I clearly have to agree with most people that this is a very nice film, but I want to mark two things however: 1. I seriously regret that the film is more critical about the past than the present. In a society that is shifting to the right swiftly, it is far more important to analyse the present than to distract people's attention from it by pointing to the past. It is a bit the same effect as pointing at someone else's business if you have lots of cleaning up to do yourself. In short, the third film is far less powerful than the first two, and I found that a bit disappointing, since there are more than enough things to say...2.This didn't happen by coincidence though, and neither did it happen only because it's just harder to do it about the present, but it has to do with the director's view on current politics. When we spoke to him after he showed his films, he explained that he thought this tactic of fear would be short lived, and blow in the politicians faces. I think this is a blatant error though, looking at how well propaganda works, and at how lame the people are in western nations. Curtis thought for example that a lot of the "anti-terrorist" laws would not be passed, and was overall optimistic about the future. This is clearly naive, and about the laws he has already been proved wrong, as they have been passed...

This BBC documentary together with "Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)" must be in the list of everyone trying to understand the 21st century, i.e., the days we are living. Even if you are in the "neo-conservative" camp, you should watch this documentary to realize what kind of harm their ideas have done: By making the "enemy" look larger and more important than what it is, they both make us fear of a not so organized enemy and also make the enemy more self-confident for launching suicide attacks on us.Starting from the 1950's, this documentary tries to explain the changes the western (Christian) and Islamic societies have undergone in the last 50 years. The startling thing is that so few people have influenced and manipulated us. And this is becoming easier and easier with the help of mass media today.Just a note: Recently, I watched "Joyeux Noël (2005)". Although it has nothing in common with this documentary, you can see in the end of the movie that the "politics of fear" was always an instrument for controlling and manipulating the masses and unfortunately religion is one of the helping tools.This documentary is highly recommended.

I've seen the three BBC episondes as they are available online - in rather poor quality versions, that is. And I know that the film maker condensed it into a theater-length movie, and received acclaim at Cannes over it. He proclaimed that he didn't want the "Michael Moore treatment" - too bad! A little showmanship might have brought the film to the United States, where it has been basically excluded, censored, omitted and overlooked. That more accessible movie-style version is NOT being shown in the US, nor is it, apparently, available on DVD - which of course is a shame, since the film exposes much of the thinking behind the US' current maniacal drive to empire. Not only has the documentary never been aired on American TV - the film seems to have been very thoroughly and effectively suppressed - something to think about the next time you use the phrase "free country."

I have already seen two of the three episodes of this excellent BBC documentary which the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is showing in three parts on its CBC Newsworld channel. I will see the third one tonight.I can understand why it has never been shown in the States and why it probably never will. These three small TV hours contain way too much brutal truth for any American to endure with any degree of comfort. The parallels between the devious agendas of the American Neo-Conservatives and the fundamentalist Islamic terrorists are uncanny: same logic, same malevolent means, same reliance on fear instead of reason.I can't understand, though, how Michael Moore' s sentimental and illogical hogwash documentaries get such a large release when a film like this one, which involves much more hard work and intelligence never gets to be shown where it could do the most good: in America.