उपयोगकर्ता समीक्षाएं

Watched at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.

Raoul Peck has always been an underrated filmmaker who has made great documentaries in his career. With his latest focusing on the works of George Orwell, Peck goes raw with the portrait of Orwell's work and purpose. Providing a strong and powerful anti-fascist documentary and demonstrating the warnings, meaning and realism of what Orwell has said, and focused on.

Using great colorful presentations, interesting editing choices and presentation, Peck's direction on how information is presented, described and situated feels striking, important and engaging. With narration of the writings Orwell speaking, many of the themes, topics and concepts explored throughout were intriguing, as it reflects on what Orwell viewed about the world, the negative effects of fascism and the warnings about how reality and society can be changed because of politics and the dark humanities of human worlds. Alongside with using archival footage and interesting creative choices on the sound designs, visuals and presentation, it doesn't shy away from being quite loud, and raw. Allowing the views to see the negative effects about totalitarianism and the brutality of it.

I'm honestly quite surprised this movie got made, especially since our current political times is very messy. Overall, Raoul Peck has made his most angry and raw documentary in his entire career. A striking and powerful documentary that does reflect a lot about the current United States of America and the Trump Administration.

I would have given it a 6.5 if that had been possible. I really appreciated Orwell's works and had high expectations for this film. I consider myself center-left, but I found it too one-sided, underdeveloped, and overly fatalistic. It can feel quite anxiety-inducing... I understand that we shouldn't bury our heads in the sand, but at this point it starts to verge on pure sensationalism. The selected clips are very suggestive for example, they only show the best quotes and moments from people on the left, and then one of the worst moments from someone on the right. I generally disagree with Zuckerberg's main ideas, but he's not some demonic idiot either.. in the film, he's constantly shown at his worst moments.

George Orwell (born Eric Arthur Blair, 1903-1050), author of such legendary novels as the allegorical Animal Farm and dystopian 1984, has been called one of the greatest and most insightful writers of the 20th Century. And, in light of recent history, he's also been widely regarded as one of the most prescient, a plainspoken scribe who clearly saw the future long before it happened and wasn't afraid to straightforwardly call it for what it would become. In recognition of that legacy, Orwell's life, work and outlooks are now the subject of this latest production from prolific activist documentarian Raoul Peck. The film weaves together a biography of the author, the central themes of his journalistic and literary works, and illustrations of how those notions have materialized in the "management" (or, one might more accurately say, manipulation) of social, political and world affairs over the years, with an especially heavy emphasis on the present day. The filmmaker cites myriad examples of these manifestations to show just how on target Orwell was in predicting what would lie ahead, both in the places where he lived (England, Spain and Burma (now Myanmar)), as well as other locales around the globe, including Russia, Ukraine, Haiti, France, Latin America, Asia, and, most importantly, the US. And, while Peck largely targets the policies and practices of the right, he's not afraid to take on anyone whose dogma is so rigid that it throws circumstances off balance for everyone. Most notably, though, the picture details just how insidious these initiatives can be, agendas accomplished through the skillful "handling" of language, media, beliefs and actions that lead to intentional, calculated and shameful obfuscation, creating purposely misleading impressions in the minds of an unwittingly susceptible public. The narrative places much emphasis on the signature double-talk expressions Orwell features in his narratives (especially 1984), including such meaningless phrases as "War is peace," "Freedom is slavery" and "Ignorance is strength," slogans that say nothing but become widely embraced with relentless and intimidating repetition. The director's inclusion of these references thus depicts the deliberate war on truth being waged by those in power who will do anything to maintain their control over it, particularly when dealing with a compliant, quiescent population. These themes are further supported by an array of clips from other fictional and documentary works, such as the 1954, 1956 and 1984 versions of "1984," "I, Daniel Blake" (2016), "Land and Freedom" (1995), "Minority Report" (2002), and "Orwell Rolls in His Grave" (2003), to name a few. And further enhancement is provided in numerous voiceover sequences from Orwell's own writings, deftly narrated by Damian Lewis. All told, these elements provide a comprehensive look at the author and his work, as well as its relevance in today's world. With that said, however, some aspects of this offering could use some work, most notably in the organization of its content, its overreliance at times on material that needs to be read (and that often flies by too quickly) and an occasional tendency toward redundancy, elements that have been known to intrude upon other films by this director. In addition, "Orwell: 2+ 2 = 5" has frequently been termed (and quite accurately at that) as the scariest picture of 2025, primarily due to its inclusion of some troubling graphic imagery (sensitive viewers take note). Nevertheless, this is an important film for our times, one that viewers should not be afraid to watch considering the stakes involved. Indeed, turning a blind eye might be easier to do in the moment - but probably not in the long run.

If the intention was to present a "shrill trumpet-call" in imitation of an Inner Party-directed Hate Week project, then mission accomplished.

The narrated George Orwell excerpts outshine anything assembled by the writer / director whose own political bias and blind spots mirror an Orwell quotation that's cited early in the film: "The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude". IMO, Orwell: 2+2=5 is a political attitude that lacks artistry. Images and video are presented in a "We didn't start the fire" stream; there is no depth, no context and not even a discussion of the title formula, just clips from past portrayals of 1984. Overall, it's clumsily designed to manipulate the hate-filled and uninformed. It will do well in some circles.

Skip this film; better to read Mr. Orwell and a good Orwell biography.

The best I can say about Orwell: 2+2=5 is that the anticipation of seeing it encouraged me to re-read Nineteen Eighty-Four. I did also appreciate the clip from Terry Gilliam's Brazil; isolating the copy room scene made me wonder about the great preparation that was necessary to make the movements so fluid.

Saw this at a film festival. This is some sort of a biography of Eric Arthur Blair (AKA George Orwell) through some of his letters. That part is quite interesting, I learned a few things but basically it's data you can find on wikipedia.

The movie tries to draw a relation between his life and the writing of his major and last book: 1984. It rely heavily on previous adaptations which is quite annoying (make new with old). But IMO the real weak point of the movie is its failure to implement Orwell's ideas into our contemporary world.

The movie takes a strong partisanship side and doesn't question itself about it (basically: billionaires are too rich, chinese military parade are scary, we live in a democracy that needs to be saved from tyranny). It somehow felt like propaganda: we've been at war with Oceania the whole time, and you shouldn't question about it.

I was quite surprised of the absence of certain events that were a very good exemple of Orwellian dystopia in the last few years: how can you make a movie about Orwell in 2025 and not a single word about covid? It was a period of heavily censored information, where anything out of the unique doctrine was considered heresy, tens of newspeak words, constant rewriting of history, with the ultimate goal being to comply with restrictions rules. Covid is literally the elephant in the room.

Add a few shots of poor people in their environment facing the camera with great lighting for emotional value, and more than 10 years old interview of Edward Snowden, you end up with old footage sold as new with missed analysis.

I guess the upside would be to draw curiosity for the book for the viewers who haven't read it yet.

Had high hopes for this movie to examine Orwell's thoughts on political systems and regimes with in-depth focus on parallels to modern day "newspeak" and breaking of collective willpower, but it does none of that. It's a series of sometimes no context images of death and dictators and Adobe Affect Effects text animations that are played along with snippets from his diary about his life. It does give more context about his writing, but no context for the historical events it shows or why it chooses to focus so heavily on Burma. It doesn't bring in any other historians or political analysts until the end and it's very brief and superficial. It primarily felt like I was watching a collection of movie clips of 1984 versions. Overall, I appreciate the subject matter and the recency of the content (e.g., the inclusion of the Gaza genocide and the MAGA ambivalence towards death for "the other team") but the movie wasn't as thought provoking as I was hoping and felt more like SparkNotes to 1984 for a Gen X audience, nothing groundbreaking if you've already read 1984 and have a basic understanding of politics and injustice.

Watched it recently at a film festival. Go see it if you don't mind a tedious preachy clip show of historical footage with frequent bland voiceovers narrating Orwell's words, often with the background of a slow-moving vista of dull dreary Scotland. This sort of work comes off as a naive high school politics student trying to be original and edgy, since the film goes down the same predictable politically one-sided narratives (complete with sentimental instrumental soundtrack). Essentially a sophomoric propaganda piece with stale observations about government power that are already known by anyone familiar with Orwell's main works. Couldn't take it anymore, and we walked out near the end.

Edit: on second thought, I give it 2 stars instead of 1. The part about Orwell's time in Burma was mildly interesting.

I was ready to give this a chance, after all I turned up to see it at the London Film Festival with the director present. He had clearly done a lot of archival work and the opening sections were fair enough, Orwell's letter and diaries being accompanied by fine shots of Jura and great photos. But after half an hour the director then started to try something more ambitious and the whole thing fell apart as he bombarded us with the newsreel footage and footage from adaptations of 1984 that he thought would enhance the power of Orwell's words. Sadly if anything they diluted them.

Two massive howlers. First, the scenes from 1984 in which Big Brother is adored by a crowd are followed by people at the republican convention cheering Trump. But the latter is really pretty standard practice at party rallies in multi party democracies. That is not what Big Brother is about. Second, the director addresses what he takes to be today's version of newsspeak by taking a series of cliched expressions or euphemisms, but instead of unpacking them, he simply translates them into what he thinks they really mean, which he expressed on screen with a phrase of his own. The effect of all this is that the film is in the end a simplistic mess, like a not very good imitation of Adam Curtis.

What a load of garbage. Was so looking forward to this, I actually bought it. Damn wish I could get my money back. 100% not a true representation of Orwell at all. I would rather watch CNN at the airport. Orwell turned over in his grave. This documentary was produced by big brother. Do not waste your time.

Please do not watch this documentary and go read 1984 instead.

This is a deeply frustrating and ironic piece of work. Rather than engaging with George Orwell's warnings about authoritarian manipulation of truth, language, and history, it effectively does the very thing *1984* cautioned against: it twists reality to fit a predetermined narrative, forcing viewers to accept that 2+2=5 if the Party (in this case, the filmmakers) says so.

What's especially galling is that many of the people who claim to revere Orwell and decry "doublethink" seem completely blind to how this film embodies it. Instead of prompting genuine self-reflection, it simply repurposes Orwell's critique as a blunt weapon against their political opponents while remaining oblivious to the ways their own side engages in the exact same distortions Orwell described. It's not an examination of totalitarianis: it's an exercise in it.

In short: the documentary doesn't expose Newspeak; it *is* Newspeak. A perfect illustration of how Orwell's warnings can be inverted and weaponized by the very ideologies that claim to oppose tyranny. Dangerous documentary.

"The very concept of objective truth is fading out of this world" and the only bits of it that are in this propagandist documentary are Orwell's words. Intellectually dishonest and extremely biased, this film does nothing to shed light on the manipulation of information by the political left as well as the political right, preferring to take aim at those it wishes to demonize while offering no tangible solutions because its aim isn't to present the truth but to throw mud in as many directions as it can without offering the balm that will both heal and cleanse, its lens clearly Islamic-Socialist, turning a blind eye to the authoritarianism, suffering, and bloodshed that each of those ideologies has fomented.

Saw this at the Toronto international film festival. This is an excellent documentary that explains Orwell's life and thoughts using his own words. Contemporary news footage bring his work to life as the #1 predictor of the messes we are in now.

As Orwell thought: it's not left or right, it's defend the truth!