Bitter Lake

1945. Two men meet on an American ship: Roosevelt and the Saudi king. The place is Bitter Lake, near the Suez Canal. An arrangement is made; protection in exchange for oil, and in exchange for that, a way of understanding religion is left untouched. The documentary starts at that moment and goes to Afghanistan. The Soviet occupation, American weapons, civil war, the Taliban and then the arrival of western armies. The narrative builds an argument: politicians chose to describe the world as good against evil, and because that story did not fit reality it collapsed every time. Adam Curtis directs. It is a British production and the documentary went out directly on the BBC's online service; no cinema or television screening was intended. It runs over two hours and the editing does not keep to the usual measures of documentary. Curtis used raw footage from the BBC archive; unbroadcast, unedited material makes up much of the narrative. There are long silent passages; the image is left on its own and the narrator says nothing. The matter it treats is the impossibility of telling complexity; the film takes the political need to simplify as its direct subject. Curtis narrates in his own voice and states his argument openly. The documentary was criticised; some of its connections were found forced and the method was argued over. Its limit is method; the narrative is scattered, the argument contested, and some of its links unevidenced. Who it is for: viewers who like Adam Curtis's documentaries and experimental editing. Who it is not for: it is long, scattered, and the argument contested.