F911

I feel that Fahrenheit 911 will be remembered by my generation the way Nick Ut's "Napalm Girl" has been remembered by the Viet nam generation. It is the moment when American compassion is reawoken and the "evil enemy" is exposed as a sobbing grandmother.

I was expecting to enjoy Fahrenheit 911 because I usually enjoy Michael Moore films and because I was looking forward to this the way Republicans must have anticipated Ken Starr's report. Even so, F911 exceeded my expectations by far. Michael Moore has created a masterpiece that is sure to be remembered as the progeny of a new genre of documentary. I call that genre the doculately (documentary + lately), for it is a documentary of recent history.

Most of the reviews I have read of Fahrenheit 911 failed to mention a facet which I feel gives F911 it's power. When the Bush administration made the case for invading Iraq they did so using lofty ideals like: We need to tip the first Domino in a freedom cascade. Michael Moore's movie tolls those visions of grandeur and conquest hollow.

We see, therefore, an Iraqi grandmother who has lost a handful of family members crying desperately out to God. "Where are you?", she says over and over again; echoing my own thoughts on God's benevolence. "Where are you? Why me? Where are you?"

We see what it means to lose a son in the war, but this time it is an American mother, this time it is an American life lost. This mother describes being so overcome with grief she couldn't support herself, and how the phone which delivered the terrible blow tumbled from her hand. Alone at the time she crawled to a chair and sobbed until her family members arrived.

Michael connects us all emotionally to the suffering which this war has unleashed. He opens our hearts to loss and our eyes to suffering and once this is accomplished the idea of war is replaced with the reality of war.

I recalled the Jewish barber (Charlie Chaplin) in the final scene of "The Great Dictator" when I came to that realization:

The way of life can be free and beautiful.
But we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men's souls - has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity; More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness.
Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

More... Look up Hannah

If, as Charlie Chaplin suggests, it is feeling and humanity and kindness and gentleness that is needed at a moment like this, then Michael Moore's film is the most important artwork of our generation.

Most of the rest of the film is already well documented. Bush is shown mumbling and stammering across the country in a variety of venues, Paul Wolfowitz combs his hair with spit, the extensive Saudi/Bush and Saudi/Al Quaeda connections are examined, there are a few battle scenes, and John Ashcroft sings "When the Eagle Soars" (which he apparently wrote). Those things make the movie entertaining and provide strategic comic relief, but are mostly beside the point.

As for Nick Ut's photograph, less than one year after "Napalm Girl" was published on the AP wire the Viet nam war was officially concluded. Nobody cared about "the vision thing" anymore, they only wanted to make it stop.