Dreadfully Boring
In other words,this film is a surreal ride.
if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.
View MoreIt's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...
View MoreHaving come of age during the War on Terror and the Bush Doctrine, it has become particularly easy for me to grow detached from political voices and accept as true that left and right views have forever been at odds. Only toward the end of high school and into college did I begin to penetrate that ideological lather and see such bewildering things that had been happening all around me since I grew my first pube. There have been so many questions that I began to believe are unanswerable. How does the Bush Administration sleep at night? How do they sustain their morale? In what world do they think they're living? Most significantly, what drives them to intractably push forth on the things they did in those eight whirlwind years?The Power of Nightmares is a documentary with connotations and conclusions that are very far-reaching and extremely edgy. Most Conservatives, even the more understanding ones, could not, I imagine, even meet this film halfway. Regardless of my being on the polar opposite side of the political fence to them, why is it that I can believe such a bizarre history of what has spawned the people who've recklessly left us in chaos? Because it is the only piece yet from any medium that has answered all of those aforementioned questions. Even if the film were not true, had not gathered interviews with insiders and highly educated experts, had not compiled three hours of stock footage, it is all I've found that gets the heart of one's inquiring mind.Its three one-hour parts are composed chiefly of a montage of archive footage with the director, British TV journalist Adam Curtis's, narration, contrasting the augmentation of the Neo-Conservative movement in the United States and the radical Islamist movement, confronting comparisons with their inceptions and examining congruity between the two. Even more contented, it asserts that the menace of radical Islamism as a monumental, calculatedly systemized legion of annihilation, expressly in the embodiment of al-Qaeda, is an embellishment carried out by politicians in many countries, principally American Neo- Conservatives, in an effort to unify and urge their people following the collapse of earlier, more abstract nationalist ideas.The Power of Nightmares is a flowing cinematic dissertation, embedded in strenuously amassed affirmation, data and testimony, that magnifies and clarifies one's understanding and knowledge. It's a lofty, eye-opening and sometimes hilariously bizarre exposition of deep-seated contradictions by delving beneath the complacence of its surface meanings, subverting the inventions and actualities of global terrorism.It is refreshing to read these inscrutable people and finally come closer to understanding them. Death anxiety, lack of willingness to tolerate liabilities to more than one interpretation, a shortage of ready acceptance of experiences, impatience with conjecture, a pressing urge for the bottom line and discretionary structure, and the regard of any shrinkage of status or self-regard as an imminent danger all reinforce the intensity of one's all-around political conservatism. From the beginning with Leo Strauss and Sayyid Qutb, both becoming repulsed by what they saw as a debasement of morals and values in western society as a result of individualism, we see a mentality that has dispersed and grown both in the East and the West that tends to invoke bounds to personal freedoms, that's more vindictive toward criminals, and holds more traditionalistic religious doctrines. Neoconservatives are trying to forge an American empire, perhaps as follower of the British Empire, its ambition being to secure a dominant military and economic position of the United States. As imperialism is to a great extent seen as objectionable by the American public, one comes to understand why neoconservatives do not ever express their ideas or aspirations frankly.
View MoreHonestly, everyone should see this thoroughly researched, no-nonsense documentary. It's food for thought. Congratulations to the director. My gratefulness to the BBC.At a time when TV news programs carry just about everything except news, at a time when hypocrisy and lies are what the media delivers basically, viewing this film is a rewarding experience to see this documentary which is just the opposite.This documentary is an essay on how some governments lie to the people and about how they present as fact events and characters that are merely fictional.Where can I buy it on DVD? Is there any chance that the documentary will be released in America? If anyone knows the answers to my query I will be very grateful to him/her for them.
View MoreWhere did Osama Bin Laden come from, and why does he hate the American way of life? Why do the American neo-conservatists want the public to believe in a world wide conspiracy of evil, operating from vast underground complexes that look like a James Bond film set? In a world that has just witnessed the worst natural disaster in known history, why are our nightmares filled with images of bearded men and dirty bombs? This three-part documentary gives the answers. In a cool, factual manner, it goes back to the historic roots of both sides in this lukewarm war, and shows us how eerily similar they are. That is what is really scary about the war on terrorism. This series is essential viewing for everyone who wants to understand the most important conflict of our time. Which should include you.
View MoreThis is a highly intelligent, informative, sometimes humorous and superbly edited series of programmes that look at two types of dominant fundamentalist groups that exist in the Twenty First Century. On the one side we have the Neo-Conservatavists, mostly all white, affluent Christian men (believers in Creationism mostly), who Western society is obviously supposed to value highly compared to the dark, foreign 'others' that make up the 'terrorists' from 'un-civilised' lands. The programmes chart the historic roots of these two fundamentalist groups, and reveal that they both came about from a belief in the corrupt and morally unsound nature of Western society after the threat of the Cold War dissolved. The programmes look at the the War on Terror and Curtis clearly presents the way that 'Nightmares' about terrorism can coerce and manipulate the 'big beast' that is society. Through propaganda, the media becomes a tool where lies are peddled and fear is stoked up to tame and create (un)believable truths in the mind of the general populace. For example a clip from a news programme shows lies about Al Qaeda being a highly organised network with vast caves full of high tech computers and complex equipment. This has been shown as a complete fabrication among many supposed truths presented to the general public.The series is principally excellent in enlightening us with 'facts' but also the way in which music and editing is used to bring the message across. For example a plethora of clips from the film 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves' and the use of traditional American music with images of Al Qaeda. I found this to be a humorous and unique touch that really makes these programmes stand out. Overall what this film reasserted once again is that these Neo Conservativist terrorists are no better than un-organized or partly organised Islamic terrorists. George W Bush is a terrorist of the worst kind, who through repeating lies long enough and hard enough to his scared citizens can manipulate them into believing ,for example, that an unprovoked and illegal war is justified. This idea of good versus evil is a dominant myth within Western societies, and George W Bush et al know that through creating this 'other' evil and building it up continouously, whether it exists or not one can win people on your side. The prime example being his victory in the Presidential elections, a great many of the people interviewed said they would vote for Bush because he would keep U.S.A safe. Which is of course quite the opposite in my opinion. A great series I hope Curtis and his team make many more enlightening and technically competent documentaries.
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