documentaries, politically/socially aware fiction etc.

[viperface]

Thread for sharing and discussing movies and documentaries of "crossfire caliber". (don't share the actual files, just drop info about a quality production and/or want to discuss)

I think it's ok to get "derailed" to certain subjects if neccessary

 

To start this, I just saw the film Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex yesterday. It's a 2008 German film about the RAF, the West-German leftist terrorist group.

 

I think the movie is a quality production and the subject is higly controversial. The early parts of the film show quite impressively what lead to the radicalization of the group, in this certain european post-war setting often ignored in US political discussion.

 

The controversy for me comes from the past of Germany, escalation of the group and polarized political spectrum of the times. It's hard to imagine how stuff like this actually happened just a while ago. 20 year olds robbing banks, having shootouts with cops etc. I didn't realize the RAF types were actually spontaneous students within West-Germany, instead of some East-German agents or such.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baader-Meinhof_Complex

[Dr. Mantis Toboggan]

 

and

 

[christo-f]

ooh fuck, never heard about that Zbig flick. You sure that's a movie and not a book?

 

 

Anyway:

 

Endgame (secret talks that ended apartheid)

Fog Of War (Robert Macnamarra on war and Vietnam)

Charlie Wilson's War (very factual movie on how the Us beat the Soviets in Afghanistan)

The Spy that Came In From the Cold (Cold War movie/story that is realer than it lets on)

The Last Emperor (the ending of the Dynastic period and beginning of communism in China)

 

 

Will think of more.

[Zig]

i'm looking forward to this one:

 

why we fight is excellent, another one i found interesting was

Eye of the Pheonix: Secrets of the Dollar Bill and

Esoteric Agenda

[Dr. Mantis Toboggan]

The Last Emperor (the ending of the Dynastic period and beginning of communism in China)

 

has a very nice score from ryuichi sakamoto

[angelofdeath]

i'll have to check out that first movie viper posts.

while not documentaries.... 'the lives of others' and 'the counterfeiters' are good movies that take place in germany. the first dealing mostly with the stasi and the second takes place in a concentration camp.

 

i still have yet to see why we fight.

[WORDISM45]

I was at a tshirt stand in Berlin. One of the tshirts for sale had all of the mugshots of the Bader Meinhof Group on it. An American girl saw it and screamed 'They killed my grandfather!'

 

Docos

 

 

i've really been out of the game for a while traveling a lot and then getting back into work so i haven;t been keeping up with a lot of good political/social content. going to change now.

[christo-f]

Hmmm, the Power of nightmares.

 

An interesting doco that has some good insight to it. However it also holds some unfortunate oversights and factual inaccuracies.

[WORDISM45]

what particular points do you think are inaccurate?

[christo-f]

I'd have to watch it again now, as it has been a few years. But the one that I remember off the top of my head is the claim that a New York court came up with the name Al Qaeda for legal purposes and then it became this nightmarish institution.

 

That is untrue. Al Qaeda translates in to The Base and it was created by Abdul Azzam (originally called Maktab al-Khidimat or MAK) and was the conduit for mujahudeen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. I can't rememebr when but it was in Rohan Gunaratna's (pretty much one of the top few CT academics in the world) book that the term was used by Azzam in the late 80s to describe the MAK...., that was before bin Laden killed him and took over.

 

Fact is that it had been called AQ for a long time and was not a creation of the US legal system. It's not really a big issue and doesn't totally undermine the doco's premise of the utilisation of fear in policy. It does though lead one to adopt healthy skepticism when viewing many off the program's other claims and research.

 

 

There were other small question marks here and there but it was like 4 years ago when I saw it and can't recall right now. I just remember sitting there thinking, "What? No it isn't!". I was also pretty left leaning back then too!

[Removed]

I'd have to watch it again now, as it has been a few years. But the one that I remember off the top of my head is the claim that a New York court came up with the name Al Qaeda for legal purposes and then it became this nightmarish institution.

 

That is untrue. Al Qaeda translates in to The Base and it was created by Abdul Azzam (originally called Maktab al-Khidimat or MAK) and was the conduit for mujahudeen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. I can't rememebr when but it was in Rohan Gunaratna's (pretty much one of the top few CT academics in the world) book that the term was used by Azzam in the late 80s to describe the MAK...., that was before bin Laden killed him and took over.

 

Fact is that it had been called AQ for a long time and was not a creation of the US legal system. It's not really a big issue and doesn't totally undermine the doco's premise of the utilisation of fear in policy. It does though lead one to adopt healthy skepticism when viewing many off the program's other claims and research.

 

 

There were other small question marks here and there but it was like 4 years ago when I saw it and can't recall right now. I just remember sitting there thinking, "What? No it isn't!". I was also pretty left leaning back then too!

 

I haven't seen The Power of Nightmares in a while now either, but I thought Curtis was suggesting that the term 'Al Qaeda' was used in the US as a blanket term for otherwise fairly unrelated militant groups. Yet, through projecting this umbrella term internationally this had a rallying effect on the groups it was directed towards. In this way the US helped to form a network comprised of the groups that they were referring to, as well as other militant Muslim fundamentalists. Curtis is essentially putting forward an argument consistent with what sociologists call labelling theory. I don't remember him denying that Al Qaeda was an organisation before 9-11, I think he was saying that it was not the same organisation that the US recognised or that we are familia with today.

[christo-f]

Possibly correct, I'd have to see it again but I remember some claim about the NY court system having something to do it. I should probably withhold any further remarks until I'm more sure of myself.

[viperface]

Just saw this.