“Increasingly, we live in a world where nothing makes any sense — events come and go like waves of a fever leaving us confused and uncertain. Those in power tell stories to help us make sense of the complexity of reality. But, those stories are increasingly unconvincing and hollow. This is a film about why those stories have stopped making sense and how that lead us in the West to become a dangerous and destructive force in the world.”
So begins Bitter Lake, the latest documentary by one of my favorite filmmakers of all time, Adam Curtis. Bitter Lake (2015) traces the increasingly simple story lines that politicians and the media trace to describe, inform and coerce public opinion regarding one of the most complex places on the planet: Afghanistan. Curtis shows how these false narratives have prevented world powers from learning from past mistakes in the region while simultaneously encouraging even more wrongheaded meddling fueled by this lack of insight.
Curtis is a flat-out genius and his ability to marry big-picture analysis to the intimate and personal in the impressionistic mosaics of his poetic cinema is second to none. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Curtis is one of our greatest documentary filmmakers, and this sad and beautiful illumination of the West’s misadventures in the Middle East is required viewing.
Here’s Bitter Lake…
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