Bitter Lake is an unfortunate nadir in Curtis' output. The quality of his analysis his become considerably degraded over the years. This film takes the position that the US and British military states began with the noble but naive intention of creating "modern democracy" in Afghanistan, but their plans were frustrated by the inscrutability of the East. There are two assumptions here which are highly questionable at best, one of which also contradicts his earlier, more detailed work.
Firstly, I would have expected the author of Century of the Self to be more critical of the concept of "modern democracy", which he takes here to be a moral axiom requiring no further analysis. Like anyone with a basic grasp of modern history, he should know very well that "democracy" in this context is simply a code-word for acceptance of the US corporate-dominated economic and military world system, as it has been since at least the end of WW2. Furthermore, he is being implausibly generous by accepting that the stated aim of installing modern democracy in Afghanistan was, in fact, the motivating factor behind the US war machine's destruction of that territory, rather than just a throwaway industry-standard piece of war propaganda for mass consumption. It is more plausible to argue, as Peter Dale Scott does, that, taking into account the pivotal geo- strategic position of Afghanistan, this was an operation to replace non-compliant drug dealing warlords with compliant drug-dealing warlords.
The second element of Curtis' story is the frustration of the Empire's noble efforts by the mysterious and Otherly nature of Afghanistan itself. The disjointed selection of contextless images seems to be designed to create an impression of an incomprehensible alien culture. Afghan languages are often left untranslated. The narrative jumps backwards and forwards in time, deliberately juxtaposing images that are not directly causally connected, creating a kaleidoscopic opium dream of exotic hats, inexplicable actions and inscrutable expressions, a regression to 19th-century orientialism. In this case, Curtis' vague efforts to go beyond the linear narrative of the documentary form actually provide an important part of the pro-imperialist argument of the film - the irrational East counterpoised against the linear West.
It is unfortunate to see Curtis' level of analysis becoming so much more superficial than in his earlier, more original work. The arguments of Bitter Lake would fit comfortably in a Guardian editorial agonising about the latest failure of the Empire's noble military ambitions.
Firstly, I would have expected the author of Century of the Self to be more critical of the concept of "modern democracy", which he takes here to be a moral axiom requiring no further analysis. Like anyone with a basic grasp of modern history, he should know very well that "democracy" in this context is simply a code-word for acceptance of the US corporate-dominated economic and military world system, as it has been since at least the end of WW2. Furthermore, he is being implausibly generous by accepting that the stated aim of installing modern democracy in Afghanistan was, in fact, the motivating factor behind the US war machine's destruction of that territory, rather than just a throwaway industry-standard piece of war propaganda for mass consumption. It is more plausible to argue, as Peter Dale Scott does, that, taking into account the pivotal geo- strategic position of Afghanistan, this was an operation to replace non-compliant drug dealing warlords with compliant drug-dealing warlords.
The second element of Curtis' story is the frustration of the Empire's noble efforts by the mysterious and Otherly nature of Afghanistan itself. The disjointed selection of contextless images seems to be designed to create an impression of an incomprehensible alien culture. Afghan languages are often left untranslated. The narrative jumps backwards and forwards in time, deliberately juxtaposing images that are not directly causally connected, creating a kaleidoscopic opium dream of exotic hats, inexplicable actions and inscrutable expressions, a regression to 19th-century orientialism. In this case, Curtis' vague efforts to go beyond the linear narrative of the documentary form actually provide an important part of the pro-imperialist argument of the film - the irrational East counterpoised against the linear West.
It is unfortunate to see Curtis' level of analysis becoming so much more superficial than in his earlier, more original work. The arguments of Bitter Lake would fit comfortably in a Guardian editorial agonising about the latest failure of the Empire's noble military ambitions.