Zeitgeist: The Movie
For a while I’ve been trying to spotlight the free entertainment that one can find on the web, or people who use progressive distribution methods. For example I really wanted to do a review of the new radio head album, but frankly listening to their recent music can sometimes feel like a chore to me. Then I watched that Canadian produced documentary on piracy, which may be the only movie that has put me to sleep this year. My lowered expectations delayed my watching of Zeitgeist, available via Google video for months. And last night I finally took the time to watch it, and man does this documentary need some criticism.
The film starts with a powerful sequence of war images (primarily explosions) set to the dissonant banging of pianos. This montage is designed to get your blood pumping and fill you full of outrage, and the buildup is wasted on a poorly timed transition into standup comedy. Now this movie worships Bill Hicks (hey, he was great) and quotes him often, but since they never actually show you his face or credit him for the lines it feels like the documentarian is trying to adopt Bill’s voice as his own. There is something juvenile in this, like the teenager who watches comedy central and then repeats all the jokes to his friends without the obligatory “so this comedian said” line of recognition. Still once you get past the initially awkward presentation the documentary enters its first chapter, “the greatest story ever told.”
This chapter studies humanities fascination with solar deities and how that plays into our need to paint conflicts in shades of black and white, good versus evil. This section is very well produced and has a lot of research put into expounding the “Jesus myth” or in other words the idea that Jesus and the bible are a mix of astrological observations and adopted ideas from other local religions. A compelling case is made that centuries of
The second segment plays out like some flash website minus the interaction. Over the course of its duration the documentarian tries his hardest to prove that everything surrounding the tragedies of September 11th is a big cover-up. This segment is the weakest in my opinion, it relies too heavily on montages and large blocks of on screen text. Mixing anecdotal evidence with testimonies by conspiracy theorists cheapens the segment a bit and ends up with the same conclusion that most Americans love to draw from the events: only we are smart and powerful enough to damage ourselves. It’s a very weird mix of optimism and paranoia that I’ve never really gotten accustomed to.
The final segment is easily the strongest, as it explains the history of American economics and how banking institutions have profited heavily from all the major wars and recessions. This segment is concise, informative and actually takes the time to act a little professional, accrediting the people it quotes and sticking chronological order. It makes the accusation we fabricate the circumstances under which we enter war and that a war with no end in sight means long term investment for some people. Even if the September 11th attacks where legitimate, they would be the first time we didn’t fake it to have an excuse to go into battle. By the end it starts to show its fear of progress and throws in an embarrassing rant on RFID chips but fortunately by then the whole thing is almost over, leaving the viewer full of righteous outrage and not a single suggestion as to how to change the world we live in.