Movie Review: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

[Lydia Leftcoast]

This evening (Saturday) I saw the documentary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised here in Minneapolis.

It's the story of the attemp to overthrow Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in 2002, a series of events captured by an Irish film crew that was in the country making a documentary about the populist president. Several scenes stood out:

> People from the poor parts of town were interviewed and heard to say that they had voted for Chavez because they finally had someone to vote for. Interestingly, the opening scene showed him addressing a crowd on the subject of neo-liberalism, aka globalisation.

> After he was elected, Chavez encouraged people to read the national constitution and to contact him directly. He even had a weekly call-in show on TV and radio. People in poor neighborhoods began forming self-governing councils.

> His opponents looked and acted so much like country club Republicans that I almost laughed, particularly when one of them complained that Chavez supporters were people who "have never had to work and struggle like we have." This was from a woman whose greatest "struggle" was probably trying to fit her feet into tiny Italian shoes. One man was warning his fellow Chavez opponents to be wary about their servants, because they were likely to be members of the self-governing councils.


> The first act of the new "president" was to dissolve the National Assembly and the Supreme Court and fire all the government ministers. He then went on TV and stated that "democracy was restored."

The story of how Chavez supporters brought him back is quite inspiring, and it was all captured by the Irish film crew, who happened to be in the presidential palace when the coup plotters took over and stayed to record the reversal of the coup.

There's a lot more to the film and plenty to think about, perhaps some lessons for our own country.

Now I'll just sit back and wait for the pro-coup forces to jump all over this thread.

For the rest of you, see this film if you get a chance.

[jpgray]

1. Cool! It's finally in Minneapolis! What theater was it at?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. The Lagoon

near Lake and Hennepin, in case you don't know where it is.

[jpgray]

3. Thanks; the Lagoon is a nice enough theater (nt)

[indigo32]

4. I just thought I'd kick this up - I went to see this movie last night too

I was a little late in meeting Lydia but anyway....

It was a very interesting film....
beyond the points brought up already, it made a point of showing how the media worked to inflame the situation.
There were a number of privately owned media groups and a single state run channel. They played a huge part in the drama (this should be familiar).