mondojohnson

This “video verite” follows the unprosecuted Aum Shinrikyo cult members in the wake of the Sarin attack in a Japanese subway. The filmmaker was given remarkable access, especially given the insular and paranoid nature of the Aum’ers.

The film’s human focus is on Aum’s deputy spokesman, Hiroshi Araki, an extremely sympathetic poster boy for awkward, cult-suseptible youth. The camera often lingers on his expressions, giving the viewer a unique opportunity to witness deep inner conflicts in real time.

We also get to see the public rage engendered by the attacks, the depth of which I was not aware until seeing this film. It has particular significance given the tenor of the times: supression of free association and speech can be very tempting in the face of such random brutality.

The infamous forgery “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is used loosely as a framing device in a film that is more generally about the persistence of anti-Semitism. The history of the document is covered in a cursory fashion: the majority of the film is the filmmaker’s personal excursion into the world of those who believe “Protocols…” (and continue to buy it in blockbuster numbers). The impetus for the filmmaker’s journey is the bafflingly persistent “no Jews died in the World Trade Center” myth.

The filmmaker, Mark Levin, is joined from time-to-time by his cool father, who is intriguingly introduced but more often than not remains on the sidelines (or not there at all). Levin enters scary worlds — a white-supremacist camp, a prison, and a neanderthal right-wing call-in show, to name a few. He handles all of these situations fearlessly, interviewing his subjects with calm clarity and understanding (to the degree possible, of course).

Unfortunately, and I think unintentionally, the film seems to lump angry Palestinian-Americans in with the rogues gallery just mentioned. We are mostly shown the familiar, twisted young face of Arab rage… without a sufficient context, I’m afraid. Their rage — while often leading them to ridiculous beliefs such as the “Protocols…” — is qualitatively different from that of, say, the angry white radio host. There’s a very real context that I think was glossed over a little too quickly. Indeed, an older Arab gentleman calls “bullshit” on Levin for talking to the least articulate and most hyperactive segment of the Palestinian community, thus perpetuating the “Angry Ahmed” stereotype. But to his credit, Levin leaves the gentleman’s confrontation in the film, a noble effort at self-criticism.

But all in all, the film was a little incoherent. Threads that would have been intriguing to follow are abandoned, while others are pursued beyond the scope of the movie (this is not to say that the wandering threads aren’t interesting — one leads to a very fascinating look at the “Downtown Seder” in NYC, which features Hassidic dub performances, drag queens, and even a quick glimpse of Lou Reed in attendance).

For a good historical overview of the notorious “Protocols…” check out Will Eisner’s The Plot (yes, it’s a comic book).

A surprisingly beautiful and human documentary about two girl gymnasts who are preparing for North Korea’s appropriately titled “Mass Games.” The Mass Games are gigantic, Leni Riefenstahl-type rallies that the North Koreans have held for over fifty years. You would recognized them from the news: astonishingly synchronized dancers and acrobats performing in front of an arena-sized backdrop mosaic created by schoolchildren holding up colored cards.

I am reminded of Don DeLillo‘s Mao II: it’s worth quoting. He is describing a Moonie mass wedding:

When the Old God leaves the world, what happens to all the unexpended faith? He looks at each sweet face, round face, long, wrong, darkish, plain. They are a nation, he supposes, founded on the principle of easy belief. A unit fueled by credulousness. They speak half a language, a set of ready-made terms and empty repetitions. All things, the sum of the knowable, everything true, it all comes down to a few simple formulas copied and memorized and passed on. And here is the drama of mechanical routine played out with living figures. It knocks him back in awe, the loss of scale and intimacy, the way love and sex are multiplied out, the numbers and shaped crowd. This really scares him, a mass of people turned into a sculptured object. It is like a toy with thirteen thousand parts, just tootling along, an innocent and menacing thing….When the Old God goes, they pray to flies and bottletops. The terrible thing is they follow the man because he gives them what they really need. He answers their yearning, unburdens them of free will and independent thought. See how happy they look.

Yeah, what he said…