NOTES FROM TIFF 2015

Notes from a couple of films from TIFF 2015. 3000 Nights shows a young Palestinian bride arrested for giving a youth a ride in her car, jailed for 8 years, giving birth in an Israeli prison for women with her hands and feet cuffed, amidst other scenes of torture and abuse. That was a Palestinian film. Rabin, The Last Day, made by Israeli (and Jewish) Amos Gitai, shows the mentality of the far right within Israel, which resulted in the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yithzak Rabin, for the crime of negotiating a peace accord (Oslo) with the Palestinians. It is standard fare in the West, to depict Muslims as 'crazy' or 'terrorists' to the point where US Presidential candidate Trump answered questions about what the US would do to deal with the (Muslim) problem. Not too many people ask about the root of the problem, for example, whether ISIS would exist today without the 2003 invasion of Iraq, or the refugee crisis without Western interventions in Syria. Mr. Gitai, in the post-screening Q&A, said he made this film to open people's eyes about the fanaticism and hate within the right in Israel. Claiming it is based entirely on documentary records, he shows Israeli mobs chanting 'Death to Rabin', (mobs often including a much younger Netanyahu), an Israeli psychiatrist raving about the 'schizophrenia' and 'schizoid personality' of Rabin, similar to that of Hitler. Rabin is also described as a Satanic figure, and right-wing rabbis chant curses at him, which without subtitles might appear as prayers.. The youth who kills him shows no remorse, citing the Torah as authorizing the assassination, on the basis that if someone attacks you, you can kill him. The attack? Rabin's attempt to make peace with the Palestinians which would have stopped the advancement of settlements into Palestinian lands. Stopping the theft is therefore an attack on the settlers' ambitions, justifying murder. One of the questions post-screening was whether the director thought the right-wing in Israel would never allow peace to happen in Palestine.. the director's reply was 'you may be right'.

Kathleen Wynne on Jian Ghomeshi

LETTER TO TORONTO STAR, NOV. 4, 2014 Jian Ghomeshi's public firing and associated allegations against him are generating a lot of public interest, to the point that the Ontario Premier Ms. Wynne has made public statements about sexual harassment in the workplace. That is interesting. Mr.Ghomeshi's firing came about (so far as I can determine) because of allegations by women of assaults during sex, which he characterized as 'rough sex'. These surely did not involve women at his 'workplace'. Or did it? Since then however some of his co-workers have made allegations of workplace harassment, which gave Ms. Wynne the excuse to take the action she did. It is astonishing that allegations against one man have provoked what would appear to be a public inquiry into generalized workplace sexual harassment. Unspoken of course is that the inquiry is to focus on male harassment of females. This is so apparently obvious that it does not need to be said. Workplace harassment, including sexual, however, is not simply a male problem. Plenty of women also harass. Their mechanisms however are typically different from those of males. Women harass through passive-aggression, spreading rumours and innuendo (though men can also do this) or simply by fabricating allegations for a variety of reasons which may include 'jilting' or outright female paranoia. The anti-male feminist ideology our society has swallowed whole, treats men as guilty merely on accusation, and throws evidence of female misconduct under the rug. Will Ms. Wynne's inquiry also be looking into these problems which affect men? Or is the inquiry simply an excuse to create more 'feminazi' rules to hurt, injure or destroy men? There is nothing in law, or nature, which conclusively says, or can say, that predators, perpetrators or criminals are only from one gender. Guilt or innocence is a matter of evidence, not gender, ideology, or suspicion. There is plenty that is 'disturbing' about female perpetrators, which our society appears to pretend do not exist.

All nations are equal but some are more equal than others

It will soon be a half-century to the day that a world-renowned 'leftist' wrote 'The Responsibility of Intellectuals', exhorting them to expose lies and tell the truth. And when much of the intelligentsia and leadership in the 'West' - the USA and its allies - cautions and warns the Russian Federation its incursion in and anticipated annexation of Crimea - is a violation of the UN Charter - they are certainly not lying. It is. But these voices were strangely silent when similar or worse actions were committed by the US and its allies.. No one called the 'war' in Vietnam - during which some 3-4 million people were killed in 3 countries by some of the most brutal and barbaric bombings in history (daisy-cutters, napalm, Kissinger's order to use 'anything that flies on anything that moves') a violation of international law. And of course the Korean War (so-called) in which a similar devastation was carried out in North Korea - actually had UN approval, as Stalin ordered his UN ambassador to abstain from vetoing the UN resolution. More recently the West supported dictators like Iran's Shah, Saddam Hussein till 1990, and Indonesia's Suharto ('our kind of guy' being Bill Clinton's assessment) who killed perhaps a million in his own country and some 200,000 in East Timor (with the gleeful supply of weapons by Western nations including Canada) who replaced Sukarno who had to be evicted for the crime of throwing out the IMF (though technically that was not a violation of the UN Charter). The more recent invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan (casualties of locals unknown, and conservatively estimated at minimum in the hundreds of thousands plus devastation of countries and displacement of millions) were preceded not only with boasts about the 'shock and awe' of such carpet bombings, but declarations that the West would act with or without the consent of the UN. Likewise the continued theft of Palestinian land and resources (specially water) supported by the US and dismissed as the (minor) settlements problem. In Animal Farm, Orwell mocked the USSR, as a place where 'all animals were equal, but some were more equal than others'. In the post-communist world, it seems that all nations may be equal under the UN Charter, but some nations are more equal than others. It does not matter that Crimea and the Ukraine are in Russia's backyard, like Latin and South America (subject of the Monroe 'doctrine') are in the US's. The sole global hegemon and its allies are not bound by the rules of institutions they are bigger than; institutions that could not exist without US support. Those outside the club need to remember that. P. S. And if 'sovereign' nations feel harassed or threatened by the hundreds of armed bases the US maintains around the globe to advance its 'interests' (free trade, 'democracy' and 'freedom'}, that is surely not the US' fault. Sovereign nations need to grow up and take responsibility for their own feelings.

ZERO TERRIFYING DARK THIRTY

The Auschwitz Oven assassinates the kettle black...... The overwhelming sensation on seeing this film was of fear, then outrage for the great Predator nation which goes anywhere, and does anything it wants, without regard for international law. In fact cloaking its crimes as 'justice'. Kathryn Bigelow won Oscars for her earlier effort 'The Hurt Locker', which seems pretentious and shallow in comparison to what she has accomplished here. The Hurt locker focused on the trials of US soldiers in Iraq, glossing over the Hurt of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (men women and children) who had been murdered by the US invasion and occupation, or that of the 5-6 million who had become refugees fleeing from the catastrophic devastation wreaked on their nation on fabricated pretences of WMD by the Predator Nation - itself the greatest producer, user and merchandiser of WMD on this planet. Last week a Toronto Sun article said the reason Bigelow was snubbed by the Academy this time was that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats liked this picture. The article theorized this was because the picture appears to glorify torture, which eventually resulted in the assassination of "UBL'. But that is not the reason - other films including 'Rendition' exposed the lie that 'the United States does not torture'. The reason this movie is disliked by the American powers-that-be is that it provides probably the most honest, cold, brutal portrayal of America is it really is, and as it is seen in the real world, as opposed to the world of propaganda that is North American society. It shows why 'they' hate the 'US', the Great Pretender which in dozens of countries has destroyed democracy and installed or supported friendly and obedient dictators. Even Coppola's famed 'Apocalypse Now' did not dare indict the US as openly, nakedly as this 'movie' does. In response to criticisms about inaccuracies, Ms. Bigelow recently said this was only a 'movie'. But this is really an 'unmovie'. It is scarier, more dark, more honest, than any documentary. The music for instance, is sombre, chilling, and completely devoid of jingoism or machismo, as it accompanies the stealth penetration of Pakistani territory by Navy Seals as they coldly, cunningly, professionally, ruthlessly carry out their dirty task, described by an Arab newspaper at the time as a 'settlement of accounts between killers'. The movie does not show the dumping of UBL's body into the ocean, designed to frustrate any investigation into the matter. If the Mafia could operate as efficiently to dispose of inconvenient evidence......... None of the CIA characters who drone on about the 'slaughter' of '3000 innocent Americans' says a word about the 'slaughter' of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans. But this only emphasizes their insignificance to the Auschwitz Oven. One contrast to this unmovie is the movie 'Skyfall', whose highlights include a disgruntled MI-6 operative blowing up MI-6 headquarters and killing off the Queen of Pomposity Judi Dench as 'M'. Could something like that happen in the CIA?

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.