Orwell 2+2=5: If only it weren't true

Orwell 2+2=5 (2025) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five); rated R, for violent content and brief graphic nudity

Available via: Amazon Prime and other VOD options

By Derrick Bang

“The very concept of objective truth is fading out of this world. Lies will pass into history.”

 

George Orwell, born Eric Arthur Blair, wrote those words in a 1946 essay titled Politics and the English Language.

 

This film concludes as shoppers in a typical American mall are blind to the three key
tenants of George Orwell's 1984 that surround them: War Is Peace, Ignorance Is
Strength, and Freedom Is Slavery.

Perceptive and prophetic as he was, Orwell never could have imagined the degree to which those words would become even more accurate, in this third decade of the 21st century.

Director Raoul Peck’s biographical quasi-documentary also is equal parts disturbing teller of truth … although, as Orwell himself would have cautioned, whose truth?

 

This film should be required viewing by every adult in these United States. Many will embrace it willingly, attuned to the terrifying, clear-cut path that both Orwell and Peck have blazed, illustrating the current world-wide slide from democracy into fascism.

 

As for those who would prefer to ignore or dismiss its message, perhaps they should be strapped to chairs with their eyes held open — as with Malcolm McDowell, in 1971’s A Clockwork Orange — and forced to watch … if only to see themselves, and their hatreds, laid bare.

 

Peck’s film is by no means perfect; his pacing is too leisurely at times, and his enraged, wide-ranging reach sometimes exceeds his grasp. The result can feel overwhelming.

 

Virtually all of the narrative text in Peck’s film comes from Orwell’s written words — from his books, essays, personal letters and diary entries — as somberly read by Damian Lewis. The timeline of Orwell’s life — from early childhood to his death in January 1950, only half a year after 1984 was published — is intercut with clips of events from the early 20th century to mere months before this film was completed.

 

Some of this real-world footage is horrifying; one photographic still, in particular, is gut-wrenching. Other bits are scary for an entirely different reason: the blandness with which despots spread lies and distort reality.

 

Peck also inserts telling scenes from numerous big-screen versions of 1984 — mostly the 1956 Edmond O’Brien and 1984 John Hurt adaptations — along with similarly telling sequences from 2018’s Fahrenheit 451, 2002’s Minority Report and 1985’s Brazil.

 

It quickly becomes clear that we now live in an era of Orwellian “Newspeak,” which he defined as “political language designed to make lies sound truthful, and murder respectable.”

 

Fahrenheit 11/9: The Trump card?

Fahrenheit 11/9 (2018) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, for profanity and disturbing images
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.21.18

Half a dozen indignant documentaries ago, back in 2004, Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 was a well-executed indictment of the over-reactive, post-9/11 policies that stoked public terror to foment what we now know were ill-advised wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: military endeavors that did nothing but further destabilize an already dangerous Middle East environment.

Unable to execute a citizen's arrest of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, filmmaker and
provocateur Michael Moore settles for watering the man's home and front yard from a
tanker truck laden with Flint's contaminated water.

That film also quite mercilessly scrutinized the feckless, post-crisis response of the Republican president — George W. Bush — who seemed to have no clue how to handle the aftermath of such a situation.

So here we are, 14 years later, and Moore’s kinda-sorta sequel targets a different Republican president: one apparently hell-bent on transforming this country into a fascist dictatorship.

The picture ain’t pretty.

Neither is Fahrenheit 11/9 at times, which — even for Moore — seems unnecessarily disorganized. His shtick is quite familiar by now, and this new film is the usual mélange of unsettling facts, caustic commentary, damning archival footage, eye-rolling stunts and occasional street theater. But it’s harder to follow Moore’s chain of logic this time; the dots don’t connect quite as well.

Isolated sequences are far more persuasive — and shocking — than the package into which they’re wrapped. He repeatedly states the obvious: The country is in a bad place right now, in great part because of obscenely rich white guys who believe they can get away with anything, and are determined to consolidate their power at the expense of the other 99 percent.

Much of this information dump is depicted against Moore’s calm, well-modulated, off-camera narration. No matter how heinous the images — and some of the sequences are guaranteed to make your blood boil — he never raises his voice, at all times sounding like a longtime friend conversing over a cup of coffee on the front porch. It’s remarkably effective, since his tranquil, seemingly bewildered, occasionally mildly disapproving tone allows us to achieve rage or righteous indignation on our own.

Much smarter than hectoring viewers with shrill indictments.

But as to how we got into this mess, Moore’s cause-and-effect “explanations” function better as water cooler conversation-starters, than as useful theories. And as to how we solve the current crisis … well … suggestions aren’t terribly forthcoming. That said, Moore is buoyed by the efforts of Florida’s high school anti-gun activists, and their successful nationwide rallies; and by the West Virginia schoolteachers who shut down every single one of the state’s public schools, en route to successfully getting their modest demands, and of the copycat movements inspired by their actions.

We spend considerable time with these two events, both of which are undeniably uplifting. Moore visibly admires the young Parkland activists, and a brief conference room chat with them elicits a droll rejoinder. Responding to one student’s claim that they hope to rescue the country from the misguided efforts of previous generations, Moore suggests, “Well, we must have done something right; we raised you guys.”

“No,” one girl snaps back, with a grin, “I was raised by social media.”

I’m not sure whether to be impressed by her savvy, or worried by her statement’s implications.