if you haven't seen it, I would recommend anyone to watch Bitter Lake, a film by Adam Curtis. It uses Afghanistan as a microcosm to explain why politicians no longer have any answers to many of our problems and why they boil everything down to simple questions of right or wrong. It also focuses on the dark role of Saudi Arabia in world events.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02gyz6b/adam-curtis-bitter-lake
Thanks Woof - will look out for it (as if I need anything else to be depressed about .... ) - think Adam Curtis also wrote and directed the excellent 'Century of the self' which I would thoroughly recommend.
Last edited by chuck power (2015-05-10 05:37:48)
Bitter Lake is a long film over 2 1/2 hrs. A lot of it is just nice photography of Afghanistan which is a beautiful country, as long as you are viewing from inside an armoured personnel carrier, but interesting little nuggets of information are put out every so often that come together to form a picture.
Very nice.
Good call Woof,
all of Adam Curtis's doc's are worth a look ( I particularly enjoyed his 'All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace').
His blog on the BBC website is fascinating, he uses it as a scratch-pad for his documentary ideas with some great clips and info.
He's also collated/compiled some vintage films about the USA from the BBC archive on the iplayer, the Studs Terkel's Chicago film is particularly great,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/group/p00lk1tt
All of Curtis' docu's are eminently enjoyable. He promotes an alternate world-view which has much merit.
Bitter Lake seems (upon first watch) to be sedentary to the point of emptiness, but - for those who have the time! - repeated viewing allows the wash of ideologies and theories to coalesce into a coherent narrative.