I still don't understand why the producers chose to screen their documentary at the Montreal Just for Laughs festival, because one of the producers, Omid Djalili, is a comedian? It hurts the documentary more than anything else.
I have to admit I was looking forward and waiting to see this movie and think it is a necessary movie.
The documentary lasts one hour and 50 minutes. It starts with 911 and ends in 2013 with the vote in the UK not to authorize war on Syria. It is well documented and edited. It describes well the run up to the Iraq war and the social forces that brought us the protests on this unique day of Februray, 15, 2003.
The director and producer had access to the main protagonists in the anti-war
movement and to many prominent experts and politicians who voiced their opposition to the war, some before, others, after the war. It has footage of parliamentary sessions about the Iraq war in the UK.
For someone who went to the protests, recalling this moment through the doucmentary can be quite emotional as the documentary succeeds in recreating the context.
The documentary is flawless as long as it stays within the main subject, but it does not stay within the limits of its main subject, and this is an error in my opinion because it misses on some aspects of the Iraq war and the anti-war movement that were not adressed.
The documentary does not adress the failure of the anti-war
movement to act on the Libya invasion in particular and the failure of their
movement in general. It does not even mention
Libya.
The documentary does not address Israel’s and the Neocons’ role
in the push for the war on Iraq. It even
manages to show an Israeli flag in an anti-war protest at the end when
Israel’s anti Iraq war protests were marginal. Israel and its role in this war are totally absent from the movie.
The documentary rightly attributes the vote in UK not to go to war on Syria in 2013 as being a consequence of the changing public mood after the Iraq war. Although this is partial since it is Libya and its Islamist winter that were on the minds during this vote.
The documentary branches to the Arab Spring and the protests in Egypt and tries to establish a link between the Iraq war protests and the 2011 protests in Egypt. This attempt is unconvincing and part of many attempts to own the Arab Spring.
The documentary rightly attributes the vote in UK not to go to war on Syria in 2013 as being a consequence of the changing public mood after the Iraq war. Although this is partial since it is Libya and its Islamist winter that were on the minds during this vote.
The documentary branches to the Arab Spring and the protests in Egypt and tries to establish a link between the Iraq war protests and the 2011 protests in Egypt. This attempt is unconvincing and part of many attempts to own the Arab Spring.
Footage of the protests on February 15, 2003. Although they were insufficient in my opinion.
The resignation of Robin Cook in the house of parliament before the Iraq war vote.
John Le Carre saying about the Iraq war : This is a
crime of a century
Bush jocking about Iraq’s WMD at the
2004 Correspondants' dinner association with the press hilarious is a sordid reminder
of the complicity of the press in the Iraq war crime.
I recommend this documentary and hope it will gain a larger audience.
Since March 29th 2006
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