I'm a film critic and writer and thought I'd share my reviews, when it seemed appropriate to the site. Over the next few days, weeks, ...whatever... I'll be posting reviews of documetaries that tackle our current fiasco in the Middle East.
I thought I'd start with Errol Morris' Standard Operating Procedure.
But before we launch into that, I offer up a "Letter To The Editor" I recieved for my review. If you blanch at 'foul' language (though, I would argue there's no such thing as foul language --a post for another time?) I suggest seeking out another diary. Maybe one about kittens.
Letter and review on the flip...
The best letter I have recieved so far as a critic. And it was hand written!
Regarding your review of Standard Operating Procedure (Cinema, June 4): Where do you get off fucking with me?
Messing with my conscience. Making me think. Making me feel guilty. Making one take some action. Making me feel the Red Wings aren't important. Stopping me from going to the mall to "shop." Making me try to care. Insulting my life. Insulting my mind by asking, "Why worry your beautiful minds on dead Iraqis and maimed soldiers? Indiana Jones and Carrie Bradshaw beckon." I was planning to see Indiana Jones; now I don't want to go.
What gives you the right to fuck with my American life and my right to pursue happiness. I had an idea what made me happy and at peace. You have no right to fuck all my beliefs and way of thinking. Just review the damn movie, OK? Your job is not to question what I think, or how I should think. I love me. Apologize. —Dan Janusis, Canton
And here's the review that inspired Dan to write. Enjoy!
Standard Operating Procedure
B
As we stumble into the last months of the Bush administration’s inglorious reign, it’s becoming depressingly likely that no one will be held accountable for the soiled inventory of crimes, corruptions and atrocities committed over the last eight years. Call it deep-seated cynicism or outrage fatigue, but one can’t help wonder why filmmakers even bother anymore. Torture, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the loss of civil liberties, the insidious erosion of democratic decency; despite the long list of best-selling tell-alls and political investigations, the public just doesn’t seem all that interested. Maybe the wounds are still too fresh to consider the depth of injury, but it often seems like Rome is burning while we fret over Mylie Cyrus’ bra and who’s wearing flag pins.
And so, Errol Morris, like many other filmmakers who’ve tackled the moral disgrace of the War on Terror, will probably find his movie ignored by all but the most stalwart cineastes. Once again, he brings his detached but intimate style to the screen, unmasking the made-for-the-media villains in the Abu Ghraib scandal. And as he’s done in the past — The Thin Blue Line, Fog of War, Mr. Death — Morris demonstrates how incredibly slippery truth and memory can be.
Analytical and deeply disturbing, S.O.P. focuses on the prisoner abuse scandal, interviewing most of the culprits and deconstructing an endless line of photographs, accounts and reports. Lynndie England, Sabrina Harman, Megan Ambuhl and others (but not still-imprisoned ringleader Charles Graner) are scrubbed up and offered a chance to rationalize their behaviors. Not surprisingly, most of them are unsophisticated dupes, who were encouraged to cross the line into depravity. While Morris doesn’t let their behavior off the hook, he does contextualize it, making clear that people further up the chain of command enthusiastically sanctioned their actions. Furthermore, Morris dissects the infamous photographs, revealing how the images were deliberately cropped and manipulated to tell a very specific story — one that served the interests of the administration.
Though there are no new revelations, the cumulative effect is deeply depressing. Morris provides the human context that many other films have missed, chronicling the banal and insidious policies and personalities that degrade morality and create an ethical vacuum. Viewing Standard Operating Procedure leaves you both disgusted and ashamed for what we’ve allowed people like Donald Rumsfeld, James Yoo and Dick Cheney to do in our name.
Unfortunately, it is neither the best film to tackle this subject (Taxi to the Dark Side holds that honor) nor is it Morris’ strongest work. His deliberately clinical approach and slick, almost fetishistic imagery, along with Danny Elfman’s grandiose soundtrack, feel inappropriate. Worse, the film never provides moral weight or a sense of the bigger picture, and so the raw ugliness of Abu Ghraib becomes philosophically abstract and emotionally unmoving. Even the chilling final revelation of what the military deems "illegal" and what it considers "standard operating procedure" doesn’t have the climactic impact it should. S.O.P. never asks us to look in the mirror and decide what’s right and what’s wrong. And while it may be unfair to ask Morris to provide an epiphany, it’s not unfair to wonder why he made this film in the first place.
Then again, maybe his tidy but dispassionate approach is only reflecting the true sentiments of our uninvolved nation. After all, if recent history is any indication, most of you will ignore this movie. Why worry your beautiful minds on dead Iraqis and maimed soldiers? Indiana Jones and Carrie Bradshaw beckon.