Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst

Sorry to say, this film suffers in comparison with the extraordinary WEATHER UNDERGROUND, which managed to become an unexpected commercial success, largely on the strength of meticulous film-making which not only recounted the history, but also captured context and diverse commentary on the events, times and people central to its' story. It was a film that - in many ways - raised the bar on recent-historical documentary film-making.

Alas, GUERRILLA is a far more pedestrian affair, mostly a compendium of archival footage (much of which is fascinating), with precious little digging into context - the fragmentation of the American left during the early 70s, the rise of underground radicalism (Weathermen, PLO, IRA, Red Brigade, et. al.), the post-60s decline of many major American cities (and the rising despair that ultimately fueled the crack wars of the 80s/90s and the riots that hit Miami and Los Angeles). Each of these elements are of some relevance to what's being presented in this documentary - the SLA were weirder and wiggier than most, mixing their Mao and inner-city blues with a big dose of dadaist strangeness, but they didn't just materialize out of the ether, and - in keeping the focus too tightly on the events and the group, this doc plays the history out as some ultra-violent theatre-of-the-absurd, in real life; a sort-of weird-sploitative pigs-vs-the-people melodrama.

This does a great disservice to history - through this film, Patti Hearst remains an enigma, with a great many class issues, psychological issues (post-traumatic stress, or the Stockholm syndrome) barely touched upon. The other surviving members of the SLA get plenty of screen time (unlike Hearst, who I assume didn't want to be involved), but the many interviews presented don't really seem to dig into anything deeper than who-did-what.

GUERRILLA isn't a total failure by a long shot; anyone with any memory of the 70s knows how weird the story seemed to be, and the recounting of it seen here is definitely captivating; the strangeness, chaos and confusion of the era doesn't feel very distant at all. But I also recall something else: back in the late 80s, the rock band Camper Van Beethoven recorded a snappy, satirical homage to Patty Hearst, entitled "Tania." In three-and-a-half minutes, I think they might have outdone this 90-minute documentary. Oh well.

I saw this at the Florida Film Festival and was quite blown away. Taken with the Oscar-nominated doc The Weather Underground, both movies present a jaw-dropping look at just how tumultuous those times were, especially for someone who didn't live through them, like myself. It's amazing to see how far young, well-educated, mostly white kids were willing to go to prove their points about race, money and war. Archival footage, especially that of the harrowing shootout in Los Angeles that was broadcast live on the air, shows you an America that is almost unrecognizable to us. The ending, which juxtaposes images of media-darling Patty with the rest of the SLA either in jail or long-since dead, is truly stunning.

I guess enough time has passed that the strange and fascinating case of Patricia Hearst can be looked at from a safe distance; although the recent post 9/11 interest in terrorism puts the Symbionese Liberation Army and their actions into a whole different context.

This documentary mixes news footage, photographs, tapes recordings and interviews with figures associated with the SLA and the kidnapping of Patty Hearst - yet it has to be said that most of these are marginal figures. Given that most SLA members are now dead, this is unavoidable. The real coup would have been scoring interviews with surviving members Bill and Emily Harris or Hearst herself - although her lack of participation is quite understandable given that her version of the case is already well documented.

The film comes ready-made with the gripping narrative of a thriller - and proves the cliché correct that truth is much stranger than fiction. It must have been quite an odd case to watch unravel in the media and could only have happened in the 70's. I can't quite see Paris Hilton robbing banks for the poor, somehow....

The only criticism I would have with the documentary is that plays on the ambiguity of Hearst - the good girl/bad girl, did she or didn't she mythology while conveniently neglecting facts that may have painted her is a more sympathetic light. It's one thing to play tapes of her calling her parents 'pigs' but quite another to fail to mention that all of her communique's were written for her, that she was kept blindfolded for over a month and expected to have sex with SLA members (all within her closet that she was rarely allowed out of). When arrested her IQ had dropped to a near comatose level, she was seriously malnourished and had ceased menstruating. Hardly a cutting revolutionary figure.

Altogether, it is a gripping and often darkly funny insight into one of the strangest cases in pop culture as well as the annuls of crime. It is thorough and impeccably researched. Highly recommended.

If this is the same movie directed by Robert Stone and which I saw at the Seattle Int'l Film Festival today then I would have to say it was quite dull in places and in need of some editing. While it got across the interesting spectacle Patty Hearst made at the time - rich girl turned radical rebel ostensibly for the people - I would have liked to have seen more in-depth profiles of all involved prior to hearing them talk - of Patty, her parents, their relationship, the backgrounds of the other members of the party, etc. Too much of this film's information was just a dry re-telling of the news, and a dry outline of how the event affected the evolution of reporting and FBI investigative reporting. It's a fascinating and timely topic - in that today again we are faced with a conservative government and a growing rebellion against it complete with terrorist activity, only on a global instead of just domestic scale, but this documentary falls sadly short of portraying the events that unfolded in any particularly interesting or involving way. There's got to be a better documentary out there on this subject. Can anyone recommend any?

There are so many excellent documentaries being made these days. This another example.

What is so striking about this story is how far people were willing to go to complain about racism and poverty. What's more, many people were willing to support them. One Berkley student, Popeye, makes the most telling statement when he says how sad it is that the likes of the SLA are required to make people act to stop poverty in the US.

Even more disturbing is that no-one would dare even think like this now. They would be branded unpatriotic terrorists. What this doco and see how freedom of speech and thought has been eroded and how the popular media is now just a puppet of the government and big business interests.

It is also incredibly ironic. Patty Hearst joined the SLA in their fight against racism and poverty. As soon as she was captured she was let out within months and Clinton gave her a full pardon. Compare that to those people without money and a powerful family - they went to jail for years. When push comes to shove, money and power will keep you out of jail whilst others involved in EXACTLY the same event go down for 8 years! Where are the SLA when you need them ... ;)