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Trailer-photo of Farhenheit911 |
You can disdain its politics. You can pick apart the facts (and opinions) and argue what the real truth is. You can be furious at the over-the-top anti-Bush sentiment. You can label it as another one of Michael Moore’s typical self-promoting pompous films. You could say all that and more.
But you can’t ignore it. It’s too eviscerating and fascinating to be swept under the table.
Of course I’m talking about Moore’s new film, Fahrenheit 9/11, which swept into US theaters on Friday June 25, 2004 and has been selling out shows night (and day) after night. The film is a sprawling comic and searing look at President George “Dubya” Bush’s inept (according to Moore) pre and post-9/11 presidency. It tackles the ties between the Bush and Bin Laden families, the false, bumbling war on Iraq (instead of going full throttle after the real target, Al-Qaeda) and the spin-war played on a duped American public by fanning the fears of terror attacks.
It’s not a great film. It’s unwieldy and over-long, calmly moving from subject to subject where the information could be more succinctly packed. The music chosen at opportune moments for comedic relief (that is, the theme from Bonanza), lessens the gravity of Moore’s message. And there’s the obligatory time spent in Moore’s hometown of Flint, Michigan where he again highlights the plight of his community by looking at how military recruiters target low-income youths as potential soldiers. (Well, I guess if you’re the director, you can do what you want!)
But for all that, even for the material that’s been explored in other books and films, Fahrenheit 9/11 just begs to be seen. It’s too hilarious, too chilling, too clever, and too terrifying in its own right to be dismissed as a purely partisan, purely personal attack on the president and his policies.
It begins with material that has been often examined before, namely the debacle that was the 2000 US presidential election. And although we’ve heard it all before (the colossal screw-up in Florida that awarded the key state to Bush when Democratic hopeful Al Gore was projected to be the early winner), human memory is weak. It’s somewhat shocking to recall how controversial the election really was.
We’re treated to the image of numerous African American Floridian Congressmen (and women) who objected to the farcical Florida election but failed to get even one US senator to back their written petitions. There is Bush on his inauguration day, his limousine pelted with eggs, unable to do the traditional dignified walk to the White House to be sworn in. The disdain and scrutiny, Moore proves, were there from day one.
The film then quickly dissects the Bush family’s long-standing business partnership with various persons of the Bin Laden family dating back to Dubya’s poor forays in the Texas oil business where many of his companies were financially supported by Saudi (and of course Bin Laden) backers. But here’s where it gets tricky. Saudi Arabs consistently come across here as the bad guys with whom Americans were secretly cavorting.
Of course, this is America, and this is Michael Moore. When he picks an enemy, he goes for the throat. In Fahrenheit 9/11 the obvious target is Dubya, his administration, and the Republican Party in general. But Saudi Arabs are no less spared. Take it for what you will.
Then the film really gets going. Moore astutely treats September 11 with reverence. Neither do we see footage of the airplanes hitting the World Trade Centers, nor do we see people jumping out of the buildings. The screen goes dark, and we hear it. And it is much worse. And then there is the president in a Florida classroom reading a storybook. For seven long minutes he reads—after he is told about the terrorist attacks. What could he have been thinking, Moore muses.
The shocking moments come fast and furious. On September 13, as all US airports were shut down, 24 members of the Bin Laden family were flown out of the country. Then the Carlyle group, the eleventh largest defense contractor in the United States, the company on whose board former president George H. W. Bush sits, gained millions of dollars in a single day as they won huge defense contracts.
Former security advisor Richard Clark tells Moore that on September 12 everyone came into work ready to address the attacks. And though all fingers pointed to Al-Qaeda (especially the briefing given to the President a month earlier that stated that Al-Qaeda was getting ready to attack the United States by using airplanes as weapons), Clark said the feeling from the White House was “Iraq, Saddam, find out, get back to me!”
It just keeps coming fast and furious from there on out. Moore doesn’t leave any stone unturned. He targets the Patriot Act, which was quickly passed without being read by many members of Congress or the Senate. Homeland security is addressed. One member of Congress (no Senators go on the record in this film), says the Bush administration deliberately played with the American psyche by elevating the terror level from yellow to orange to red, and by saying there were going to be more attacks and then not giving any concrete information.
Of course the war in Iraq gets the full Moore treatment. From the way new soldiers are recruited, to the mentality of those already serving in Iraq, to the anger of Iraqis themselves, to how one mother of a dead soldier went from being patriotic to being disgusted with the consequences of the war—it’s all there.
And so what can be learned from this humongous mess that is the Bush presidency, Moore asks? His answers are overtly obvious. And anyone who sees this film (and you really should see it) will definitely get one side of the story. It is one side — not the whole story. But oh, what a fascinating side that story is!
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