Corridors of Power: Should America be the world police? (BBC Four) | iPlayer
A predicted storm (BBC Four) | iPlayer
Olympic Games Paris 2024 (BBC/Eurosport/Discovery Plus)
document (ITVX) | itv.com
What to say about Dror Moreh’s BBC Four documentary series? Corridors of Power: Should America be the world police? That it is a damning indictment of a superpower that only intervenes in global atrocities when it serves its own interests. That it leaves you feeling hopeless and disgusted. That it begins with the Nazi death camps of WWII (a genocide that was ignored at the time) and the vow of “Never again,” and then provides episode after episode proof that “again” is exactly what is allowed to happen.
With Meryl Streep as narrator, Moreh reused footage and interviews to produce an eight-part director’s cut of his 2022 documentary The corridors of powerAmong the impressive list of high-ranking interviewees (Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice), some have since died, including several former US Secretaries of State (Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger).
All eight episodes are available. The first episode deals with Iraq. Saddam Hussein is merely rebuked when he uses chemical weapons against the Kurdish people, but President George HW Bush denounces him as “Hitler reincarnated” when he conquers oil-rich Kuwait. (“People said if Kuwait grew bananas, we would never have liberated Kuwait,” notes former Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.) Next, it’s Bosnia and Slobodan Milošević’s ethnic cleansing (under President Bill Clinton, the U.S. is painfully slow to intervene). Faced with massacres in Rwanda, the U.S. brings out its own people, but then backs out. When mass murder occurs in Darfur, U.S. help is sent, but it takes a coup to overthrow Sudanese despot Omar al-Bashir.
So it goes, ending with an examination of Barack Obama’s overcautious handling of the escalating Syria nightmare, the refugee exodus and the ongoing aftermath. While it points out that sometimes you have to choose peace over justice, there is constant wrangling at the highest levels over whether to define the atrocities as genocide (yes, it’s complicated, but not using the term means countries like the US aren’t as pressured to get involved). Corridors of power It lacks outsider/non-American voices, but it is a devastating film that shrouds the US in a thick moral fog. Be warned: the footage of the desperate, mutilated and dead is explicit and almost unbearable.
BBC Four has another compelling documentary on current American affairs in its program, A predicted storm (which will be released in 2023). Christoffer Guldbrandsen has accompanied Roger Stone, Donald Trump’s political advisor, for three years. Stone, now 71, can be seen as the initiator of the “Stop the Steal” campaign, which culminated in the attack on the US Capitol after Joe Biden’s victory in 2021.
At one point, Guldbrandsen is seen on security camera suffering a cardiac arrest in the gym, apparently brought on by the enormous pressure of filming this documentary. The result of his sacrifice is a stunning watch. Stone, the Republican fixer, turns out to be a cigar-chomping Machiavellian (“Saving Western civilization is hard work”). He cheerfully admits to manipulating Trump: one gets the feeling that Stone sees Trump as nothing more than a front man—the showbiz facade—for his own ambitions.
Only nuclear egotism could explain why Stone let the cameras in and got so close. We even see him dye his roots, which is quite a move by the urban elite given the company he moves in. Trump appears only in other shots, his trademark pumpkin-colored skin enhanced by pale circles around his eyes (tanning goggles? Refreshing cucumber slices? Who knows with these right-wing dandies). Figures like conspiracy theorist Alex Jones appear with dull inevitability. The white nationalist group the Proud Boys act as if they were Stone’s security detail. At one particularly irritating point, he jokes about a “Shoot a Liberal for Christ” day.
When Stone is found guilty on seven counts related to Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russian interference, Trump commutes his sentence. But by the time the Capitol attack happens, Stone is already out of the picture (he watches the attack on his hotel room TV). Later, angry at having been betrayed by Trump, he rants to someone on the phone, presumably about Trump (“Fuck you and your pro-abortion daughter!”), and threatens to support impeachment, all the while using his mouth like an angle grinder. Afterward, he calmly says to Guldbrandsen, “Of course I’ll kill you if you use any of that.” Amazing.
What on earth will we do with ourselves when the Olympic Games Paris 2024 are over? I barely notice which channel or app I’m watching (BBC, Eurosport, Discovery+). It’s all just a blur of leotards, sneakers and unreachable muscles.
If it’s not British teenager Toby “the Terminator” Roberts scurrying Spider-Boy-style to gold in climbing, then it’s US champion gymnast Simone Biles falling off a beam (apparently distracted by spectators silencing other cheering people). Just as Team GB’s Keely Hodgkinson sprinted to gold in the 800m, Team USA’s Noah Lyles ran in hair beads and nail polish to secure his own gold medal victory in the 100m.
And to top it all off, NBC’s unlikely (and, we hear, extremely well-paid) Olympic correspondent Snoop Dogg has been boosting the morale of the US team and paving the way for Los Angeles 2028. He’s everywhere, doing everything from mock fencing to trying on equestrian outfits to swimming with Olympic star Michael Phelps. The Olympics have become Glastonbury for fit people. No matter what the sport, when it’s all over there will be a television abyss.
On ITVX the seven-part multiverse dramedy document sounded conceptually a bit overcooked. Written by and with New Girls Zoe Lister-Jones (Dakota Johnson is executive producer) centers on Mae, a New York gallery owner in a failed marriage who is transported by a forbidden orgasm to another dimension where she is a different version of herself, in a different bed, in a different relationship, with a man or a woman. Every time Mae has an orgasm, it happens again. “I think my pussy is a wormhole.”
document can be pretentious, and it gets boring watching Mae have her dimension-crossing orgasms. But after four episodes, it’s also well-made, snappy, inventive and funny, tackling a variety of topics from childhood to fear of motherhood to hideous celebrities, microdosing and Buddhism. The elevator pitch for this might be: “Russian doll (ish) meets Quantum leap (sort of), with added nudity and gasping.” Worth a look.
Star ratings (out of five)
Corridors of Power: Should America be the world police? ★★★★
A predicted storm ★★★★★
Olympic Games Paris 2024 ★★★★
document ★★★
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