2018 propaganda piece
Rating: 12/20
Plot: Michael Moore takes America's pulse, focusing on the Flint water situation, the Trump presidency, how terrible everything is, and how there might be a reason to have hope for the future.
But probably not because everything has been consistently terrible for so long and will likely be terrible for a long time after I'm gone. As much as I know that Michael Moore's documentaries are pure propaganda and as much as I have to admit that if this guy was on the opposite side of politics as me that I would despise him and his baseball caps, I looked forward to this one because I really enjoy his work. There's a levity to the dooming and glooming to make it all easier to swallow, and I enjoy having my core beliefs validated and maybe even learning a thing or two.
Maybe it's a sign of the times, but this movie really depressed the hell out of me. This was a nearly devastating. A look at the Donald Trump robot being constructed for Disney's Hall of Presidents--at least I think that's what was going on--was probably depressing enough, but the first ten or so minutes that retells a story of Trump's inspiration to run for president and his pummeling of the other Republican nominees and then final surprise victory on election night was difficult to watch. If I didn't already know the ending, it might have been even scarier than Hereditary, and I can't say it's footage that I really cared to revisit again. It felt like a prelude to the apocalypse as it was happening, and it feels like that now.
It's not all focused on Trump though. Trump might be more of a centerpiece of a whole smorgasbord of problems with America, but he's not the lone target here. Moore does spend time with Trump, and he does in the exact way you'd expect him to, that way that would even make some liberals give him the old side-eye. When he brings Hitler and Nazis into the whole thing, the propaganda is a little hard to swallow. Until it really comes together that is. When the rhetoric and imagery really converge well, it just makes what you're swallowing sick to your stomach. It's a convincing argument, but it's possible that my level of intelligence makes me the perfect target for stuff like this. I'm not so sure about the links to 9/11 and the Reichstag fire though.
Stuff about Ivanka was both gossipy and unnecessary. I wish that would have ended up on the cutting room floor.
I can't remember the last time I saw a Michael Moore film, but I don't remember the tone being this angry or hopeless. There are definitely less stunts than you might expect. There's the one with a tanker full of Flint water that he sprays on the mayor's tree, and that falls completely flat. Other than that, I can't remember any stunts. Where I think Moore excels is when he just talks to people. Again, it's possible that I'm just being duped here, but he and his hat really seem to be listening to the people he's conversing with. He's not just hearing, but he's listening, and he's doing it with some part of his being that those in power seem to lack.
There are so many threads here, but this is most successful when he's explaining the situation with Flint's water. And when it gets to the point where it's referred to as "systematic genocide," I had no choice but to believe it. You see images and hear about corruption that makes you shake your head and say, "No, there's just no way this is America." I experienced waves of emotion throughout this thing, but I was especially disturbed and saddened by the filthy details of that filthy water situation.
And he's not just pointing a chubby finger at one party. Nobody is safe here, and that includes Obama. Watching Obama's trip to Flint unfold here in the exact way that Moore usually unfolds his tales was a major bummer. He's critical of both sides of the aisle, appropriate since it's really the system as a whole that is failing a lot of American citizens who have no reason at all to ever think that this country was great.
But no, it's not all catastrophe and doomsday. If there's a theme at all here, it's that there's hope to be found in people who are resisting this failed and failing system. There's hope in the youth who are demanding that something should be done about kids being shot up in schools. There's hope in the social media warriors fighting against everything that's broken. There's hope in fresh faces running against the establishment.
I'm not sure the hopeful and more enthusiastic tone that started to break up things in the last quarter of this was enough. I still walked out of the theater with tears in my eyes because as a portrait of my country, this was very dark and dismal. But at least it was something.
2 comments:
I also am a fan of Moore's movies, and have been looking forward to seeing this for months. I was pretty disappointed. I think the biggest issue was the complete lack of any consistent narrative thread after the beginning that focused on the actual election, and the biggest flaw was something you liked...the Flint story. It felt like he was compelled to make a film about the water crisis, almost as a continuation of the Flint catastrophe that began with "Roger and Me", but knew there was not enough material or national audience to make it viable to stand on its own. So instead, he clumsily wedged a 40 minute, completely different story, with a different set of villains, into a movie that is as timely and important as any he has done. I got whiplash from being jerked back and forth and there seemed almost no logic in how he made the cuts. Even the Trump narrative became extremely random, with a varied pile of theories and outrages being thrown together willy-nilly. What Moore, who controls everything, needed was a good editor who was not Michael Moore.
Is this offering bad or not worthwhile? Absolutely not. There were a number of scenes that brought tears to my eyes. All the Parkland stuff blew me away, and there were things that were informative and emotional that everyone should see. Our country has become purely tribal, and the fuel for that fire are the vastly divergent stories projected by the right wing versus center/left media. I wish the movie had focused on showing that disconnect, what the Republicans are really doing while the Trump circus entertains and outrages, the damage being caused, and examples of how activism (Me-Too, Parkland, Trump backlash) is finally waking up half of our country to the incredible threats we face. Flint needed to be part of the story of general destruction happening to the heart of our country on many different levels, but as a companion piece.
As constituted, 11/9 is just a collection of scenes, and because it does such a poor job pulling everything together with a logical flow, most of what is here loses the impact it should have had, causing the viewer to forget a lot of what Moore is trying to say beyond the Flint and Parkland material. In trying to do it all, Moore has done almost nothing, at least not in the way he hoped. I am a bit amused that he may have done more damage to Obama than to his true target. A 15 with moments and scenes that rate a 20.
It seems as if we completely disagree. I say leave the Flint stuff and discard the Trump stuff. A few hours spent on Twitter can fill a person in on everything they need to know about Trump. The Flint stuff was the most revolutionary for me. I mean, I knew there was a problem with Flint water, but I didn't know the whole story. Or at least the one that Michael Moore wanted me to know.
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