HyperNormalisation (2016)

Wonderfully offbeat film!

Redundant and unnecessary.

Captivating movie !

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Adam Curtis is a master at great montage, using music, images, and hysterical narration to illustrate points that are often valid but sometimes boldly deceptive and downright misguided."HyperNormalisation" is one of the best of examples of both the good and bad of Curtis' documentaries. Parts about the manipulation of popular perceptions by politicians and corporations are effective and make great sense. One of the best moments is when Curtis juxtaposes the assassination of Romania's Mr. and Mrs. Nicolae Ceaușescu with images from Jane Fonda's workout video, illustrating how the old world of the Cold War was being replaced by a new one, where individuals are distracted by trivia, and where new enemies either emerge or are created.The tension builds as Colonel Qaddafi gets remolded from an international pariah into a temporary good guy -- only to be vilified once again and killed. The problem with the film really starts here: nowhere does Curtis stress that Obama and Hillary were in charge at the time of this hypocritical about-face. Hillary's infamous "We came, we saw, he died" remark would have added so much more power to Curtis' point and to his narrative. And it would have made him seem much more evenhanded in his judgments.This film came out, however, just when Donald Trump won the Republican Presidential nomination. And by the tone Curtis takes when speaking of Trump, viewers can assume Curtis favored Hillary's victory. So, he appears to have manipulated his film with the pending U.S. election in mind.Reagan and George W. are generously faulted throughout the film for their roles in international mischief, but the slight presence of Obama and Hillary, and the continual castigation of Trump (who was yet to prove himself on the political stage) makes this film -- despite its many poignant moments -- an ultimate failure. Curtis is himself guilty of the "perception management" that he tries to fault throughout.

This is a very long film so I recommend breaking it up into two or more chunks and leaving some time for digestion in between. It has lots of interesting ideas and I guarantee even the best-read will learn something and have a couple of "Hmmmm" moments, if not an "Aha!" one.Curtis has a way of imposing a narrative upon your active perception using images, music and sounds in ways you would expect from, ahem, a film maker. He even casts himself as a journalist, rather than a storyteller. As a result, you are always aware that you are being manipulated, just like the manufactured reality discussed/presented in the film. You are the audience of the audience. Proceeding in this spirit, though many people have found Hypernormalisation depressing and frightening, it should not take you anywhere you haven't been before (if you are over 50 anyway). Barbarism in the pursuit of power is not peculiar to the 20th and 21st centuries, it is just a lot bigger and it's online. Hypernormalisation is not for the squeamish, but when you become aware that you have developed a level of immunity to these myriad images of horror, you get to understand what normalisation means. Neither is it for the faint hearted; the target audience may be those who are already deeply cynical. But Curtis is a clever film maker, let him entertain you.

I don't know what Curtis plays for fun in between film productions, but surely he is losing his marbles. And it takes a particular type of person to like what Curtis does.So Stage 1. New York City. The city is run by incompetents. Erase that. The incompetents are in serious debt. Keep that. The incompetents want to raise the bar and bring in some more debt, when they are unable to pay even the first part. Flash a light over this fact. Nobody wants to make business with the incompetents. Film that. So the incompetents are fired and brought to court to recoup some of the incurred debt. No way, that would be common sense! So the incompetents beg the creditors to forward some more money. The creditors, surprisingly, want to have some of the money back, unlike the taxpayer. So the creditors ask for an overview of the spending. Boom-boom! Conspiracy alert! And can you imagine? For the first time the financial committee has 8 bankers out of 9 people. Who has ever heard of anything like that done by the state? Accountancy should be done by pharmacists and highway construction should be left to the midwives like any good state syndicate would do. Now, if you replace banker with Jew Curtis' discourse is precisely the centuries old Christian propaganda.Stage 2. Patty Smith. She somehow decides to fit in the tableau instead of "changing the system." What? Right! Like the 16th century theater owners who were fighting the system by brown nosing to the king and aristocrats, like the poets who were writing poems for a bowl of soup, like painters satirizing their patron's religious beliefs. Oh! What days of decadence Mr. Curtis has lived.And so on, for almost three hours. Nice story. So the voters should give more power to the... power?Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch

Starts with anti Trump narrative, implies 9/11 was Saudi Terrorists, doesn't even entertain the notion that all the evidence points towards foul play, not going to list the undeniable evidence for this position, would take to long... Mentions nothing on Yemen, Qatar and how Europe wants the control of these areas for the Gas/Oil reserves, which coincidentally run directly in a straight line back to Europe through Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, not to mention the future cities that are being built in Saudia Arabia and Emirates, wouldn't the rich west love to all live in these amazing cities with Qatar/Yemen etc mass gas oil supplies?Ends with even more and even longer section of anti Trump narrative including anti Putin tones neglecting the fact that it was America that pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 not Russia.No surprise it's from the BBC, the people that echoed Bush and Blair's war on Iraq without doing a ounce of real Journalism into the evidence themselves, the people that protected Jimmy Savile knowing he was a paedophile... need I say more.