Too much of everything

Best movie ever!

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I was so happy to read about a new production but disappointingly, this is the worst doc I've seen from A.C. He seems bent on wasting time. Quite deservedly, there's an edited, shorter version on YouTube, called the 'teacher's edit'. A.C.'s narration covers probably.. 15% or even less of the total play time. The movie is riddled with long meaningless clips and cross-cuts, which may have symbolic meaning, given the spectator's good will and imagination. What's good is how it forces the viewer to contemplate what you're watching, forcing immersion. However, the subject being the history of Afghanistan and its would-be conquerors, which the viewer most likely is uninformed on and how serious this subject is; trying to make the viewer put the pieces together himself is just an outright bad idea! The cross-cuts are close to infuriating, especially since they jump between the 70s to present day. At a handful of times, between probably hundred or more clips, the year of the current clip is displayed, as it is somehow important to know the year for this particular clip. Then there is a new clip and it might as well be 20 years prior. With most of the recordings being from low-tech Afghanistan, there are also very few visual clues to give you any idea of year. This may be argued as an interesting point in itself, but when trying to actually get hold of the history and context it's just labyrinthian. When I watch a documentary I don't want to metaphysically have a condensed experience of what is the theme of the story Curtis is telling, I want to be informed. Towards the end of the movie there's a few minutes with an interview of a young British veteran, and for a brief moment it feels like you're actually watching a documentary and not Curtis's 'Lynch-Arthaus-weirdo-masterpiece'. BTW, that's the only interview in the whole film. That's - one - 2- minute interview in a 2 hours 15 minutes documentary. (There's is also an interview with an NGO woman but I think this interview was not done by Curtis) There are a few strong and captivating scenes scattered throughout. Some are heartbreaking and memorable, especially that of a mutilated young girl wearing a dress and a birthday crown, with her father trying to cheer her up. I do -feel- I have a better understanding of Afghanistan's history from viewing this, but I believe if this was done in a more informative style I would -actually know- more and not just -feel- that I do... Kudos to Curtis for trying to experiment but this wasn't the one. I hope Curtis steps up his game on the next go.

Adam Curtis is in the business of selling veiled conspiracies. Or better giving conspiracy arguments, while masquerading as reasonable. I like the drastic drop in narration. That is an extra point for a film maker like Adam Curtis. No more "those in power" without giving names or "political leaders" with no references. This time is a blend of footage stitched together rather nicely.Sadly this movie remains an Adam Curtis product. Curtis has wonderful and strong powers of hindsight. So 30-40 years later the mistakes are clear. The facts are mostly circumstantial. The data scarce. Bonus: the silent parts are mostly irrelevant to the main story and they are brought only to enhance the emotion.Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch

Bitter Lake strives for historic synopsis over caustic polemic, despite its comprehensive narrative holding a somewhat narrow perspective. Interestingly, some of the more controversial topics that media cannot resist spinning into an overwhelming assault, like farts saturating an enclosed room, are blown past with refreshingly little fanfare while occasionally approaching, though not brazenly crossing lines into conspiracy-theory territory. A couple of times, just as I would start to feel that old familiar twinge of impending blame-placing political distraction infesting our network and cable news, it seemed the film would deftly shift gears to surpass the tumult. The film is slick and stylish, perhaps to the point of self-indulgence, but that also really sets this doc apart.

This is one of the most radiant documentaries that I've seen in years. It deals with how Afghanistan was built-up by a US company in the 1950s, where dams were implemented in order to modernise the entire country. Loads of money was pumped in, but to little avail. The dams didn't work apart from generating insane levels of salt, that only allowed poppies to grow. And that's how the opium and heroin started flowing.Anyway, from the get-go, the documentary shows reality, and - lo and behold - treats the viewer as a thinking being. I wasn't sure what to expect when I saw the start of the documentary, but it's literally plastered with images from reality, and far from only shot by the film makers.The viewer is served a metaphor of Tarkovsky's "Solaris", where the protagonist - spoiler alert! - at the end of the movie no longer knows what to trust.Spoiler off! Anyway, thanks to imagery like this, we know what to know: the banks, the corporations, the governments have created the mess that Afghanistan is currently left in, a state of near-anarchy and corruption, due to its "liberators", who rather are its captors and the reason to why organisations such as IS and cliques like al- Quaida exist.See this. It's eye-opening and commendable. It breathes and lives humanity.