To Understand Today’s World—Syria, Brexit, Even Trump—Watch This Adam Curtis Film (Video)
In "Hypernormalisation," the British documentary filmmaker delves into the intricacies of a "strange time" in which "extraordinary events keep happening that undermine the stability of our world" while "those in control seem unable to deal and no one has any vision of a different or a better kind of future" .
Screenshot / YouTube
In “Hypernormalisation,” British documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis delves into the intricacies of a “strange time” in which “extraordinary events keep happening that undermine the stability of our world: suicide bombs, waves of refugees, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, even Brexit” while “those in control seem unable to deal … and no one has any vision of a different or a better kind of future.”
As narrator of the mesmerizing 2½-hour movie, Curtis explains, “This film will tell the story of how we got to this strange place. It is about how over the past 40 years politicians, financiers and technological utopians, rather than face up to the real complexities of the world, retreated. Instead, they constructed a simpler version of the world in order to hang on to power; and as this fake world grew, all of us went along with it, because the simplicity was reassuring.”
Get ready to believe and disbelieve all you know about Wall Street, UFOs, Syria, Ronald Reagan, Libya, the internet—the list goes on and on. But if at the end you don’t feel any differently, don’t fret: It’s normal — “hypernormal,” even, in this bizarre, post-truth era we find ourselves in.
For those of you who aren’t in the U.K. and have some internet savvy, try using a VPN to watch the full movie on BBC iPlayer here.
— Posted by Natasha Hakimi Zapata
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