linkamo

I am a PhD student who is doing my dissertation on the trauma that Israelis and Palestinians face from each other. In all of my research, I have never seen such one-sided garbage as this film. Omeish and Omeish place the entire blame of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict on the Jews alone, and even argue that there was no enmity between Jews and Arabs before this conflict, which is a narrative that contradicts centuries of scholarly research. Many of the interviews with people like Noam Chomsky and Christian humanitarian workers are crudely chopped, making me wonder what else they said that perhaps didn't fit their narrative. They do this while trying to pull every emotional string they can tug on, even invoking the notion that Israeli Jews are intentionally persecuting Christians, knowing that this is the likely demographic of Americans who will be watching this video. My hope is that anyone who watches this documentary already has a baseline understanding of the roles that Israelis and Palestinians have both played in this conflict, because this documentary is nothing more than agenda-laden propaganda.

The purpose of this movie was to call out the American media for its manipulation of the narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, but I came away feeling that the greater indictment was the American media's manipulation of news in general. The stark contrast between European and American news reporting was quite upsetting and embarrassing to me as an American. Overall, I felt the documentary was an eye-opening and mostly fair representation of the issues at play, but there were some disappointing biases that manifested. For instance, I don't recall any real representation of the Jewish narrative, and in fact, the Jewish narrative was referred to as "mythology" by one interviewee. Also, I felt that there was far too much leniency granted to Hamas and its promulgation of terror attacks. Maybe I'm only saying this because I'm a brainwashed American, but just because Hamas has since denounced their original charter that called for the extermination of Jews, doesn't mean that they should be getting a pass for it. That wasn't something that happened hundreds of years ago. It was 30. Those same people are running the show.

As a human being, I am fascinated by death and pain. So are you. You have contemplated watching "Faces of Death" before, and most likely you have had a sick and disgusting desire to watch a human being die, and it's even possible that you have logged on to YouTube to watch a video that shows someone dying. Similarly, the funniest videos you have ever seen on "America's Funniest Home Videos" are those in which a human being is hurt.

As such, it is by our human nature that we are fascinated by this fictional thriller about the assassination of President George W. Bush. Human beings are inherently sadistic. Whereas I would love to tell you that this film's premise is simply appalling, and the film itself is ineptly lacking, the truth of the matter is that this film's premise is simply appalling, but the film itself is masterfully accomplished.

I find the basis of this film to be grotesque, atrocious, and inexcusable. Yet I also found myself in the seat of a theater showing it when it was released.

I am greatly shamed to admit that, though the foundation of this plot is gross, this movie is more-than-adequate in every other sense. Not only will this movie force you to challenge your beliefs on ethics, it will challenge your opinions about what may be best for our country at hand.

I, in no way, support or endorse this film... but I won't encourage you to avoid seeing it.