Battle in Seattle - Nessuno li può fermare

I just came back from watching the film at the Toronto International film festival, and I absolutely loved it. It is brilliantly made and brilliantly acted. Stuart Townsend is a very talented man; he is sure to win a few Oscars before the end of his career. Battle in Seattle is a great work which simply tells the story of the WTO riots in Seattle, without an obvious bias (at least in my opinion). The film also uses real footage during some parts which really help those who were not present during the riots see that the film isn't exaggerating how horrific people's actions were (on both sides). I highly recommend this film for anyone who loves films that entertain and teach.

"Labour itself is but a sorrowful song, The protest of the weak against the strong."

Frederick William Faber

As a liberal, I empathize with the protesters in the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. And I do empathize. The need for world organizations and big companies to consider the health of poorer countries before appropriating their resources is paramount.

In Battle in Seattle, director Stuart Townsend uses the stock devices of the docudrama: smoothly inter-cutting between scenes of police and protesters and expertly interspersing authentic footage with the dramatized. The feel is as if the audience is participant; the dilemma of how far either side should go in keeping the peace or disturbing it is palpable.

The drama is enhanced by fictionalizing the opposing forces through the lens of policeman Dale (Woody Harrelson) and his wife, Ella (Charlize Theron), both caught up in the escalating violence and too neatly tied to the issues of each side. The challenges of the protesters are also too deftly tied to a romance of the leader and a follower.

This facile mixing of truth and fiction leaves me a bit cold, as if I were the victim of a fraud because the reality of the historic event seems trivialized by clichéd romances and tragedies. I am always dismayed by the Michael-Moore-style loading of the left to the exclusion of the right's point of view: What are the purposes of the WTO? Has it been successful? How? These questions are rarely explored any more than the complicated motives and lives of the protesters.

But the docudrama succeeds in illuminating the WTO and its critics. As history has written, little progress has been made during the intervening decade even though the talks were stopped in Seattle. But as one of the combatants points out, only by small steps and persistence can the battle be won. And so went the Battle in Seattle.

This is the 1999 WTO conference in a fictionalized format. It's not totally necessary, there are a half-dozen documentaries about the protests in Seattle in 1999. It seems a lot of the content from this movie was directly lifted from the documentary "This is What Democracy Looks Like". There are shots which have been recreated and even quotations by some of the protesters. One for instance is when one of the pro-environment protesters compares the crowds to people coming out of nowhere "like in the Michael Jackson 'Thriller' video" Yet this is a good movie with some wonderful acting. Harrelson and Liota stand out in their roles as a riot cop and the mayor of Seattle. Although I was most struck by Martin Henderson as Jay, a protest organizer whose brother was killed in a forestry protest and has two strikes against him and could spend a long time in jail if he gets arrested again. Having been to protests in Seattle and in Ottawa against globalization I recognized his character as a common person we see in this movement. The romantic plot line with another protester did almost feel forced at times. It wasn't necessary but for the most part this movie wasn't necessary.

If the movie accomplishes anything I hope it will bring younger people who were too young to be politically aware at that time into the fold and fight against corporate and state tyranny.

The movie definitely captured the feeling of these anti-globalization protests and how they represented a multitude of voices from environmentalism to labour leaders. I just wish they had focused more on the anarchists who seemed to be the only ones to get the short end of the stick in this movie. Why not show their story and who they are? Are hippie leftist protesters more interesting. Perhaps next time when someone makes a movie out of the 2001 protests against the FTAA in Quebec City. Battaille en Québec.

There are many that will dismiss this film as boring, lame or whatever and I myself was a bit dubious as a Seattle native and somebody that worked downtown during the riots. However, after seeing "Battle in Seattle" last night in Los Angeles, I must say that I really enjoyed it. Working within the reality of the film business (the need of star power, dramatization, distribution and financing) I thought Stuart Townsend did a great job of telling a fictional story about people within the historical context of the WTO Seattle Ministerial. He was also able to connect the film to what is happening today through some factual statements in the prologue and epilogue that reminded the audience that the WTO is still a presence in everybody's lives (whether they know it or not). The film's website also exists to educate viewers on the WTO. There were a lot of subtle details that I remember from that week that he included that I was able to appreciate (especially the Pine/Broadway riot which I was an observer of from the Bauahus Cafe on Pine). Stuart Townsend, Charlize Theron and Martin Henderson were also at the screening and talked for about 30 minutes about the film.

Stuart said that he was not trying to make a documentary about the WTO (since three already existed, one of which I've already seen ("30 Frames a Second: The WTO in Seattle") and wanted to make a film about people. Overall, I think he did a great job. The only minor, personal beef I had was the casting of Tzi Ma as Governor Locke. Locke does not speak with any trace of an accent and hearing Ma ranting on screen with a slight accent was just weird for me (being very familiar with Gary Locke...but nobody else will even bat an eye). A lot of people complained that the entire film wasn't filmed in Seattle, but that was the reality of financing. He mentioned that if he had to film in Vancouver to get the film made, so be it. Most of the key scenes/landmarks were shot in Seattle so you never really lost track of the Seattle vibe (believe me, I recognized every landmark on screen). Stuart mentioned that he learned a lot about the film making industry (from the point of a first time director) and how brutal it can be.

The WTO is obviously a topic most of Hollywood would not touch with a 10 foot pole. He also said that of the six or so years he spent on the project, only 29 days were actual filming days with the rest spent on research, production, editing etc. I have to give a lot of credit to Stuart for tackling this topic and seeing it to completion and fighting for distribution. It would be the equivalent of me trying to make a film around the Inniskillin Bombing which I do not remember when it happened back in 1987, but have heard of. I was able to shake Stuart's hand afterward and he was a very cool guy and tried to talk to everybody even as his publicist tried to drag him away after the screening.

I was at the battle in seattle...all 4 days of it....they cant get the days or times right....the gassing didn't start till after 5 pm in the afternoon on N30 not during lunchtime, we didn't march on the jail till December 3rd not December 2nd, and the Broadway and Pine Riots or as we locals call it the city sanctioned gay bashing wasn't started because of a cop flipping out but rather when a few people started shaking the police car with a cop in it...they don't bring up the fact that in the mornings people came downtown with coffee for police and brooms to clean up the mess...they don't talk about the peaceful protest that stayed on the sidewalk in response to said Broadway riots...and they didn't talk about how people were boxed in at 2 am when bars close infront of 3 packed bars. for a movie yeah its a good watch but for a look at the Battle In Seattle they could have done better in getting their facts right