question. Can we justify what we are doing in Iraq and in the U.S. in the name of 9/11? Can we look into the faces of the dead, the wounded, the soldiers faces who put their lives on the line for us everyday and say "We are justified."
The movie may not succeed in some ways, but it sure made me think about that question most of the night...
3.5 stars out of 4.