Children of Men. My friend’s wife, who is Armenian and somewhat of an expert on the Armenian genocide, said she thought the movie was too simplistic. I mention her credentials because it made me slightly self-conscious of being one of those liberals who likes everything simplistic and phrased in “ethical” terms (whereas she is someone who actually knows about this stuff, and such atrocities have affected her life somewhat directly). I don’t know, I’m just saying that’s how it made me feel. The question is: is this movie simplifying everything and jerking tears out of us when it could be laying out specific issues and addressing them systematically (and thematically)? (Incidentally, she’s a liberal too and very anti-war, I just think she doesn’t like “preachy-ness.”)
In answer to my own question, I’ll go way back into my own vaults and reference my defense of the movie Munich against people who accused it of the same thing. I had watched “One Day in September,” a documentary about the Munich hostage tragedy, a week before seeing Munich, the Spielberg film. I loved them both, the former because it dealt in facts, the latter because it captured the “emotional truth” of the situation, or it at least reminded us of what it must have actually felt like to experience that, even just via the news. I suppose that’s the whole point of narrative film anyway, isn’t it? While documentary has it’s own point, I suppose.
I’ll copy The Nefarious Doctor Stark b/c I know he’ll want to weigh in.
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