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Jan. 29th, 2005 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jfbWell, I went to that September 11 film--thanks, Sean! I did like it, on balance. Some of the pieces gave me that poetry after Auschwitz feeling--marred by cheap irony, lazy virtue, and, in one case, cuteness. Sometimes I can only resent fiction. That's probably why my favorite was Iñárritu's--poetic, yes, but without the flimsiness of verbal narrative--followed by Nair's based-on-a-true-story and the Loach piece about Chile's September 11 coup.
Two truths I hold self-evident about the attack of 9/11/2001: it was a hideous, unthinkable atrocity; and it was, in global and hstorical context, not that unusual. If I hold both of these in my head for too long, it becomes unbearable, so most of the time I don't think about either one. Loach's film acknowledges the first truth, and goes heavy on the second. It reminds its American viewers of our complicity in that context, but does it do any good? I know the U.S. contributed to the rise of Pinochet, I know we trained Bin Laden and supported Saddam, I know we've been torturing detainees in Iraq and are considering "the Salvador option" there, I know the list and it goes on. And I know that not enough of us care about that to stop it. And that leaves me feeling utterly helpless.
I don't know what else to say about that.
The film showed at De Anza College, which is completely deserted on a Saturday night. All my colleges were residential, so this took me by surprise. It was really creepy.
Three more here.
Two truths I hold self-evident about the attack of 9/11/2001: it was a hideous, unthinkable atrocity; and it was, in global and hstorical context, not that unusual. If I hold both of these in my head for too long, it becomes unbearable, so most of the time I don't think about either one. Loach's film acknowledges the first truth, and goes heavy on the second. It reminds its American viewers of our complicity in that context, but does it do any good? I know the U.S. contributed to the rise of Pinochet, I know we trained Bin Laden and supported Saddam, I know we've been torturing detainees in Iraq and are considering "the Salvador option" there, I know the list and it goes on. And I know that not enough of us care about that to stop it. And that leaves me feeling utterly helpless.
I don't know what else to say about that.
The film showed at De Anza College, which is completely deserted on a Saturday night. All my colleges were residential, so this took me by surprise. It was really creepy.
Three more here.
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-30 09:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-30 07:55 pm (UTC)