I saw it and I have mixed and very emotional thoughts about it.
Being a proud (snobby?) Seattleite doesn’t help. The whole time I’m watching I’m thinking: That’s my town, yo, please stop setting it on fire.
Stuart Townsend is a talented guy and cute, too, as far as I can remember. (He was in that one Vampire film forever ago, remember? Cute! Dangerous! At. The. SAME. Time.) He does well with this movie. It’s beautiful and gut-wrenching and in true Hollywood-Liberal style it slaps you in the face with the Way. Things. Are. And things? They are not so good.
I agree with a lot of what Townsend was spewing though I think he exaggerated to the point of damaging his own case. (For Example: At the end he says that 40,000 Indian Farmers committed suicide in 2003 when the real (and still horrific) number is 17,000. See, I don’t think there is anything NOT shocking about 17,107 suicides. In the province of Vidarbha there averaged one suicide EVERY 8 HOURS. I can’t even imagine. Things? They are not so good.)
However, I think Seattle is misrepresented in this film. Where are the hippies? The recyclers? The PETA members? The Vegans? We are not heartless. On the whole we are not ruthless, corporate assholes. We did not deserve the broken windows, the curfew, the police state. We did not earn the violence. And these things? These things that I love so much about my little liberal city? They were washed away by Stuart because let’s be honest -- protesters seem so much more noble against the bleak backdrop of a commercialized, brutish and brutal city scape.
Still, despite my initial visceral defensive response I do recommend this movie. Even to Seattleites. I say to you: Take Stuart’s message seriously. Take his delivery with a grain of salt.
Final verdict? Worth it.
For more information on the WTO and the WTO riot in Seattle you can click HERE and HERE.
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