LOOKING AT IT SIMPLY AS A PIECE OF FILM

Indeed while the title of this board is off key- film this is not, its digital recording..yet the euphemism "film" is still used to cover a variety of productions. Ok, watching this as assembled document, I find it to be well done. As a piece of propaganda it is very good as it tends to speak to an audience that it assumes is as ignorant of the persuasive techniques used in dictating and thereby swaying opinion as it is powerful enough to work against it. This message is an appeal for money or one
s brain. The narrators do a fine job of guiding the viewer by not only the introduction of words that describe the actions which soon follow their (the narrator's) first mentioning of a word (ex.'Anarchis') then they continue to attach it to other negative images later in the sequence. Its is well done. One becomes immune to independent thought once the hook is in.

Among comparisons: this production mimics "THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE". In that excellently narrated documentary one bears witness to the diabolical failures of the powers that be in SEATTLE during the WTO (WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION). In "This is What Democracy Look Like", we see that it (the production itself in capturing the marriage) actually fathered some of the developments only sited here in this production. As one familiar with it knows, Seattle was where footage and narrative caught the marriage of Unions and youth organizers who (initially) were not on one accord. In fact these major players in protesting the WTO were two factions that were, previous to the movement, separated. They were separated in routes they marched as well as signs they used. That would change. The change came overnight. The culprit. POLICE REPRISAL.

This documentary, only pays scant attention to that marriage and presents the fact as something diabolical and as old as the Anit-War movement itself(Vietnam). What becomes this film as it opens slowly as a decent portrayal of a movement becomes as, its pace quickens, an indictment against it. One can not bear but sense that.

The footage used in juxtaposing the Black Panther Party with the communist take overs in Stalinist Russia was a bit force feed. Yet I found it well situated for its purpose. In closing the narrators themselves did the production a disservice. None looked like natural journalist. Indeed, that they were discovered while attempting to act as such, proved that they are apart of the overall actors who they pretend not to be. This is alarming if not bogus as it reminds the viewer that this is a message not a pure documentary.

Making A Living Seeing