Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?

I got another copy of the Christofascist propaganda film Obsession in the mail yesterday. It is appropriate that I sit down to watch this film after the attempts to scare me.

Morgan Spurlock is a genius. He made a highly entertaining film that has a real message that needs to be seen and heard by everyone.

No matter where he went - Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Morocco - you name it, the people were dismissive of Osama bin Laden and felt that he was responsible for their lives being so bad. he was not a hero, but a villain to Muslims everywhere.

What was equally impressive was the fact that everyone hates our government. Not us, but out government. Guess what? We hate it too, but will we have the guts to change it? I don't mean just change parties, I mean change our government to one that doesn't sponsor dictators and terrorism throughout the world as long as it benefits us.

The bottom line in this film was that most people in the world are just like us. We want to earn some money, take care of our families, and live in peace. What a novel concept! Check this one out.

Whaddya do when your last pic made $11 mil at the box office (not bad for a $300, 000 investment) and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary?

Well, if you are Morgan Spurlock, writer and director of Supersize Me!, you put down your burger, get your shots and head to the Middle East to shoot a documentary about your mock serious search for the world's most wanted terrorist.

After all, with his wife expecting the couple's first child the future father figures he's gotta do something: "If the CIA and FBI can't find him and I'm going to make the world safe for my kid it's time for a new plan. If I've learned anything from big budget action movies it's that complicated global problems are best solved by one lonely guy crazy enough to think he can fix everything before the credits roll."

Spurlock begins his quest for OBL (as he calls him) with his tongue firmly in his cheek but as he travels through Egypt, Israel, Afghanistan, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian West Bank and realizes the depth of anti-American feeling the tone of the film becomes sombre and introspective. ("It's hard for me to see how damaged the image of the country that I love and care about has become.")

Don't expect any startling insights into the Middle East conflict. Spurlock films the trip from the viewpoint of an average American coping with culture shock and trying to make sense out of a complex situation. Whether he is thinking out loud on a voice-over or addressing the audience straight to camera Spurlock invites us along to share his discoveries. And who better for a tour guide? Riding with a Jerusalem bomb squad to check out a suspicious-looking package, heading into "hard core Taliban country" with a US military patrol or approaching total strangers in a crowded Arab marketplace and asking them if they can put him in touch with Osama bin Laden Spurlock is witty, smart, observant and unflappable.

The majority of soundbites are from everyday men and women interviewed on the street, around the dinner table or in a desert village. (A young man in Tel Aviv compares the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate to a game of musical chairs. "Somebody is left without a chair ... but everybody needs to sit somewhere.")

In the end Spurlock does not find OBL. What he does discover, however, is that whether they live in big cities or small mountain villages "there are a lot more people out there who are just like us then there are who are just like him."

We follow Morgan, a fairly average American guy, as he sets out to find bin Laden, (who, incidentally, has a US$25,000,000 bounty on his head!). So what's Morgan's motivation? Well, it's a fairly weak one, but it's valid to him (or his producers) at least. It is an anxiety he has about bringing a new-born into the world. Yes, that's right. He's a father-to-be when this film was shot.

Of course, finding Osama (as he is referred to so familiarly throughout the film) is no easy task - we are told several times that the F.B.I. itself has so far failed in this task. So, I guess you never really have high hopes about Morgan's chances. But we'll go along with him anyway right? What this documentary does well is that it takes you to the very ground-level of some very interesting and volatile places. Morgan divides the film up into (five?) segments, and presents the entire search as if it were a video-game - selecting "stages" that turn out to be Egypt, Afghanistan, Morroco and so on... In each and everyone of these places (with the exception of Pakistan), Morgan makes efforts to speak with everyday citizens, and quiz them on some fairly confronting topics.

This is the films best gift - we get to hear and see exactly what the West seems fairly deprived of: the common opinions of the common people. It's very enthralling, and towards the end, you cannot help but sympathise - and I suppose this is the films most powerful effect.

What the film does poorly is what the title alludes to - a search. Morgan never really searches for Osama (one point where he mockingly calls into a cave undermines any hope!), rather, he more or less sniffs around various markets, businesses, houses, slums and coffee-houses finding opinions.

And, the further annoyance is that the very motivation so heavily played upon at the beginning of the film (his baby), turns out to be a huge de-motivator for his search. He is constantly distracted, worrying and missing his wife, and we are all subjected to their personal "you-hang-up-first" "no you hang-up-first" smooshy phone calls. I can't help but think what a great film this would of been if the guy searching actually intended to find Osama! Rather, Morgan seems to want to make a travelogue, casually name-dropping the OBL when ever the moment strikes him to do so.

Granted, Morgan does visit some hot zones, such as the Gaza Strip, Tora Bora and Taliban territory, but we all know that Osama ain't there, and it's more about adding colour to the film then advancing his search.

It's a good watch for the conversation and the inside-stories, but a bad watch for those who actually want to see just how close can one man get to OBL. I am not convinced that Morgan really set out to find him, and really, I can't see that he added anything to others who may share that goal.

I just saw this film at the Melbourne Internatinal Film Festival. I, along with everyone else in the audience (or at least, form what I could tell from audience reaction) found it very entertaining. The film begins with Spurlock deciding to seek out Osama bin Laden in order to make the world safer for his unborn child. As you would expect from this type of documentary, you have humorous animation sequences, songs and interviews. This humour often derives from Spurlocks apparent aim to find bin Laden, however this is not really what the doco is about. More than anything, I found the aim of this doco to be to say 'everyday Muslims are just like you and me' and in telling people that not all Muslims are terrorists. This is most definitely a very good and important message for the people of today. However, I don't feel that this doco really covers any new ground. This message has been covered by many people before in many different ways and will be again. No new light is shed on the topic, or, for that matter, on any topic.

That said, if you were to go in to this film with a complete ignorance toward Muslim society then it may be a different story. If that were the case you would be supplied a highly entertaining lessen in tolerance. Unfortunately, in my experience people of that type of ignorance are not necessarily the type who would sit down and watch a documentary. I suppose the all we can hope is that the cheesiness of the title will draw them in! Overall I would rate it 6/10 for being entertaining, if not groundbreaking.

The movie was quite good, but the reviews here demonstrate the limited power of even a thoughtful documentary approach, to really edify. Take a look at how many of the reviewers think they were enlightened by the movie to stop being ignorant Americans, but like some kind of shameful stereotype come to life, don't realize even after viewing the movie, that Pakistan is not part of the Middle East! A main theme of the movie is that people from diverse societies, have a very different perspective on American foreign policy than we Americans can even consider. Another very subtle theme is that we Americans should be a little ashamed at our ignorance. A point not easily taken, apparently.