Bitter Lake

Bitter Lake did not make it onto TV – not even BBC4; I guess this means that it is so highbrow that even those with free access to BBC4 have the chance to brag about seeking it out on the BBC iplayer rather than watching "public" television. It certainly plays out as something for the discerning viewer – constructed from endless footage, we have a documentary that builds a decades-long narrative around the conflict in the Middle East, and the collapse of our Western leadership, but yet still takes its time to let odd moments play out in silence.

The effect is an engaging one. Visually it is impressive in the variety of the footage and the real oddity thereof. Curtis' intelligent tones go across all of it, and he does build an engaging case as he goes. The style and pacing of the film help hook you so you are very much with him as he talks, as opposed to sitting away looking to be sold. The problem I had was that the film does cover so much ground, and so much complexity, but yet it is very simple in terms of its message and content. The events are absolute and clear as this film would have it – which is ironic considering it is critical of the politicians in the West for making real life so binary.

I did still find it an engaging experience, build with passion and style, but it is an Adam Curtis film and should be watched as such – it is not really a deeply factual and detailed exploration of a subject, so much as it is an experience to be taken on.

There are a lot of very detailed and thoughtful reviews of this movie if you want more help determining if you should watch this film. I want to talk about how to watch it. Because you should, if you can stand it. I thought some of the information on the history of the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia and how it affected Afghanistan to be interesting and relevant.

But, as with a few other reviewers, I felt a lot of the footage was unnecessary and distracting. We learn that things aren't always as black and white as they presented to us in news stories - that the messages have been simplified to make it easier to grasp and perhaps to hide mistakes that have been made. But in this "experimental" documentary, the explanations are muddied with clips that perhaps are designed to make us think, but in my case a lot of my thoughts were, "What is the point of this?"

"Bitter Lake" could be an important movie if it were a lean 80 or 90 minutes long instead of 2 1/4 hours.

But if you try watching and find yourself losing patience at times as I did, or if you are hesitant to even start watching, I have a suggestion. Watch the screen only when the narrator voice-over is present. This will give you the bulk of the orderly, historical stuff. Look away when it shifts to people dancing, or a soldier balancing a small bird in his hand. Do text messages during the comedy movie clips, or when the camera focuses for 30 solid seconds on the death stare of a "freedom" fighter. Obviously, this will be more easily achieved watching at home than in a theater, and cost a bit less, also.

I like Adam Curtis - he is a strong force for good in this world and he usually offers a much needed balance to the usual party and partisan line. He makes the kind of films that Michael Moore would surely like to make if he didn't need the money so much. Bitter Lake attempts to explain the complex situation in Afghanistan and the history behind the UK and US failed military objectives and recent withdrawals. It is a long film and it is not told in a linear fashion. It's a sonic and visual roller coaster ride - so you had better commit time to it. Don't watch it if you are tired or seeking some benign background amusement. A few people have mentioned about the scene with the soldier and the bird. I think that they perhaps missed the irony and the juxtaposition of it. There were many other scenes that were there doing the same job. Bitter Lake is an important film because it enlightened me as to how the British Army, The Red Army and the US Army and many other Western Powers and Organisations have failed in all of their efforts to tame this wild and archaic land with their hardy, courageous, stubborn and proud people.

Bitter Lake is for the most part a history of interventions in Afghanistan by the US, the UK and also Russia since halfway the 20th century.

The film follows the extremist Islamic idea of Wahhabism. It was transported east through the Arabic world, influencing the formation of the Taliban, Al Quaida and ISIS. All because the US accepted the idea in the partners they dealt with while looking for oil.

It's an interesting documentary, told mostly chronologically. This allows Curtis to compare events through time, for example the Russian invasion to the more recent western occupation.

A lot of the footage that is shown is filmed in Afghanistan and this stresses the constant violence the land has to witness. Because of the many groups involved in each area, enemy is a diffuse term there.

The film is advertised as epic on the BBC Iplayer but could have been shorter. In the first half there were shots in between the narrative that could have been left out. But all in all Bitter Lake offers a perspective that is great at telling us something about the modern world and a lot about Afganistan.

This film marks a new era in online content from both one of the worlds great broadcasters and filmmakers.

Rather than be constrained by the formats of television and convention of breaking things up into mini-series (Curtis has already made several of such landmarks), Adam Curtis has been given the freedom to make a lengthy, challenging feature documentary that has gone straight to BBC iplayer.

The result is a departure from his usual heavily-narrated work to a much more impressionistic piece of cinema that uses the metaphor of SOLARIS for the incomprehensible Afghanistan and related middle east conflicts. Raw footage is able to speak for itself. Typically cutting-room-floor material, such as shaky re-framing between shots is used to express something of complexity, like reading between the lines.

The BBC's job is to be relevant and provide what the market is unable to do. Here, the BBC triumphs, Curtis having the shackles taken off has delivered a giant canvas of grey with various drip patterns, which is the perpetual mess of foreign intervention in Afghanistan and western policy in the middle east. The closer you get, the more complicated it is.

Labor, Conservatives, Democrats and Republicans all get a hiding in the cyclical mess, which is examined via the extensive BBC archives to Which Curtis was given full access to.

Some highlights include:

Art teachers sent from England to the Afghan war effort to educate Afghanis about Marcel Duchamp and the early Avant-Garde.

British "supermarket" for high-tech weaponry, set out like a luxury department store of big-toys whose customers are wealthy Gulf states. In Thatcher-era Britain, this was one of the most thriving industries.

Highly recommended. This marks a new era because instead of bite-sized webisodes, this is a very serious piece of long-form filmmaking being made exclusively for what must become the main platform for public broadcasters world wide (online content). Though counterintuitive to what we perceive online content to be like, work like this is vital both in-itself but for breaking new ground and showing us what is possible with the relatively new platform/medium.

Mike Retter