Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Review: Independent Film Festival 2008 - BFI London - The Elephant in the Room

Stefan | 16.04.2008 12:05 | Culture | Terror War

A review of "The Elephant in the Room" a documentary by Dean Puckett on the 9/11 Truth Movement and First Responders screened at the Independent Film Festival - BFI London 14th April.

Somehow, amidst important stories like Britney Spears' custody battle and Amy Winehouse's social life, the mainstream media have missed the biggest cultural phenomenon of the 21st century - the 9/11 Truth Movement. From the first day, when radio show host Alex Jones screamed into his microphone that he had been predicting the attack for months (and that it was the US government who was responsible), through the following years when academics, scientists and engineers began to line up under the banner, right up to the present day - a movement of people of all ages and political persuasions which now number hundreds of thousands if not millions believe the official story of 9/11 is a lie. The Elephant in the Room is a film which tells their story.

This is not a film proposing conspiracy theories; this is not even a film exclusively about conspiracy theorists. The Elephant in the Room takes a broad view of the impact of 9/11 on society, starting with the 9/11 Truth Movement and the views of young British Muslims, their very identity demonised by the events, before plunging us into the emotionally moving story of the first responders. The Elephant in the Room acts as a mirror held up against those aspects of the post-9/11-World that the media ignores and those in power would rather pretend were not there, and the reflection is at once beautiful and disfigured.

The film starts with the shaky footage of a young Puckett (who was coincidentally in New York following 9/11), and then jumps forward to the present day - the change in time frame is matched by the development of Puckett as a film maker. From the moment the film joins us in the present day the film is aesthetically flawless - every shot perfectly composed, the direction and editing is delightful and shot in rich HD - this is a far cry from the grainy internet films which have covered 9/11 over the years - this is a real film by a real film maker and one of not inconsiderable talent.

We then launch into a well-paced traversing of the world of conspiracy theorists. The calibre and breadth of personalities Puckett has managed to track down is impressive and gives the viewer a good indication of just how diverse and widespread this movement is. From William Rodriguez (a hero of 9/11 turned celebrity “9/11 Truther” for his insistence that he experienced and witnessed multiple explosions in the towers), to Cynthia McKinney (the ex-congresswoman who challenged the government narrative of 9/11 and lost her place in congress) and supported by a huge cast littered with colourful activists, this section of the film is at times intense, at times very funny and always entertaining. Puckett guides us from quaint English towns and the hilarious antics of a "9/11 Truther" who hijacks supermarket public announcement systems to tell hapless shoppers that "9/11 was an inside job" through to a volatile protest in New York on the anniversary of 9/11 where Puckett himself and his crew are arrested live on Fox TV ,at all points remaining objective in his story telling, allowing others to tell us their views and never proposing his own.

The final third of the film is of a very different tone and takes on a subject which is very hard to deal with - the appalling treatment of the first responders of 9/11. In the aftermath of 9/11 the EPA was leant on by the White House to remove warnings from their report about the safety of the air; the levels of concrete powder, asbestos and other toxins were potentially deadly. The aim was to get Wall Street up and running, the consequences are that those who risked everything to help out in the clean up following 9/11 have now lost everything. Some have died; thousands are ill and many of them terminally so. Their benefits have been cut, they receive little support and their story is blacked out by the mainstream media. The care with which Puckett treats his subjects and the real-life tragedy their collective story weaves left members of the audience in tears as the film finishes on a final emotional twist of the knife. There are no happy endings in this film, just big questions.

While this final third of the film carried the strongest emotional punch; compared to the tight pacing of the first two thirds it is quite unstructured, almost a collage of these men's experiences and suffering. The film slides from one section to the next without the narration giving a clear divide between the two and this perhaps served to amplify the sudden change in pace. Puckett seemed unwilling to stand in front of his subjects getting their message across and while in juxtaposition with the first two thirds of the film you are aware at points that time is passing, there is no part of it which does not deserve, indeed demand, to be heard. Ultimately Puckett traded aesthetics for ethics; the audience, indeed the world, needs to hear the story of these men, and having caught your attention he is going to make sure you take in every last word of it. For the large part I am thankful he did.

The Elephant in the Room is a film that everyone should see. It challenges the viewer to ask some hard questions without ever picking a side regarding which answers they should rest on. These questions are ones which can no longer be ignored with the "War on Terror" now in full swing. The world has changed, Puckett reminds us, and how we react to that change is up to us, but the time is long gone for treating 9/11 and the War on Terror as an elephant in the room which we can ignore in the hope it will go away.

Stefan 2008

Trailer:
 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WYLWFDS62jA
Website:
 http://www.nosmokewithoutfire.co.uk

Stefan

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech