WORLD CINEMA

Festivals

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Cannes 2004: Moore explodes with his documentary

The 57th Cannes International Film Festival exploded on May 17 with the screening of Michael Moore’s controversial documentary, “Fahrenheit 9-11”.

This American director, who won an Oscar in 2002 for his documentary, “Bowling for Columbine”, has little hesitation in lambasting his President, George W. Bush, for forcing young American soldiers to fight an absolute fictitious war in Iraq. “ The war is based on a lie: “I do not think that America was ever threatened by Iraq”, Moore told a crowded Press conference on May 17, soon after his film was screened at the Festival.

He had more devastating comments to make, and here are a few examples of how effectively he has used his camera to what now appears like bringing down the President of the world’s most powerful nation, and in the election year ! “I would think that Bush is immoral in doing what he is in Iraq”, and Moore’s movie screens clips of atrocities outside Iraqi prisons. “An immoral act begets an immoral act”, Moore pardons American soldiers in Iraq by explaining that they have been forced to fight a war that does not concern the U.S..

Michael Moore in a scene from his latest documentary

“Fahrenheit 9-11” documents the connection between the Bush family and the Saudi Royals, and reveals how the President and his administration helped 24 members of the Osama bin Laden’s family flee American days after September 11, 2001. “In order to keep his business interests alive, Bush has managed to keep his country under a constant security alert…I do not think Saddam Hussein was ever a threat to America”, Moore criticised the present U.S. government.

The film is powerful, and gripped me for all of its two hours. Here was no boring documentary, but a movie that was as exciting as a feature, and one only hopes that Moore would find a distributor, although producer Miramax – a subsidiary of Walt Disney – is now reconsidering its earlier decision not to release it in the U.S.

However, Miramax has given Moore permission to update his documentary before it is released in America six weeks from today. And, I am sure Moore would have something more exciting to add, now that the jail torture in Iraq is out in the open.