Is there a name for these propaganda films that masquerade as Documentaries? Propamentaries? Docuganda? Can we get a ruling on this?
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“America: Imagine a World Without Her” is the latest Propumentary from conservative thinker Dinesh D’Souza, who brought us “2016: Obama’s America” a couple years ago. He’s back now not only to tell us how right he was, but to warn us again about the evil left wing conspiracy set to destroy this country. And if you detect just a hint of annoyance in my voice, well nice catch. I truly despise these kinds of movies, no matter which side of the aisle they come from. Does that mean I can’t give a fair review? Does my bias mean I have to manipulate you into believing what I do? Well, maybe according to most modern political documentaries, I do, but let’s just see if I can manage to have both bias and fairness, shall we?
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So what did I like about this film? Well, I do feel like D’Souza has improved as a filmmaker in the last couple years. He has a much better sense for shot selection and editing, with some absolutely beautiful scenes of this country’s landscape. He also has gained a sense for crafting his message, which seemed to follow a much more streamlined and logical path. Well, at least when he stayed on what should have been his main message it did. The message that America is still a great country worth defending. In fact, the best thing about this movie was a 3 minute speech Bono gave a while back about what makes America great, summing it up with more power in just a few sentences, then Dinesh could muster in the entirety of the rest of the movie. But that point worked well, and I felt like the primary arguments D’Souza made were at least salient. And as an aside, if you hear someone say that this movie defends slavery in America, or even says it’s not that bad, I can assure you I didn’t see that at all. For all it’s faults, this is not one. I believe the argument Dinesh is making is that all countries have ugly in the past, but it’s the American way that allows us to work to make it right. To which i say, fair enough. And if the movie were just this defense of America, I might actually give it credit… but it’s not.
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Make no mistake this is a direct sequel to his last movie, which is really frustrating for a couple reasons. Number one, the title (and marketing) lead me to believe the movie might be a pretty cool thought experiment about what the world would look like if America never existed. That’s actually a pretty cool idea, and in the right hands could make for some compelling film making. These are not those hands. That concept is touched on at the beginning and then never addressed again til the very end. This is not a high concept movie, it is a political witch hunt under the guise of a thought experiment. Dinesh has an agenda and it bleeds off the screen right from the beginning. Again it’s not the stuff about loving America that shows it, it’s the follow up that tries to directly tie Obama to undermining America at it’s core. The movie even goes to great pains to bring Hilary into the mix as well, likely in anticipation of the 2016 election. I mean, it’s not like Dinesh is the only filmmaker pulling this nonsense, Michael Moore did it with Bush, and Spurlock did it with McDonalds, but no matter who’s doing it, it ruins the movie’s engagement when you can see the manipulation dripping off the screen.
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At the end of the day, “America” has an interesting defense buried in some of the same old political manipulation. Though his filmmaking has improved quite a bit it’s still hard to sit through when you feel like someone would rather brainwash you then have a conversation. Watch the Bono clip on YouTube and save the $10. I give it a D+
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