ARGO SURPRISINGLY 'UNAMERICAN'

I entered this movie expecting it to be rabidly pro-American propaganda, showing CIA heroics (a la Bruce Willis or Sylvester Stallone) in rescuing some of the American embassy employees trapped after the 1979 revolution. I was surprised to see it portray a remarkably balanced view of events. The film starts with news clips showing the 1950 democratic election of Mossadegh who went on to 'nationalise' the British controlled oil company which extracted Iranian oil at predatory prices (in the reverse sense - at prices which essentially robbed Iran), and which led in turn to the 1953 CIA/MI-6 initiated coup which installed the Shah who the film does not hesitate to show carried out torture, executions and imprisonment of thousands of Iranian citizens who resisted his dictatorial control of Iran and de facto neo-colonial enslavement of Iran to American and British interests. While the film moves on to show a daring and desperate plan in which 6 US embassy employees who escaped to the Canadian ambassador's residence in Teheran are extracted, it maintains an objective perspective, showing for instance an Iranian mention the US and CIA as the leading terrorists on the planet, language which is rarely seen outside of Chomsky's writings. It is not pro-Iranian either, depicting Iran as a repressive regime where torture continued under the Ayatollah. The hostage crisis and takeover of the US embassy was done by Iranian citizens outraged by the US' granting asylum to the cancer-stricken Shah, and they consequently demanded his return to Iran for prosecution or torture. After 911, the US demanded Afghanistan 'hand over' Osama Bin Laden who was believed to be hiding in that country; the Taliban refused, asking for evidence that Osama had been responsible for 911. The US then invaded Afghanistan and remains there to this day, continuing the devastation inflicted on that country by foreign invaders including the Soviets. Iran in 1979 could not (nor can any country today) invade the US as retribution for not 'handing over' the Shah, so it took over the US embassy and some 50 hostages, a crisis that lasted 444 days, deeply embarrassing the Carter administration and contributing to Ronald Reagan's victory in the next election. The US then exacted terrible vengeance from Iran. Reagan provided billions in arms to Saddam Hussein to prosecute a decade long war against Iran with nearly a million casualties on both sides. The US-Israeli invective against Iran continues to this day.

BARFI

'....the sweetness of ... twisted apples".

STATE 194

The Toronto International Film Festival 2012 showed a number of excellent films including films from Palestine, Jordan and Israel. Eagles from Israel shows a pair of retired Israeli soldiers who go on a killing spree, wiping out more than a dozen young Israelis who they see as living the hedonistic life in betrayal of the principles upon which Israel was founded. Intended as satire, it nonetheless contains both wry/black humour and suggestions of the new Israel not knowing what to do with its founding veterans. When I Saw You is s superb depiction of pro-Palestine fighters in a Jordan training camp in 1967, which included Communist and Che Guevara types supporting the Palestinians. 'Focus, endurance and patience' as their motto, these people are anything but the fanatics they are conventionally portrayed as. State 194 shows the attempt to build a Palestinian state on new principles - building institutions and infrastructure, attempting to heal the divisions in Fatah and Hamas, and reject terrorism despite provocations and violence by Israel. A superb documentary that (by the way) shows Israeli courts of 'law' ordering the eviction in East Jerusalem of Palestinians from homes they have lived in since before 1948 (when the state of Israel was created) on the theory that 'God promised Israel to the Jews', forgetting that Yahweh also said that 'Thou shall not steal'. What the Nazis did to Jews in Poland, Zio-Nazis are doing to Palestinians in Israel. Israel's creation was supported by the 'great powers' from territory taken from Palestine; but the US effectively vetoed the attempt by what is Palestine today to become a state, even as 119 out of 193 countries at the time of the attempt supported this effort. The charade of US-Israeli desire for 'peace' continues as more and more settlements continue to be built on Palestinian land, continuing the theft with the US doing nothing to stop it (example they could cut the annual $5 billion aid to Israel). Was it Netanyahu who said 'the Palestinians already have a state - Jordan'? As caretaker PM Fayyad of Palestine says at the end - Palestinians have no option but to be optimistic.