Journalist and conscience of the nation John Pilger has been making excellent 'wake-up' TV programmes for years, and as we enter the new golden age of the documentary it was inevitable that he would move up to the big screen. He has chosen the recent struggle between Venezuela and the US as his leading theme, and the film opens by setting the background, before examining the events of the past few years, first by showing the 'spin' colluded upon by the short-lived coup, its US sponsors and the news media; then by exploding that fiction. It works, as it should in a movie, like an epic thriller. But even Micky Spillane loses out in competition with horrific real life. From Venezuela we are taken back to the other countries, where Uncle Sam has stamped on democracy: back to Guatemala, the original 'banana republic' in the US' arrogantly termed back yard, and including of course Chile. British viewers will be disappointed that Margaret Thatcher didn't get a mention as the gracious supporter of the murderous General Pinochet. There was a mention of terrorist's supporters being as worthy of condemnation as the terrorists themselves. Just a five-frame subliminal shot of Maggie there would do it! But there are plenty of choice nuggets in this film, painstakingly compiled from recent video, Pilger's interviews with Hugo Chavez himself, panoramic shots of these countries as they are now; the hills, the suburbs, the barrios, plus ancient news and propaganda footage. Some of the old stuff brought back the paranoid atmosphere of the Fifties, when we were faced with the Red Menace, and we were expected to 'duck and cover' under the nearest picnic cloth when we saw that Flash. One choice set piece is the interview with Duane Clarridge, ex-CIA man with responsibility for the torture and murder in Chile, justified because it was in America's interest, and sometimes 'you have to take unpleasant steps'. Or, as he put it another way, it just didn't happen. His contemptuous dismissals of all Pilger's allegations go beyond self-parody. Once again, real life leaves no room for the satirists. Despite it being the first really hot day of this wet English summer, the theatre was half-full, and the audience gave a heart-felt applause.
Review of The War on Democracy
