Consensus Report: Celsius 11/9

It is always amazing to me, how two people can watch the same movie or read the same book and leave with completely different impressions. If there was ever a controversial movie it would have to be Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore. I have found two reviews of the movie on the Iraqi blogosphere that view it in completely different ways. There is the recent post by Riverbend and an earlier post on Iraq The Model. Riverbend liked the movie, Iraq The Model dissects it to pieces.

I myself, was not going to see the movie because I was expecting it to be one long rant about how Bush is a moron. In the end I was forced to go because my dad didn’t want to go by himself, so I had to go with him. I have to admit that the movie was better than I thought. It contained hard facts and entertaining bits from Moore. I found the portrayal of Iraq as this happy happy place before the war, with happy kids flying kites, from outer space. Clearly Mr. Moore hasn’t read Amnesty International human rights reports about Iraq. The other bit that I thought was exaggerated was the fixation on Bush minutes after the incident happened. Yeah! He was in shock, all of us were, I don’t see why that is such a big deal. The bit I remember the most is the live filming of a raid on an Iraqi house. I couldn’t believe how aggressive that Iraqi translator chick was. She was yelling left right and center. The American soldiers barely got a word in.

All in all, I think the movie was worth seeing despite some the overdone bits.

I do wish that Michael Moore would visit Iraq and have one of his mass movie screenings in Baghdad. Now that would be radical.