Linden-17 Reviews

Vinland: Viking Map or Million-Dollar Hoax? (2004 TV Movie)

Unsatisfactory ending

[5/10 · 26 November 2010]

The first 25 minutes of this documentary are very interesting, and well presented.

However, the final 20 minutes really let this title down. It's not that the programme makers have sided with the 'hoax' evidence. This is pretty much irrelevant given that the Vikings really did reach, and settle, the North American sub-continent back in 1000 or so.

No, the problem is the way the final narrative is weaved together: it's wholly unsatisfactory. Although one of the key characters is shown to be a crook, his relationship with the 'forger' isn't divulged properly, and simply doesn't add up. Furthermore, the notion that Vikings might have orally provided other writers with geographical knowledge was not followed-up. As we all know, these cultures lived side by side with each other, and just because one isn't known for its maps, doesn't mean that an outsider can't create one. On top of this, there is no mention of the Skálholt Map, which although drawn in the 16th century, did use Norse sources of information and does fairly accurately locate the settlement of the Vikings in North America.

The real nail in the coffin, however, is the final quote from one of the researchers, who claims that the whole hoax could have been avoided if more rigorous 'peer review' (for want of a better term) had been conducted more than 50 years ago. Yet almost all of the documentary was devoted to showing how *new* technological methods, unavailable in the 1950s, were used to prove the item's legitimacy (or lack thereof). Without such methods, proving something real or fake would have been impossible - as demonstrated by the programme.

As such, this documentary comes across as completely unbalanced in this respect, even if it is likely that their main conclusion is correct.

The Ghost Writer (2010)

Worth watching, but hardly mesmerising

[6/10 · 2 May 2010]

***WARNING SPOILERS***

I have to write something, after reading the mostly gushing reviews for this film and having just watched it.

Although mostly enjoyable and with some exciting moments, there are just too many problems with this film for it to be hailed as 'excellent' or one of the best films of the year:

• badly cast characters: none of the characters really worked in my opinion (bad British accents - and social class counts - and the class of these characters doesn't fit with their roles and education, strange decisions and actions by the characters - that anti-war protester was just farcical) - convoluted storyline : why the 'too easy to find' clues, how did the car outrun the CIA car? why was the main character allowed to live to the end? - product placement: just cheesy, giving Google, BMW and Sky News blatant product placement like this - missed opportunities: it would have made more sense for the Emmett character (or even the Rycroft guy) to have organised the killing of 'Blair' - instead we are left with a rather ridiculous anti-war protester shooting him (and how on earth did he get onto the roof of a airport with a gun)

Anyway, sorry to burst the bubble, but this film isn't as great as many reviews on here would have you think. But if you don't mind this, it can still be considered a worthwhile watch.

Die Mitte (2004)

A novel view of rural Europe

[9/10 · 7 April 2010]

I have spent a fair amount of time travelling Europe, and the thing that has perhaps struck me most, whilst travelling and meeting the people, is the similarity of customs and peoples living close to each other despite historical and political antagonisms, which often erupt into communal or more shocking violence. You find these similarities all over the Balkans, Greece and Turkey, and within the British Isles – and probably many other places not only in Europe but in the world – yet we all know that these various 'nationalities' have antagonistic relations with each other.

One-part puerile joke about the 'exact centre of Europe' (jumped on rather too enthusiastically by a young Swiss couple towards the end), other part journey through central and eastern Europe, the real highlights of Die Mitte are the moments spent with people not discussing the centre of Europe. These are the moments when the mission to find the centre of Europe as a geographical, political, or touristic construct are forgotten, and the documentary begins concentrating on the people themselves, providing an opportunity to view their private lives at home, and in the process, allowing us to learn a little about their customs and manners. The moments spent with a married couple in Lithuania and the struggle to get their TV working, and the incredibly illuminating light shone on rural life in western Ukraine when sitting in a newspaper kiosk are particular highlights.

Whether it was the deliberate aim of the documentary to move beyond childish attempts to define the centre of Europe and show the differences and similarities between people across national borders and ethnicities or pure coincidence, it is this element of the documentary that makes Die Mitte worth watching. Indeed, the fact that the programme misses out virtually all urban settings, whole swathes of Europe (the Balkans for example) and latches on to a few 'case studies' when they could have fit in a few more make it possible that this is a deliberate change in direction after production and filming took place.

Either way, you'll get a much better feeling for the diversities and similarities of (rural) Europe watching this, than by spending your time or money on the horribly pretentious piece offered by Michael Palin in his multi-part series "New Europe". With landscapes, languages, people, and some comedy, this should be of definite interest to people with a desire to know more about the more remote parts of central and eastern Europe.

Alone in Four Walls (2007)

naturalistic and fascinating

[10/10 · 11 October 2009]

I am compelled to write something about this documentary because it deserves comment. I saw this film at the Prizren documentary film festival in 2009, and was struck not only by the content and subject matter, but also by the naturalistic and respectful way in which the whole documentary was shot.

The subject matter is certainly difficult to digest, the stories that these children recount difficult to believe, and the brutality of some of their lives' shocking. Yet the children are presented with neutral respect, and one feels that each and every one of the protagonists who make up this documentary is a real human, with unique characteristics. Despite one or two moments where one gets the feeling the authorities have staged an event or two for the benefit of the foreign film-makers, the documentary has the very rare quality of capturing the atmosphere and pulse of everyday life of its subjects.

I give this documentary a 10 on the basis of the impact I felt watching it. It is quite simply one of the most interesting, disturbing, and naturalistic documentaries I have ever seen, making me think a lot about society, punishment, inequality, and human nature.

Hackers Are People Too (2008 Video)

Pretty lacklustre

[5/10 · 5 April 2009]

This documentary gives 'hackers' attending a conference the opportunity to publicly discuss their views on what being a hacker means to them, what their motivations are for being involved, and views on things like gender and the representation of hackers in the press. It presents these views through interview clips with a selection of the participants, with music in the background and appropriate computer sound effects (such as the sound of typing). There is no narrative, or any particularly chronological or theme based ordering to the documentary.

Such a format relies on the quality of the information supplied by interviewees. So it is a real problem then, that although most of the people interviewed were undoubtedly intelligent, none of them really stood out as saying anything particularly profound or memorable. In fact, I got annoyed hearing about how intelligent hackers are(is that really so?) and that everyone who has ever invented anything is a 'hacker'. If this is true, then why use the word inventor? Can you really call the inventor of the wheel a hacker? I won't dwell further on the idea of the 'hacker community' either. Like any other community, it loves to love itself in a way which makes outsiders a bit uncomfortable.

The documentary also failed to give any real examples of the work that these hackers do. Some of us may have heard of Englishman Gary McKinnon's hacking of sensitive US government computers searching for information about UFOs. Now for me, this is potentially very interesting: how did he do it, what did he find out? But the only example I can remember - having just watched it - of hacking, is someone making some small lights flash under a skirt using LEDs. Not terribly exciting in my opinion. If you're going to make a technology related documentary, please give some technological examples, and not just clips of people pulling hard disk drive cables out of ancient PCs, and self-described hackers playing with Christmas tree lights.

Perhaps what would have made this more interesting, is if it had interviewed a wider range of 'hackers'. Maybe the ones going to big conventions and wearing T-Shirts proudly stating "I am a hacker" are the wrong ones to interview. Perhaps not all hackers go to Defcon in the USA - maybe some even come from non-English speaking countries. Maybe they do more than dwell on how clever they all are. Maybe they apply hacking to a certain field of activity or subject, for example social movements, fighting against Digital Rights Management, Peer-to-Peer, selling solutions to business, applying lessons to pure science. Who knows? You certainly won't find it out here.

Yugoslavia: The Avoidable War (1999)

thought provoking documentary about a very disturbing chapter in European history

[7/10 · 8 March 2009]

What really intrigues me about this documentary, is that it helps actually make sense of the break-up of Yugoslavia, and the events that unfolded during the civil war.

I've seen the BBC documentary other reviewers mention (The Death of Yugoslavia), and it didn't quite add up. The Bosnians appeared completely innocent. The nationalists of Croatia were able to ethnically clear Serbs from their land because the Serbs were stupidly scared of Croat forces. Croatia was armed by the Hungarians using just 3 secret agents.

It may have been slicker, and engrossing, and useful for examining the conflict from the public-relations perspective of NATO and other world-powers, but it also concentrated too much on the role of Milosevic and his generals, and failed to convincingly deal with why Yugoslavia broke up, and what happened during and after it did break up.

Now, having watched this, I know how the German secret services were involved (and perhaps why) in bringing about the break-up of Yugoslavia; about how they assisted diplomatically and militarily within the conflict. It makes me wonder if this was a strategy based on geopolitical considerations, or as the movie alleges, due to historical (fascistic) reasons. I also now know (and this is corroborated in the BBC documentary) that the massacres of the people queuing for bread were the work of Muslim extremists, not Serbs. And that the leader of Bosnia - who is portrayed in a totally favourable light by the BBC documentary - may well have been involved in knowing about these massacres in advance. Oh, and that Tudjman was given the green light, and backing through a third party (staffed by ex-NATO staff), to ethnically 'cleanse' tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of Serbs from their land. I never knew about overwhelming bombing of civilian targets by NATO, nor about the KLA's provocations of Serb forces - not surprising, but useful information in the context of a ethnic and religious civil war.

This is not to say that the documentary is not one-sided: it really is. There is a virtual airbrush over atrocities committed by conventional and paramilitary Serb forces. Nor that it is a great documentary: the grand narrative of the events is rather halting, and many different ideas are presented, but failed to be adequately elaborated upon.

Instead, what makes this worth watching is that to my knowledge there isn't another documentary like this that tells us the 'other' side of the story. Another reason is the way it examines the role of the media in these kinds of conflicts. It demonstrates the need for an effective media strategy by warring parties if one is going to win a conflict by killing people. Particularly important in a world where perception is more important than reality.

Overall, a thought provoking documentary about a very disturbing chapter in European history.