Fahrenheit 9/11

I must admit, I'm a little bit daunted by the prospect of writing a review for Fahrenheit 9/11. So much has already been made of this movie's controversial subject matter and the politics surrounding Disney's refusal to release it; so much has been made of its standing ovation at the Palm d'or Film Festival, and the various awards it has garnered; and so much has been made of its director, Michael Moore's brilliant, invasive and often manipulative techniques as a documentary filmmaker. The director, the production and the film itself has already garnered considerable hype, and going into it, many audience members will wonder whether the movie could possibly live up to all the electric buzz it had generated. All doubt disintegrates before the opening credits even roll; this hoopla is well-earned. This movie lives up to the hype and packs such a sensory punch that viewers may leave the theater in various states of disarray, dazed, bruised and a little battered. And all the better for it.

With his first two documentaries Roger and Me and Bowling for Columbine Michael Moore established himself as a brash and incendiary film-maker. And while some might question his methods for ascertaining and presenting information, no one can question his devotion to his cause. Yet in these first two films his cause was often undermined by a certain lack of focus and slap-dash zealotry that didn't allow for nuanced, balanced or fair presentation of facts. The concept of 'truth' is murky and multi-faceted, and Moore seemed so determined to assert that his truth was the only truth, that his sight was clear, and his presentation unbiased, any chance for fair debate got buried in the wake of his vehemence. It is hard to pinpoint exactly what separated Fahrenheit 9/11 from these first two efforts, indeed it also suffers from Moore's one-sided presentation of information presented as facts and his unwillingness to even consider opposing arguments, yet it marks a shift in Moore, as a documentarian and a director. And this shift can best be seen in the segments when Moore turns the camera away from his provoking, "everyman-on-a-mission" persona and allows it to linger on his subjects. The devastatingly young American soldiers describing how cool it is to listen to The Bloodhound Gang's "The Roof is on Fire" under their helmets as they bomb the streets of Baghdad and the wails of an Iraqi woman who renders the coolly impersonal term 'Civilian Casualty' into something suddenly, irrevocably personal. These images resonate far more then Moore's mocking shots of the president and his staff getting made up for the camera or his cheeky musical interludes. Moore is angry in this film, angrier perhaps then he has ever been, yet this anger affords him a surprising amount of lucidity; He has chosen to let the camera linger, unflinchingly, on the

pain, both physical and emotional that the war in Iraq has reeked. Whether you buy Moore's assertions of the familial ties between the Bushes and Bin Ladens and the financial ties between the current administration and the Saudis becomes secondary; the effects of this war, whether it is a justified war or not, are undeniable.

Yes, the shots of George Bush, on the morning of September 11th, continuing to read along with a classroom of grade schoolers for a full seven minutes after being informed that the country was under attack is disturbing. As are the shots of him hiking about his ranch, wading through the muddles of the English language and reverting to cowboy lingo at every opportunity; all succeed in presenting the president as laughably incompetent. Yet whether he is as motivated by greed as Moore would suggest is still up for debate. Similarly the shots of Moore driving around in an ice-cream truck reading aloud the Patriot Act to the members of congress has the desired effect of depicting the government as woefully uniformed, yet only when Moore stands on the street asking members of congress to sign their children up for military service does Moore achieved his desired emotional outcome-disbelief tinged with anger- unencumbered by nagging doubts about the validity or relevance of his information.

For the most affecting piece of this film, Moore returns to his decrepit hometown of Flint Michigan (its decline at the hands of General Motors the subject of his earlier film Roger and Me) and finds perhaps the best argument for his cause, a scathing political indictment of the Bush administration in the form of Lila Lipscomb. Precisely what make Lipscomb such a force for Moore's cause is that she started off as an advocate for the opposite agenda. A true Patriot, Lipscomb flies her flag every morning and initially describes herself as a "Conservative Democrat." She advocates military service for all her children, and sees it as a saving grace for the children of the largely unemployed population of Flint. When we first see her she beams when she speaks of her daughter's service and her son's choice to join the armed forces. Thus it is all the more heart wrenching to see her, after she has learned of her son's death in Iraq, facing a walled-off white house, demanding answers to questions she knows have no answer. Her angry wails of "why, God why? Why my son?" eerily echo the lamentation of the Iraqi woman's shown earlier; grief is transcendent.

We don't need a quick cut to Britney Spears nodding vigorously and saying she believes in our president to drive Moore's point of the injustice of those suffering, those affected by this war. But while the low-blows– the Britney Spears shot, the music and the pithy voiceovers"”may undermine the seriousness of the

subject, they are an irrevocable aspect of Moore, as a filmmaker and a personality. He is an angry man who has made an angry movie and it is a movie that needs to be seen. Fahrenheit 9/11 needs to be seen and discussed, criticized and mulled over, ideally by both sides of the polarized political climate. It does not sit well in a quiet mind, it needs to be discussed and debated and let out into the open. Luckily it lingers, luckily it is a film that won't easily be forgotten.

Movie Grade: A-

Synopsis:

Michael Moore examines what happened to the United States after September 11; and how the Bush Administration used the tragic event to push its agenda