UK Film at Cannes Says Terror Fears Exaggerated
By Erik Kirschbaum
A British documentary arguing U.S. neo-
conservatives have exaggerated the
terror threat is set to rock the Cannes
Film Festival on Saturday, the
way "Fahrenheit 9/11" stirred emotions
here a year ago.
"The Power of Nightmares" re-injected
politics into the festival that seemed
eager to steer clear of controversy
this year after American Michael Moore
won top honors in 2004 for his film
deriding President Bush's response to
terror.
At a screening late on Friday ahead of
its gala on Saturday, "The Power of
Nightmares" by filmmaker and senior BBC
producer Adam Curtis kept an audience
of journalists and film buyers glued to
their seats and taking notes for a full
2-1/2 hours.
The film, a non-competition entry,
argues that the fear of terrorism has
come to pervade politics in the United
States and Britain even though much of
that angst is based on carefully
nurtured illusions.
It says Bush and U.S. neo-
conservatives, as well as British Prime
Minister Tony Blair, are exaggerating
the terror threat in a manner similar
to the way earlier generations of
leaders inflated the danger of
communism and the Soviet Union.
It also draws especially controversial
symmetries between the history of the
U.S. movement that led to the neo-cons
and the roots of the ideas that led to
radical Islamism -- two conservative
movements that have shaped geopolitics
since 1945.
Curtis's film portrays neo-cons Paul
Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Donald
Rumsfeld as counterparts to Osama bin
Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri
in the two respective movements.
"During the Cold War conservatives
exaggerated the threat of the Soviet
Union," the narrator says. "In reality
it was collapsing from within. Now
they're doing the same with Islamic
extremists because it fits the American
vision of an epic battle."
ILLUSORY FEAR OF TERROR
In his film, Curtis argues that Bush
and Blair have used what he says is the
largely illusory fear of terror and
hidden webs of organized evil following
the September 11, 2001, attacks to
reinforce their authority and rally
their nations.
In Bush's government, those underlings
who put forth the darkest scenarios of
the phantom threat have the most
influence, says Curtis, who also
devotes segments of his film to
criticize unquestioning media and
zealous security agencies.
He says al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden
has a far less powerful organization
than feared. But he is careful to avoid
suggestions that terror attacks won't
happen again. Included are experts who
dismiss fears of a "dirty bomb" as
exaggerated.
"It was an attempt at historical
explanation for September 11," Curtis
said, describing his film in the
Guardian newspaper recently. "Up to
this point, nobody had done a proper
history of the ideas and groups that
have created our modern world."
But Curtis said there were worlds of
difference between his film and
Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," which won
the "Golden Palm" and gave the festival
a charged political atmosphere that
prompted this year's return to a more
conservative program.
"Moore is a political agitprop
filmmaker," he said. "I am not. You'd
be hard pushed to tell my politics from
watching it."
"The Power of Nightmares" was a three-
part documentary aired in Britain and
won a British film and television
industry award (Bafta) this year.
