VIFF: Let Me Tell You A Secret
Among the 100 or so documentaries at this year's Vancouver International Film Festival (25th September to 10th October), is the first-rate Secrecy.
It looks at how, under the auspices of national security, US state secrecy has expanded to the point where it has undermined the democratic process and is hollowing out constitutional freedoms. Marshalling a high calibre line-up of interviewees from both government, military, CIA, and academic backgrounds, Peter Galison and Rob Moss tackle this multi-headed and opaque subject with equanimity and balance.
Poignant interviews with relatives from a landmark case over a half century ago places state secrecy within its historical context, with commentators explaining why the “need-to-know” system of the cold war is less secure today than an open system where information is more freely distributed.
The intelligence failure of 9/11, where compartmentalised intelligence services couldn't see the full picture is contrasted with the breakthrough with the Unabomber after his screeds were published in the media. Information is power, but what information should be shared, with whom, and who should decide what should be secret?
Former CIA chief in Jerusalem, Melissa Boyle Mahle, icily suggests that secrecy is needed to shield society from things that they wouldn't normally condone. In contrast, Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift's account of how his defence of Osama Bin Ladin's driver led him to challenge the legitimacy of Bush's military tribunals offers hope that the executive's excessive use of the state secret card can be checked.
Apology of an Economic Hitman is thematically similar, although less effective. At the centre of the film is self-titled “economic hitman” John Perkins, who claims his job was to advance US economic interests in Equador through bribery and extortion. The thrust of Stelios Kouloglou's documentary rings true: the US got what it wanted by yoking South American countries with unsurmountable debt burdens and when economics failed covert CIA operations came into play. However, the film is undermined by over-sensationalised film noir recreations and thinly substantiated accusations.
In The Lie of the Land British director Molly Dineen paints a raw, warts 'n' all view of conditions for struggling small English livestock farmers. It's not pretty. British farming has been left reeling after a succession of crisis – “mad cow” disease, foot and mouth disease, and bird flu – and for those farmers who have not cashed in their land for property, financial pressures have created a tough new reality. Two of Dineen's subjects are shown routinely shooting new calves because there is no market for them. “We were not brought up to shoot healthy animals,” says one unhappily. The farmers blame government and poorly regulated, factory farms. The ban on fox hunting with hounds is seen as another attack on the “traditional” rural life. Perhaps. But there's no comment from anybody who might challenge this one-sided picture.
In Addicted to Plastic! The Rise and Demise of a Modern Miracle Ian Connacher goes in search of plastic and finds it in heaps sucked into an oceanic vortex, festering in Indian landfills, in bits in a seagull's gullet, and strewn across Hawaiian beaches. In spite of dire conclusions about how we are poisoning ourselves and our planet, this fun first-person, videolog offers encouraging examples of how entrepreneurs are recycling the plastic mountain. The doc flits quickly through its subject-matter, so if you're wondering, for example, how safe compost made purely from garbage waste is then you'll have to do your own research.
Finally, among the fiction films on my must-see list is Mike Leigh's latest Happy-Go-Lucky which was praised on its UK release as a wonderfully optimistic character study of a young, London teacher. More next month.