rder to get in. POM, much like Super Size Me, is a light-hearted critique of the extremities capitalism, this time investigating the branding in the film industry. Spurlock creates a $1.5 million film exclusively financed through product placement. The 100% pomegranate juice POM Wonderful is one of the products appearing in the film, and either by chance or design it also happened to sponsor DocFest, with POM ambassadors thrusting bottles of purple juice into your hand at every possible moment. This created a strange discontinuity between the point of the film and the patrons’ acceptance of obvious product marketing.
There was a fantastic variety of documentaries and an excellent showcase of British social commentary as well as hard-hitting political films and music documentaries. Many of the political documentaries were about climate change and environmentalist groups, or legal and judicial issues at home and abroad. The film Hell and Back Again documented the recovery of Nathan Harris, an American marine injured in Afghanistan. Throughout his recuperation, footage of him in Afghanistan was spliced in, effectively linking his physical and mental agony with sounds of gunshot and bombs. Crucially the film showed not just the daily violence of warfare (“Do not forget” says one officer, “we are experts in the application of violence”) but the painful, stilted and awkward negotiations between army personnel and local Afghan villagers. The local Afghanis were being moved out of their village to remove them from the line of fire, their houses were searched and entire stocks of crop used as hiding material for troops. There were embarrassing scenes of old village elders being body searched whenever they came into the village. This was contrasted with footage of Nathan Harris receiving physiotherapy treatment back in Jacksonville, North Carolina and explaining why he was so desperate to go back and fight – because of his certainty that the US troops had to be there. In Harris’ explanation, the neo-colonial motivations behind the war are exposed, its purpose is claimed to be liberating Afghan people from living in their primitive way of lives in mudhuts. This attitude is accentuated by the village meeting called by the US soldiers in order to foster good relations with the local community, which comes over as a way to explain their actions and strategy. What they present to be a chance for both sides to present any issues is clearly just a way to demand the Afghans follow their orders – they have no option. The Americans ask if there is anything the villagers need and their only request is for the Americans to leave, to take with them the fight against the Taliban to stop them being targets. Astonishingly, the sergeant tells them that they don’t actually want to be there, they are only there because the Afghans want them to be; they don’t do what they want, they do what the Afghans want them to do. The footage of Harris in Afghanistan is much clearer and professional looking than footage of warfare on the news. At one point, we see a soldier killed and the rest of his team pile what is left of his body onto a stretcher, a truly horrific moment. Footage of Harris shooting Taliban in the distance is spliced with footage of him in North Carolina playing his favourite computer game, Halo, in which he has to find and kill the terrorist enemy. Asked why he wanted to join the arm as a teenager, he said because he wanted to kill people.
The film festival, although in Sheffield, was noticeably distant from the city itself. There was no showcase of local talent and delegates stayed around a small area, talking amongst themselves with no real appreciation of the city itself. There were lots of other artistic events and installations on the fringe of the festival, one being a carousel built from scrap from Chernobyl, some of which was radioactive. My favourite piece of the whole festival was Blast Theory's Ulrike and Eamon Compliant. Participants took on the persona of either RAF terrorist Ulrike Meinhof or IRA supergrass Eamon Collins, and were given mobile phones through which instructions were given. As I walked the streets of Sheffield fulfilling my deepest, darkest fantasy, I was instructed to look at everyone I passed and think about their lives, and how I could make a difference. It led me down alleys and I didn't know who or what knew what mission I was undertaking. At the end I was instructed to follow a woman dressed in black, who took me to a room and interviewed me. I answered the questions from the heart, but found the persona of Ulrike Meinhof coming out as the interrogation wore on.
It is not hard to catch a glimpse of the genuine artistic efforts of th
e city which is almost always community-focused. The 19th century steel manufactory centre The Portland Works (left) was the first place to manufacture stainless steel. Portland Works still produces steel as well as being used by local artists and artisans – metalworkers, craftsmen, engineers, furniture makers and musicians. The landlord wanted to close it after 130 years of activity and sell it to turn it into luxury flats but after negotiations, he agreed to sell to a social enterprise which will manage, preserve and run Portland Works. The Industrial Provident Socie
ty needs £750,000 for this, in the form of shares and donations. Like The Rex, the restored art-deco cinema where I currently work, it is not a great money maker for investment, but an investment in a valuable piece of the past and future and a chance to strengthen the local community and artistry. The 90-year-old Art Deco Picturehouse (right) on Abbeydale Road is in the process of restoration, run by a local community group who are raising money for its restoration.
One event that was unmissable, despite being filled by wanky Southern media wine-drinkers was the BBC Adam Curtis interview. Adam Curtis creates the most incredible political documentaries. His use of BBC archive footage, fast and slow cuts and background music coupled with his calm voiceovers deliver such watchable footage that the content is almost irrelevant. Curtis picks narratives that fascinate and engage – previous themes include Freudianism throughout the 20th century (The Century of the Self), the simultaneous rise of Al-Qaeda and US neoconservatism (The Power of Nightmares) and theories of liberty, power and control in contemporary Britain (The Trap). The interview in Sheffield’s beautiful Lyceum theatre was a wonderful insight into his documentary technique, his narrative and his political views. Importantly Adam Curtis explained the limitations of the documentary medium; that it is generally boring and passes on information you already know. Accepting television as a form of propaganda, Adam Curtis aims to put forward an argument, fusing “trash comedy”with “posh, pretentious stuff”. As such, Curtis demolishes the notion that documentary is neutral, and – particularly with science – presents facts in a neutral way.
In Adam Curtis’ The Century of the Self, he establishes his understanding of the form of individualism that exists today, an individualism that has been informed by the preceding century’s theories of the self. Curtis maps the journey from radical Freudianism, to radical psychotherapy through to lifestyle consumerism. Curtis emphasises that our idea of individual freedom is not a natural state but an ideology. This ideology – market individualism – reflects the strange, atomising form of democracy that we occupy, what he calls “google democracy”. In this system, individuals are seen as part of networks that must be kept stable, and politicians see themselves as managers of the system that they must do their best to maintain and look after. This leans to static politics, where people are afraid of change. This ties in to Adam Curtis’ understanding of ‘hauntology’ – the idea we are completely trapped by past our past and culture; we are re-working past decades, and at the same time establishing the very modern concept of individualism.
If I had wealth I would travel to Sheffield daily just to eat at the Blue Moon Café:
