This was a serious and intelligent, if incredibly depressing, film about the anti-WTO protests in Seattle in November 1999, and how they affected some of the participants, on all sides of the barriers. The film mixed archive footage of the massive demonstrations, with modern reconstruction around the various story lines: several professional protesters and their reactions to the violence they were unwittingly (but not unforeseeably) responsible for, the civic and police authorities confronted with overwhelmingly hostile demonstrators out to break the law, the policeman on the front line whose pregnant wife, inadvertently gets caught up in the riot, is beaten by a passing policeman and loses her baby, the professional demonstrator bent on wilfully damaging property, the camera crew who go from being neutral to siding with the protesters as the civic response gets tough. The start of the film portrays the WTO as being some shadow organisation devoted to making the rich richer and the poor poorer whilst raping the planet. As usual with protect movements, truth does not matter. The fact that the WTO is there to try and provide a framework for policing international trade, and what would the situation be like without it, are of no concern to the protesters: the WTO is bad and must be smashed. This is a self-evident truth, so ordinary people should get out of the way whilst those who "care" take the law into their own hands. When it comes to defeating what protesters do not like, the law does not come into it. The film also makes it clear that (a) the demonstrators have nothing positive to offer, and that as usual (b) they take no responsibility for the consequences of their actions. On this point, the protester's lawyer who should no better, has no realisation of what she is doing. Generally, all the people the film seeks sympathy for are the demonstrators, who by their own ignorance and irresponsible refusal to accept the democratic process, puts a heavy burden on those paying through taxes for their right to be stupid. To be fair, the response to the demonstrations was affected by political rather than practical considerations of crowd control leading to ugly confrontations and use of force, but this was not the fault of the police.
This is the sort of film which should provoke debate, but sadly, from the evidence of the demonstrators, their only response is to shout slogans and cry foul as they have nothing else.
Here endeth the lesson.
This is the sort of film which should provoke debate, but sadly, from the evidence of the demonstrators, their only response is to shout slogans and cry foul as they have nothing else.
Here endeth the lesson.