July 23, 2004
Warsaw Film Festival
Everywhere you sit, you're behind a Pole...
As the movie Farenheit 9/11 begins working it's way around global cinemas like a sexually transmitted disease, it's found it's way to Poland, and the Polish press has seen this song and dance before.
Having lived under both the jackboot of the Third Reich, and near a half-century of oppressive Stalinist tyranny, the Poles have a fairly fresh memory of one-sided propaganda, and they are remarking that they've heard Moore's tune before - same song, different verse:
"People are very sensitive to aggressive propaganda, especially when it pretends to be an objective documentary or a work of art."
That's cutting right through to point of the matter. While comparing the work to that of Nazi propagandist Riefenstahl is more than we'd allow from a domestic reviewer - Moore hasn't murdered anyone in the name of racial purity - the Poles earned the right to make the comparison.
Posted by MEC2 at July 23, 2004 10:59 PM