The Final Year (12A.)
Directed by Greg Baker.
Featuring Barack Obama, John Kerry, Samantha Power and Ben Rhodes. 89 mins
In this fly-on-the-private-jet-wall documentary about the final year of Barack Obama's foreign policy team we follow the POTUS, Secretary of State Kerry, UN Ambassador Power and Deputy National Security Adviser Rhodes (speechwriter basically) as they zip around the world espousing a policy of engagement with the rest of the world and trying to make up for past transgressions. It's a unique film in that its content is largely irrelevant. However good or bad the film the audience response is predetermined. Like Rose and Jack on the Titanic, we know all their plans and dreams are doomed.
Propaganda would be harsh, but it's definitely a puff piece. No word of dissent is heard, no searching questions are asked. There's no substance to it, but it does look good. It feels like you're getting unprecedented access but I don't think there's a single moment where any participant is caught off guard. Watching Obama visit Hiroshima, or Power empathizing with the mothers of the daughters kidnapped by Boko Haram, is to witness an image of foreign affairs rather more elevated than Boris reciting Kipling.
Mentions of the Paris Climate change accord and how they are getting ready to pass the baton (to Hilary in the unspoken assumption) are poignant, though perhaps not as much as a brief shot of the then unsullied Aung San Suu Kyi. There's a terrible irony in the administration trying to address the real world, just at the exact moment that the much of it had decided to disappear into a fantasy world of its own creation.
Of course, there could be another audience for it. We live in an age where people are so addicted to wiping smug grins off of smug faces they'll happily shoot themselves in the foot for the privilege and they'll find plenty to enjoy here. I imagine the moment when Rhodes, who does seem insufferably full of himself, is overcome by the news of Trump's election – the speechwriter lost for words – will be particularly sweet.
The film is all about legacy building, possibly to the exclusion of actually doing anything. Dubya's legacy was to diminish the brand so much that a black man with a name that sounded like America's greatest enemy could be elected. Obama's legacy is Trump, which may work out well for him if no one else. If Pierce Brosnan had been replaced as 007 by Joe Pasquale, he'd be remembered as a giant of the role and nobody would care that actually none of his films were really that good. Uniquely Obama's public standing may be higher now than it was before he was elected.
Directed by Greg Baker.
Featuring Barack Obama, John Kerry, Samantha Power and Ben Rhodes. 89 mins
In this fly-on-the-private-jet-wall documentary about the final year of Barack Obama's foreign policy team we follow the POTUS, Secretary of State Kerry, UN Ambassador Power and Deputy National Security Adviser Rhodes (speechwriter basically) as they zip around the world espousing a policy of engagement with the rest of the world and trying to make up for past transgressions. It's a unique film in that its content is largely irrelevant. However good or bad the film the audience response is predetermined. Like Rose and Jack on the Titanic, we know all their plans and dreams are doomed.
Propaganda would be harsh, but it's definitely a puff piece. No word of dissent is heard, no searching questions are asked. There's no substance to it, but it does look good. It feels like you're getting unprecedented access but I don't think there's a single moment where any participant is caught off guard. Watching Obama visit Hiroshima, or Power empathizing with the mothers of the daughters kidnapped by Boko Haram, is to witness an image of foreign affairs rather more elevated than Boris reciting Kipling.
Mentions of the Paris Climate change accord and how they are getting ready to pass the baton (to Hilary in the unspoken assumption) are poignant, though perhaps not as much as a brief shot of the then unsullied Aung San Suu Kyi. There's a terrible irony in the administration trying to address the real world, just at the exact moment that the much of it had decided to disappear into a fantasy world of its own creation.
Of course, there could be another audience for it. We live in an age where people are so addicted to wiping smug grins off of smug faces they'll happily shoot themselves in the foot for the privilege and they'll find plenty to enjoy here. I imagine the moment when Rhodes, who does seem insufferably full of himself, is overcome by the news of Trump's election – the speechwriter lost for words – will be particularly sweet.
The film is all about legacy building, possibly to the exclusion of actually doing anything. Dubya's legacy was to diminish the brand so much that a black man with a name that sounded like America's greatest enemy could be elected. Obama's legacy is Trump, which may work out well for him if no one else. If Pierce Brosnan had been replaced as 007 by Joe Pasquale, he'd be remembered as a giant of the role and nobody would care that actually none of his films were really that good. Uniquely Obama's public standing may be higher now than it was before he was elected.