Ignorance is Strength, proclaims the omniscent Big Brother in 1984. War is Peace. In Raoul Peck’s new documentary, it is hard not to associate these bombastic oxymorons with the shift towards authoritarianism taking place in democratic societies today, at a speed outpacing even the warnings of Orwell: 2+2=5 . Screening in the Cannes Première strand, it is the most explicit critique of Donald Trump and America’s dive into the far-right at the festival this year. While not as personal and moving and missing the emotional appeal of his Oscar-nominated doc I Am Not Your Negro, which was based on the writings of James Baldwin, at its best the new film excites the same rousing political outrage and involvement.
While he was dying of TB in Scotland in 1949, the visionary English writer George Orwell finished his most memorable and chillingly prescient novel, 1984. It was a despairing warning to the post-war world that authoritarianism was still going to be a threat in the future. The book launched frightening new socio-political concepts interpolated from contemporary societies and magnified to absurd conclusions: Big Brother, the thought police, double speak, thought crimes, and much more. Today it is apparent these are not sci-fi fantasies channeled from the distant future but the here-and-now, which can justifiably be called an Orwellian world.
The writer is the nominal subject of this biography, but his ideas are spun out far and wide. A multitude of cameramen capture the many images, interviews, newsreels, even political works of art that the silence and beauty of the island of Jura off the coast of Scotland, where the story of the writer’s final years is told as he goes in and out of clinics and hospitals. The book he is struggling to finish is 1984, set in the totalitarian country of Oceania where the ruling party watches and controls every aspect of its citizens’ lives. Peck examines the party’s slogans (“war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength”) one by one to illustrate the rise of fascism. War is Peace sparks scenes of President George Bush declaring war on Iraq, Russia invading Ukraine, Israel Gaza. Ignorance is Strength is compared to misinformation and fake news, banned books and so on.
Exemplifying as he does so many aspects of the omnipresent Big Brother agenda, Donald Trump occupies numerous scenes. However, most of these deal with the well-trodden territory of his first term in office and the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, which after all the shocks of the second term seem like ancient history. But the viewer will have no trouble updating the picture to include recent events.
Throughout the film, excerpts from various screen versions of 1984, especially scenes of Winston being tortured until he truly believes that his torturer is holding up five fingers instead of four, and through this indoctrination it becomes his deep inner conviction that 2+2=5.
The text is based on Orwell’s letters and writings, many reflecting on the earlier stages of his life, his parents, boarding school (he attended Eton), military career in the colonies, his marriage and remarriage. These reflections – some poignant, some humorous, often self-critical – are expertly voiced by Damian Lewis, who brings the writer as close to the viewer as is possible. Still there is always a sense of unbreachable privacy in the letters, making them less revelatory than might be desired.
Little time is spent delving into he problematic side of Orwell’s personality (he has been called a snob and a colonialist as well as accused of sexism and homophobia), which would have rounded out his portrait considerably. Likewise, the early novels and other writing are barely touched on, apart from some scenes from films based on Animal Farm, his allegory of Stalinism in Russia.
Peck was clearly pressed to find an ending, given the downbeat bleakness of the novel’s final pages, and he finds it in Orwell’s professed hope in the power of the “proles”, the common people, “those swarming disregarded masses,” to destroy the Party. But after all the horrors that have gone before, it remains faint comfort in the midst of these dark days.
Director, screenplay: Raoul Peck
Producers: George Chignell, Alex Gibney, Raoul Peck, Nick Shumaker
With: Damian Lewis (voice of George Orwell)
Cinematography: Benjamin Bloodwell, Stuart Luck, Julian Schwanitz
Editor: Alexandra Strauss
Music: Alexei Aigui
Sound editor: Benoit Hillebrant
Production companies: Jigsaw Productions, Velvet Film
World Sales: Goodfellas
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Cannes Première)
In English
119 minutes
