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Films tackle terror with comedy and real accounts
2006-02-20
Film makers are increasingly turning to the war on terror for inspiration, using drama, documentary and even comedy to tackle a topic that has dominated political debate since the September 11 attacks in 2001. It began with Michael Moore and "Fahrenheit 9/11," a personal attack on the U.S. administration which not only won the coveted Palme d'Or in Cannes but amassed $220 million at the box office, a record for a documentary. Since then George Clooney has starred in "Syriana," looking at U.S. policy in the Middle East and the corruption within the oil industry, and Steven Spielberg questioned the wisdom of seeking revenge on those regarded as terrorists in "Munich." The Berlin film festival, which wound up on Sunday, featured three more pictures that tackled the topic directly or indirectly, and there are at least two movies in the making that will attempt to reconstruct the actual events of September 11. "I think there is more of a sense among even relatively mainstream filmmakers like George Clooney that a stand needs to be taken," said Lee Marshall, critic at Screen International. "I don't think it's a purely idealistic trend, because I think commercially films like 'Munich' or 'Good Night, and Good Luck' have an audience. There's a feeling that you can almost have your cake and eat it now." In Berlin, Britain's Michael Winterbottom showcased his "The Road to Guantanamo," a stinging critique of the U.S. military prison based on the real life stories of three men held there for over two years without charge. At the other end of the stylistic spectrum came Italian director Roberto Benigni's "The Tiger and the Snow," a less judgmental, at times even whimsical comedy played out in the unlikely setting of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. As he struggles to keep his wounded girlfriend alive in a dirty Baghdad hospital, the main character finds his own weapon of mass destruction - a flyswat. In between came a provocative offering from the Wachowski Brothers in "V For Vendetta," starring Natalie Portman, a film based on a 1980s graphic novel featuring a hero who is a masked "terrorist" trying to bring down the British government. POLITICAL CINEMA Clooney, in Berlin for the European launch of Syriana, said today's trend recalled political cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. He argued that movies had become so politically charged partly because journalists had failed to ask enough questions of the world's response to the World Trade Center attacks. "I think for a period of time, after 9/11 and until (Hurricane) Katrina, newsmen weren't asking these questions," he told Reuters in an interview. "Films started to take up some of that slack. Someone's going to have to." The Road to Guantanamo, which won co-directors Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross an award in Berlin, had the stated aim of pressuring Washington to close the prison down, but it also portrayed the three protagonists as moderate Muslims. "To look at the actions of a few people like (Osama) bin Laden ... and assume all Muslims are that way is just as erroneous as looking at Bush and imagining everyone is as extreme as he is and all Americans are bad," said Whitecross. Several films yet to be released will try to reconstruct the actual events of September 11, 2001. "Flight 93," directed by Paul Greengrass, aims to show what happened on board one of the hijacked airliners which eventually crashed in Pennsylvania. Greengrass said the reaction of passengers on board the doomed airliner raised questions about our response to the threat of such attacks in general. "I would submit that all of us, whatever our persuasions are, all of us understand that that is the dilemma. What do we do? How do we deal with this thing?" he said. Director Oliver Stone is making "World Trade Center," about two people caught under the rubble of the collapsed towers.
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