MOVIES : The Control Room
First movie of the festival that I saw, this is a doco about the Al Jazeera coverage of the US invasion of Iraq. As such it was pretty good, tried really hard to point out that all sides of the media had their own agenda. Presented some really positive views of people from the arab world, especially some of the Al Jazeera reports.
Also presented some pretty damning stuff about the 'spin' and 'short memories' that are inflicted upon the media. Especially the bit about when 3 Arab media companies all have their reporters in Iraq murdered by US military air strikes all on the same day, but this gets overshadowed the next day by, apparently, enlisted non-iraqi's to pull down the statue of Saddam.
The most annoying thing about this movie was the audience. They were all there tutting away, and laughing in that knowing way, because they are privy to the world's secrets and know all the answers! I can't deny that I used very emotive language in the previous paragraphs, but I really wanted the people around me to take more notice of the central point of the film - don't believe what you see on the media, always ask questions and, most importantly, think about what you are being told.
Laughing at Bush isn't going to help matters, and doesn't expand your own understanding of the world one iota. And doesn't Bush want us all to remain as ignorant and unopen as we can?
Also presented some pretty damning stuff about the 'spin' and 'short memories' that are inflicted upon the media. Especially the bit about when 3 Arab media companies all have their reporters in Iraq murdered by US military air strikes all on the same day, but this gets overshadowed the next day by, apparently, enlisted non-iraqi's to pull down the statue of Saddam.
The most annoying thing about this movie was the audience. They were all there tutting away, and laughing in that knowing way, because they are privy to the world's secrets and know all the answers! I can't deny that I used very emotive language in the previous paragraphs, but I really wanted the people around me to take more notice of the central point of the film - don't believe what you see on the media, always ask questions and, most importantly, think about what you are being told.
Laughing at Bush isn't going to help matters, and doesn't expand your own understanding of the world one iota. And doesn't Bush want us all to remain as ignorant and unopen as we can?
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