Hypernormalisation is an interesting film. I think when watching it you have to keep in mind that more than anything Adam Curtis is an idealist and he is telling you a story more so than he's telling you a history. Some of the historical details aren't really up to snuff but the overarching point is what's really important I think. I don't agree with a lot of Curtis' conclusions but his ultimate point about politics becoming this hypernormalised spectacle is one that is very worthwhile.

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.

The moment that Adam Curtis names Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin along suicide bombers, waves of refugees and Brexit among some of the things that "undermine the stability of the world" we know that this is just another leftwing, neoliberalist propaganda "documentary", created to demonize Rusia, Iran and all the enemies of the Neocon world Order.Of course Mr. Curtis never mentions of the fact that the biggest culprits of the destruction of the stability of the world in the past eight years are Obama, Hillary Clinton as US secretary of state, and the CIA, which in less than a decade have managed to create ISIS and completely destroy Libya, Siria, Yemen and topple the governments of Egypt, Tunisia, with the CIA backed and planned "Arab Spring". The Obama / Clinton warmongering "legacy" far exceeds the destruction created by G W Bush and his neocon war on Iraq: During his 8 years of terror, Obumma dropped 26,171 bombs on wedding parties, funerals, kid's soccer games, hospitals, schools, people in their homes and walking their streets, and farmers tilling their fields in seven countries: Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. Some Nobel Peace prize winner.In the rest of this film, Mr. Curtis tries to explain "how the world got to this point" by coming up with some lame theory of "hypernormalization" that claims that the (nameless) people in power have been fooling all of us, even those who are opposed to the system by creating a sanitized version of reality.Mr. Curtis is partially right, and ironically, he and his pathetic, pop-music driven propaganda documentaries are themselves a part of the fake news reality constructed by the neoliberalists in power, and their channels of brainwashing mass media like the BBC, CNN, NBC, etc etc This documentary wastes no time to take jabs Donald Trump, by coming up with some ridiculous links between NYC bankers and some inane seventies NYC underground artists as if this was the start of the fake news and fake reality.The truth is that the imperialist propaganda machine has been running since the beginning of the 20th century.As expected, Mr. Curtis goes on to paint Syrian president Assad's father Hafez al-Assad (president from 1971 to 2000) AS some kind of evil dictator, and to blame him, Iran and Egypt for the creation of radical islamists. This is completely ridiculous, as award-winning geopolitical analyst William Engdahl has written in his many books; most terrorist organizations in the Middle East are the descendants of the CIA- backed Muslim Brotherhood after WWII, as used for example in Afghanistan against the Russians in the form of the Taliban. The animosity between the muslims and the west started way back at the beginning of the century when the British were trying to destroy the Ottoman Empire.Let's not forget that at one point or another, Osama BinLaden, Saddam Hussein and the Shah of Iran were all CIA / US imperialist puppets.In this ridiculous documentary, Adam Curtis refuses to blame the real culprits of the never-ending warmongering around the word.. US imperialism, the CIA and the Neocons that run the US government and its policies, and the puppets of evil.. Bush, Blair, Obama, NATO, etcHe does the best that he can to demonize those who side with Russia (like Syria and Iran) and oppose the neocon / neoliberal world order.This film clearly shows that Adam Curtis is nothing but a coward, neoliberal propagandist.

*SPOILER ALERT* First off, I would start by saying I am generally a huge fan of Mr Curtis' work; The Century of the Self series was brilliant and The Mayfair Set almost as good. However, HyperNormalisation is quite different.Mr Curtis covers a lot of different topics in this film. He starts with New York's near bankruptcy in the 1970's and the bankers effectively dictating to the politicians what cuts to make to public services, before briefly mentioning the hippies of the 1960's and their giving up on trying to change the world in the 1970's, before jumping off to talk about Syria in the 1970's. This is common throughout the film. Mr Curtis talks about one particular topic, make a few points then jumps off to talk about another, seemingly completely unrelated topic.When you watch HyperNormalisation you find yourself asking, "Are you making an argument or a just suggestion?" and then find you do not have an answer to that question.He covers a lot of different topics. Timothy Leary and LSD in the 1960's, the dawn of so-called "cyberspace" in the 1990's (the internet to you or I), the history of suicide bombings in the Middle East, Lebanon, the Iran-Iraq War, Libya, Colonel Gaddafi, Hamas, (the non-existent) WMD's, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi, the Arab Spring, Facebook, news-generating algorithms, BlackRock, Soviet science fiction writers, the rise of Trump, it's all there, being jumped to, back and forth.The ending is particularly poor and the point he makes is almost so subtle that you only understand it after mulling it over. He makes his final point by reference to a scene in the film Carrie, which no one will understand unless they have seen the film, and with reference to a tearful women, who oozes condescension, complaining about Brexit. Even then, the point he is making is very vague.In the end, it's all just a bit of a mess. What's sad is that Mr Curtis is trying to explain the world and it's future yet watching HyperNormalisation you are left with the impression that he no longer understands it himself.