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The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. On April 12th 2002 the world awoke to the news that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had been removed from office and had been replaced by a new interim government. What had in fact taken place was the first Latin American coup of the 21st century, and the world's first media coup... Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Briain may have been in the right place at the right time, but they still had to do the right things. The place and time were the Venezuelan Presidential Palace on April 11th last year, when President Hugo Chavez was briefly deposed in a tumultuous 48 hours. The right thing about it was its humility. While watching, it was easy to be lulled into the lazy presumption that all that was required of them was to point the camera and let history take care of the rest.  Ego, however, has a habit of exercising its power of veto on these matters. Television is weighted down with documentaries in which the story of the filmmaker eclipses the "story" itself. On September 11th, for instance, Jules and Gedeon Naudet were on a fire crew dispatched to the World Trade Centre. Their resulting documentary, 9/11, had the temerity to present their personal experiences as a microcosm for a global tragedy. It had the gall to believe that the most powerful story in decades didn't have a decent kick without them as lead actors. It should have been a worthy historical document, but it was a TV-movie disaster matinee. So, it can go very badly wrong. Not here. In Chavez - Inside the Coup, Bartley and O'Briain tucked themselves away from sight. Their narration was likewise unobtrusive. Yes, they made their sympathies clear, but they saved their film for the people around them. The plotters. The defenders. The dead. Those crushing up against the gates of the Palace. The soldiers in secret preparation to retake that building. The poor pressing notes into the hand of the President ("Mr President, I need a bag of cement . . . ). The middle-classes at their meetings ("Keep an eye on your domestic servants"). (22nd February 2003 Irish Times - TV Review Section by Shane Hegarty). more... http://www.chavezthefilm.com/html/home.htm |
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