Biting and roguish in intent, journalist/filmmaker John Pilger (Breaking The Silence, Palestine Is Still The Issue) – along with long-time producing partner Christopher Martin, credited here as co-director – has constructed a flashy expose of the USA’s longstanding and dangerous forays into Latin American politics. The Aussie raconteur pulls back the veil on the superpower’s shadow life as hemispheric bully, mongering fascism and violence in its own backyard. He paints a bleak portrait of life under tyrants such as Augusto Pinochet in Chile, and suggests – with great evidence – that the United States, and specifically its CIA, initiated secret campaigns against leftist, democratic governments across South and Central America.
While hardly offering fresh information to the debate, by taking his cameras into the 'pink tide" of moderate socialist states in the region, such as Hugo Chavez’ Venezuela and Evo Morales’ Bolivia, Pilger humanises the realities of life in these countries, taking the coup d’etats and bloodshed out of the rigid academic understanding that many may hold them in. It is a relief to see the facts illuminated in such an uncompromising way, but by only hosting ex-CIA maniacs onscreen to paint the alternate perspective, Pilger leaves a gap in the work that could be filled by more cerebral voices from the other side. Similarly, through the film’s reliance on archival footage, it tethers itself to the past half-century in a way that doesn’t allow for the context of the previous hundred years of political interaction in the New World. Still, the newsreels and videos of the early days are fascinating and well-used, and Pilger’s exclusive interview with Chavez is worth your attention alone.
Filmink 3.5/5
