QandO

July 25, 2004

Poles call it "totalitarian propaganda"
Posted by McQ

If ever a people were able to recognize "totalitarian propaganda" when they see it, the people of Poland, who were subjected to decades of it, might be those people. And when "Fahrenheit 911" opened in Poland this week, that's precisely how critics described it.

Gazeta Wyborcza reviewer Jacek Szczerba called the film a "foul pamphlet".

He said it was too biased to be called a documentary and was similar to work by Nazi propaganda director Leni Riefenstahl.

"In criticising Moore, I have to admit that he has certain abilities - Leni Riefenstahl had them too," Mr Szczerba said in his review.

[...]

"Michael Moore will not convince Poles with his film," the Rzeczpospolita newspaper said in its review.

"People are very sensitive to aggressive propaganda, especially when it pretends to be an objective documentary or a work of art."

That's not to say it doesn't have its fans in that country:

But politicians opposed to Poland's involvement in the US-led occupation of Iraq have urged people to see the film.

[...]

"The film contained some propaganda, but there was also a lot of truth in it," Pole Elzbieta Karwinska, 58, said after seeing the film.

"But I see no direct connection between the film and the Polish army in Iraq. I think that Poland is in Iraq for completely different reasons," she said.

Meanwhile in Australia, Moore is characterized as the "quintessential Ugly American". Seems like a fit to me:

This week, an Australian government minister described Moore as "the quintessential ugly American", after the film maker criticised the Australian prime minister's support of US President George Bush, saying: "What is John Howard doing in bed with an idiot?".

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