>I generally agree with most of what you've written but I was a little put
>off by the part with the administration honchos shaking hands with the
>Saudis. It seems xenophobic in tone. The Saudis are mostly assumed to be
>Bin Laden family members but not all are. It almost seemed to be saying
>that the Bush gang was bad because they were hobnobbing with Arabs.
huh. I didn't get this at all. I can't recall which author it was, I believe it was Craig Unger who wrote, _The House of Bush, The House of Saud_, but he stressed that this wasn't about a grand conspiracy to rule the world. These are just two powerful dynasties intent on making money. It really drove home something we, at LBO, tend to know: they are driven to accumulate and nothing stops them.
But, of course, I'm bringing those interpretive glasses to the film. Others are not, and given the limitations of film, not enough is said to drive home that point.
I felt myself feel a little of what you were saying while watching slow-motion footage of the Saudis with Bush Pere and Baker, I believe. You see the Saud's in full regalia, enjoying their luxury and sharing it with Bush Pere. Everyone is smiling and nodding at one another. Bush Pere is one of those men who can't hide how hard he's working a room. Do you know what I mean? It's the elite version of used car salesman. Maybe that's just me, something I've twigged to, but what always strikes me about conversations among these types is how uncomfortable everyone is. I can never understand it. They have more money than god...and they don't seem at home with themselves? How IS that?
Anyway, what struck me was the equivalence. They all had fake smiles plastered on their faces. They all seemed uncomfortable, not at home in their own skin. They were all nodding because nodding and smiling buys you editing time so you don't say something unwise. Whatever cultural differences, they're nothing compared to the tie that binds: accumulate, accumulate, accumulate.
>Without naming them individually they all seem to meld into a typical
>American version of a generic Arab. Captions with names would have blunted
>this. I assume that is not it's intent but I couldn't help but feel that
>the juxtaposition of western suits with keffiyahs and gellabahs was used
>poorly. If you were taking a reactionary person to see the film I think
>they might interpret that scene as saying Bush is bad because he sold out
>the US to Arabs.
I can see that. Without our interpretive lens, the differences in cultural dress could be read this way. Funny, too, I responded to what you wrote without reading this part first. So, we both noticed the stark contrast in elite uniform. I suspect it's just our own ethnocentrism and not anything that the film tried to convey.
>Overall I'd say it is perhaps his best effort to date. At times it was
>literally more than I could take without crying from both sadness and
>frustration.
Yes. I had a hard time sitting still. Or keeping quiet. Fortunately, there was a slim, slight, older man cracking comments throughout: "See, he's a liar!" "Did you hear that? This is what we've been saying." "Yeah, they're fear mongers. But where were you when the Patriot Act was passed? What did YOU say?"
I didn't have to shake my fist and yell at the screen: he was doing it for me. He wasn't an obnoxious know-it-all about it, either. But, he could get away with it because he was so indignant and older.
>On the other hand the Bonanza rip off made me laugh so hard I almost wet
>my pants, literally. Always go light on the cocktails before seeing a movie.
:) The movement between mocking laughter and anger is emotionally
exhausting. I spent the rest of the day in a very weird daze. Maybe it was
from wanting to cry so much, feeling the pain of the Iraqi mother and the
American mother, and having to hold back because I was at a film. And it
wasn't just because I wanted to avoid embarrassment. Rather, if I let
myself sob (or laugh uproariously), I'd miss details.
Usually, when a film moves you to tears, you have space. There's nothing going on dialogue-wise. You can sob while taking in images and music. It's probably the same with comedic film: you have plenty of space to bust a gut without missing the story.
F 9/11 doesn't give you that space because there is so much information to pack into the film. Consequently, you've had to feel all those feelings, release them slightly, but never fully enough to get it out of your system. I think that's what made me edgy.
I'm curious how others reacted when the mother confronts another woman in front of the White House. She's near an anti-war booth that looks like it was put together by 4 year olds. The mother is clearly at a loss. She hated antiwar demonstrators before. They made her angry because she felt they didn't understand. But, now she's identifying with what she'd hated. You see her confusion as she paces back and forth, uncertain what to do. You think she may just want to tear the booth down. You also know she wants become a living part of the booth: "Here, look at me. I'm the mother of one of these dead kids. This is what war looks like."
She's confronted by another woman who doesn't believe any of it. She shouts at the grieving mother, "This is all staged. It's not true."
Your blood boils for the mother. You wish with all your heart that she could just muster all the certainty in the world and set that woman straight. But, she can't. She's just too spitting angry. She tries, getting back in her face, and is able to spit out the date her son died. She is so enraged, though, she can't utter his name. The woman becomes a bit more subdued; it's starting to dawn on her that her grief might be real. Still, you can tell that it's made little headway.
Your heart sinks a little because she still doesn't have the certitude or verbal skills to explain why the war's wrong, why everything is wrong. The only thing she can turn to is the kooky antiwar booth, staffed by someone who appears to be obsessively repeating antiwar dogma. The protestor is not prepared for dialogue with the woman who doesn't believe. She's prepared only to spit out key words and phrases.
Now, Carrol will reply that it's not our job to convince assholes like the woman who got in the mother's face. I agree. But you know what our job is? To be able to engage in dialogue with her so we can say what the mother _needs_ to hear. We need to speak with that in your face woman so we can show the mother how to do it herself. So she can learn something by witnessing and then absorbing what we know. So we can be a model for her to emulate. So she can, in turn, go back to Flint and become an articulate, informed person who can speak to her friends and family.
I don't know if MM intended this message or if it just couldn't be helped: the only people sticking it out, protesting in front of the WH, is a single dogmatic, marginal protester. In the mother's quest to tell her story, there's no one there to bring her to a more articulate, radical consciousness. She needs those skills, but she's not going to learn them from a woman who appears to need medication. (I'm sorry if that offends. I don't mean to. That was just who was there at the antiwar booth: someone who looked homeless and mentally ill.)
For those of us in FL and I imagine TX, the scene was symbolic of the divisiveness. It's this incredible standoff, each side facing down the other, absolutely unwilling to budge on anything. It feels like civil war time to me. Maybe it's the same way elsewhere, but I get the sense from others that there's no sense that this country could easily explode into a civil war. I get that sense from reading Deb about Houston.
Kelley
"We're in a fucking stagmire."
--Little Carmine, 'The Sopranos'