My first film was Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S. Thompson. I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that I'm much more familiar with his caricatures and imitations (The Duke from Doonesbury, or Spider Robinson from Metropolitan, or King Mob from The Invisibles); I've never even watched Fear and Loathing, much less read anything more than snippets of his work.
So from the point of view of more or less a blank slate, it felt like I got a lot out of this film. One of the most interesting things for me was that he was involved in many events that I knew from other perspectives - I've been following C's lead and reading All The Presidents Men, The Final Days, and Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat, which meant that when they talked about events during the McGovern nomination process, I remembered some of what Woodward and Bernstein had discovered in terms of the dirty tricks played on the Democratic candidates. And I remember watching a documentary about Muhammed Ali and the "Rumble in the Jungle", so I had some context for his failure to report on it.
But there was plenty that I didn't know - I knew that President Jimmy Carter was fairly well-respected, but not that he had been backed by Thompson after a speech he gave to a bunch of lawyers. Nor that Thompson had run for sheriff in Aspen, shaving off his hair so that he could refer to "my long-haired opponent", and had actually polled extremely well. Nor the extent that he'd been treated like a rock star, nor his extravagant funeral plans.
I think his first wife was right, that he could have been doing a lot of good now; his writings after the Sept 11th bombings were right on the nose, and I think the would have had relevant things to say about the recent Democratic nomination process. But that was the choice he made.
But what would have happened if he'd become Sheriff in Aspen?
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I then went to Animation Now!. There was nothing that stood out like The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello; I liked The Old, Old, Very Old Man because it reminded me of Kate Beaton, in that it was a historical anecdote retold in an entertaining way, and was interestingly minimal in the amount of detail drawn. And Sleeping Betty was funny and fun.
But the description for Changing Evan reads: "A little film about the filmmaker's daughter. Just when he thinks everything is going well, Evan gets chicken pox." What it should say is, "This is the damn abstract-shapes-painted-onto-the-film-and-free-jazz one." And then there was Herr Bar, which had landscapes, plants and animals made up of bits of photographs of people, which is one of those ideas that is probably just as cool, or even cooler, in conception than in execution. And then there was Hezurbeltzak, a Common Grave, a short that was scratchy and unpleasant in music, drawing and subject, which actually made me whisper to Ed, "Bring back the free jazz."
All in all, I can't say that Jenni & Lee didn't make the right call in skipping it this year.
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I slipped out as soon as the credits started for the last short, but still missed the first few minutes of Gomorrah. This led to me trying to remember where it was set; with the bright sunshine, gangs and general run-down air, I assumed South America, but I could hear that the language wasn't quite right. In fact, it was set in Sicily, and the three main themes seemed to be the high levels of debt, how deeply the criminal organizations are embedded into everyday life, and how these things impact on loyalty.
It was okay; I don't think I feel any deep need to rewatch it.
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I then ducked out to get something to eat, and a caffeinated beverage (to stop the fourth-movie nod-off), and then it was back to the Embassy to see And When Did You Last See Your Father?, a British film about daddy issues. Well, less individual issues, more an entire year's subscription. :) A writer who feels that his father doesn't respect him, and that his father gone done his mother wrong, and who he resents for all the little cheats that his father got away with, has to deal with him dying.
It was well acted, and did a good job of showing why the son resented his father, while making clear that a lot of the problems were that the two of them just didn't understand each other, and so kept rubbing each other up the wrong way. It probably didn't help to have a jolly-people-along father if you were an awkward adolescent. And it also dealt with the whole fact that people dying of old age gradually fail - the main character takes the title of the film, and asks himself, when did he last see his father when he was a full person, before illness chipped away bits of him?
A good film, but I'm not sure I'd feel the need to see it again.
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And then it was off to the Paramount for Standard Operating Procedure; I hadn't remembered that C was coming, so that was a nice surprise.
Where No End In Sight looked at the mishandling of the aftermath of the Iraqi War in general, and Taxi To The Dark Side focussed in on the mistreatment of prisoners in the internment camps and Gitmo, Standard Operating Procedure focused on Abu Gharab, and in particular the events and people surrounding the horrific pictures that came out of there. They did this by showing the pictures in context, talking to many of the people who were in the pictures or convicted, and talking to the Brigadier General who was in charge of the prisons (but not Military Intelligence, or the various non-army people who used them for interrogation of "ghosts), and a professional civilian interrogator who was there, and one of the people who assembled the case against the soldiers who were eventually charged and sent to prison.
As with Taxi To The Dark Side, you got the strong impression that these were kids out of their depth. They were young, they were being told that these people were killing their buddies, they were being shelled every day, and they were being told to use "whatever means necessary" to soften the prisoners up. And there seemed to be one guy, the guys with the glasses, who liked to push things a bit too far - though it's hard to tell, because they couldn't interview him (he's still in prison), but the fact that he got the girl who holds the leash in one of the infamous photos pregnant, while marrying another of the women who appears in the photos... I think that might indicate the kind of guy he is.
One of the things that was chilling was that one of the women who appears grinning and giving a thumbs-up in numerous gruesome or grotesque photos was writing to her wife at home, talking about how bad things were getting, and that she was taking photos as proof of what was going on; but she's still grinning in the photos. Oh, and that when the army found out there was going to be an investigation, someone told all the soldiers that there was a short amnesty, and that they should shred or otherwise destroy any evidence of wrongdoing. I mean... what the hell?
One of the things that is so frustrating is that we know about what happens in this sort of situation - the experiment where undergrads were split into prisoners and guards was done in the seventies, and is a staple of first-year psychology texts. The situation that the army created was almost designed to produce the abuses that occurred; and the most stupid thing is, we know that this sort of torture doesn't provide useful intelligence anyway. It's viciousness and loss of moral standing for nothing. And the people who ended up at the sharp end are punished, while the people who either deliberately, or through incompetent negligence, set up the situation to fail so badly get away scot free. Bah.
Posted by svend at July 31, 2008 1:41 AM