An exhaustive, and quite frankly, exhausting film experience, Peter Watkins's The Journey flattens geopolitical borders and physical space in its attempt to create a shared consciousness. To form a linkage of like-minded concerns over the nuclear arms race and the sense of helplessness it conjured up in all those that understood its power to eradicate everything. An attempt to give shape to the Cold War paranoia of its time. The industrialization of mass destruction and fear-mongering. To bridge information-gathering between the vigilant and ignorant, years before the internet would expedite--and for the better--truncate similar content for easier accessibility.
The most terrifying aspect of this film is the feeling of totality showcased by the direction of governing bodies and the media's deliberate obfuscation of actions being taken. Global militarization and weapons stockpiling with the twisted logic of "mutual destruction equal no destruction" without a hint of acknowledgment of the absurdity of this circus act. It's honestly quite distressing--the magnitude of it all. After 14 hours of viewing, the only thing left besides mental strain is the sinking feeling that what it offers still exists as an outline at best. A blip on the radar. A summary of a much larger text, a far greater truth that can't be appropriately scaled or discussed in any meaningful way. That in its present state, what we've been made privy to then and now remains limited at best.
Even the banality in which Watkins presents this makes it threatening. A matter-of-fact, threadbare-like frankness to the proceedings. His left-leaning bias is still omnipresent, but the clinical approach in his presentation makes the entire thing almost morbid. Performing a post-mortem dissection of humanity's failures, as if to serve the benefit of future historians rather than us, the viewer. And ultimately, that approach may be the biggest downside to this ambitious effort as well.
As is, The Journey is a flawed film. Partly due to losing relevance in the mass adoption of the internet and concise/readily available content to make a DIY researcher out of anyone willing to sift through the misinformation from facts, and perhaps more critically, issues the film suffers from on its own accord. For all its well-intentions, it's still a bloated, unrefined manifesto; an issue absent in a vast majority of his other humanist works. Often retracing its steps with a type of redundancy that doesn't glean new insight but rather dulls some of its initial impact. Unlike before, Watkins isn't reconstructing history in a manner that absorbs us into the world projected but instead gives us a textbook reading.
Nevertheless, this is a significant entry in his filmography, as it tackles and draws out many of his concerns and obsessions. However, unlike entries before and since, engaging or stimulating its viewership appears to be an afterthought, while the very assimilation of inconvenient truths tucked away from everyday citizens seems to be its only concern. Public news agencies are as biased and agenda-driven as Watkins (even under its veil of journalistic integrity). Faceless corporations continue to selfishly gobble up everything in the name of profit (as if you needed that told to you). And mankind continues to flirt with the Doomsday Clock (water wet, fire hot, nihilism is on the rise).
Unless you're an extremely patient Peter Watkins fan or staunch neoliberal devotee (boots on the ground with picket sign in hand, not just online sloganeering), this isn't a mountain you have to climb. As for everyone else, consider viewing his swansong La Commune (Paris, 1871) instead, as it's a far better political statement that doesn't forget to interject style with all its hours of sobering substance. The Journey just doesn't fully justify the journey anymore.
