by Rigorous Intuition » Mon Sep 11, 2006 9:18 pm
Looks like it may have some parapolitical meat on its provocative bones. (I've been thinking for some time now I need to see <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Z</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> again. I haven't since I was a teenager. It helped change the way I thought about the world.)<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>'Death of a President' terrifies with realism</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>U.S. President George W. Bush is working "the rope line" outside a Chicago hotel, pressing the flesh of friendly supporters and celebrity gawkers. He's not going to let a noisy peace protest nearby interrupt quality time with his fellow Americans.<br><br>Two shots from a sniper's rifle ring out in the cool evening air, and Bush falls to the ground. There are screams of panic and alarm, followed by the wail of sirens. The louder reaction of vengeance and anger is still to come.<br><br>It is a scene all too familiar in American history, of a public figure being assassinated by someone of opposing ideology.<br><br>But check the date flashed on the screen: Oct. 19, 2007. This isn't current reality; it's a vision of all-too-plausible future rendered with urgency and eye-popping realism in Death of a President, a speculative documentary by British filmmaker Gabriel Range. The controversial film had its world premiere last night at the Toronto International Film Festival; additional screenings are scheduled for tomorrow and Friday.<br><br>Range has taken a contentious subject and used it to invite introspection about America, the media and society in general. It is neither coincidental nor insignificant that the film arrives for the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, an event which prompted Range to take a closer look at the country he sometimes calls home and to question its values in times of war and unrest.<br><br>Incorporating newly shot and archival footage of Bush, along with insights gained from interviews with more than 100 current and former members of the Secret Service, the FBI, the White House and other authorities, Range has created a work that so effectively speaks the language of documentary film, it is hard watching it not to think that Bush has actually died.<br><br>The shooting occurs onscreen in a blur of tangled bodies, but writer-director Range and his co-writer Simon Finch resist the impulse to turn Bush's death into a freak show for voyeurs or payback porn for his political opponents.<br><br>Despite the terrifying authenticity of the event — Bush's face was digitally and seamlessly inserted onto an actor's in the key moments of the assassination scene — the more urgent part of the narrative is the aftermath of the killing, when minds and motivations are clouded.<br><br>The shooting occurs at the 25-minute mark of the 93-minute film, following ominous foreshadowing. A woman's voice, which we later learn is that of a Syrian immigrant, is heard voicing a common Arab reaction to the American sorrow and unease wrought by 9/11: "Why shouldn't they taste the fear we live all our lives?" (Americans can be equally callous: many of the peace protesters cheer when news of Bush's death breaks.)<br><br>We also hear from Secret Service and White House personnel (all played by actors using assumed names), many of who have the qualifier "former" preceding their titles. They are summing up the events of an Oct. 19 that for them is a terribly vivid memory.<br><br>"I just had a bad feeling about that rope line," the former head of the Presidential Protection Detail laments. He and other security officials discuss how the Iraq War demonstration outside the hotel where Bush was delivering an economic speech turned violent, almost overwhelming the Presidential convoy.<br><br>A woman identified as Bush's former advisor and chief speechwriter talks about how the president was never one to be cowed by public protest: "As always, he was confident that our policies were correct. It was just a matter of time."<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Time runs out for the president on Oct. 19, but the clock starts ticking on a new world order. Dick Cheney, newly sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, updates the Patriot Act to all but eliminate remaining American liberties.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> A dangerous war of words erupts with Syria and other Arab nations, after a Syrian immigrant named Jamal Abu Zikri becomes the focus of assassination investigators. North Korea steps up its nuclear aggression, sensing opportunity in America's momentary distraction.<br><br>There is evidence that Zikri, who worked in the building opposite the hotel and who may or may not be sympathetic to the Al-Qaeda terror group, had both opportunity and cause to kill Bush. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>But there is also evidence that other interests may have been involved, or wholly to blame.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>Such doubts hardly matter to investigators, however, who are in a rush to find a scapegoat and to prosecute as quickly as possible. Blood lust must be satisfied.<br><br>On one level, Death of a President plays as an incredibly realistic political thriller or whodunit. It can be taken as simple entertainment, despite Range's stated intentions he's not out to amuse the idly curious or to sate the bloodthirsty.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>The film's deeper intentions are far more urgent, and elevate it into the company of such landmark works of historical argument as Peter Watkins's The War Game, Costa-Gavras's Z and, closer to home, Michel Brault's Les Ordres. Every thinking person should see Death of a President.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>Range focuses on something that has been out of focus and out of proportion since 9/11: the proper response by civilized people and nations to acts of aggression. By so realistically conjuring an event that is horrific by any standards, and by examining the reaction to it, he is asking if we have learned any lessons at all from 9/11 and associated traumas, or whether we are forever condemned to repeat the history we all seem so eager to forget.<br><br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1157925009521&call_pageid=968867495754&col=969483191630">Toronto Star</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=rigorousintuition>Rigorous Intuition</A> at: 9/11/06 7:26 pm<br></i>
