A few years ago I was poking around for something to watch at a video rental store – remember those? – and I happened across The Trials of Henry Kissinger (watch here). This was my introduction to director Eugene Jarecki, a titan in the world of modern documentary filmmaking, right up there with Alex Gibney, Charles Ferguson, Errol Morris, and Steve James, who, I think, doesn’t get nearly enough recognition. His new film, a declaration of war on the war on drugs called The House I Live In, could easily change that.The film takes a wide-ranging look at the uncontroversial fact of the nearly 40-year-old, $1 trillion war: it’s failed. As the film’s summary points out, it’s led to 45 million arrests, made America the world’s largest jailer, and damaged poor communities at home and abroad. Still, drugs are cheaper and more available today than ever before. The film looks at “how political and economic corruption have fueled the war for forty years, despite persistent evidence of its moral, economic, and practical failures.” Its limited theatrical release begins today.“I’d hate to imply that it’s your civic duty to see The House I Live In when it’s eventually released to theaters,” Boston Globe reviewer Ty Burr is quoted as saying in the film’s furiously positive press materials. “But guess what – it is.” I felt the same way about Why We Fight, Jarecki’s previous feature length documentary.Why We Fight was arguably the definitive filmic expose on the military industrial complex and the Iraq war. Sadly, it’s a movie I’ve found not nearly enough people are familiar with. I’m not sure why that is. It’s a far better and more alarming film than Fahrenheit 9/11 which came out a year earlier and did huge numbers (for a documentary) at the box office. And after winning the 2005 Sundance Grand Jury Prize the buzz that surrounded it was deafening. Like The House I Live In, it has a trailer that I find incredibly powerful and disturbing. Just try and watch this and not shiver when Chalmers Johnson says, “It’s nowhere written that the American empire goes on forever.”The money quote in the trailer for The House I Live In belongs to David Simon, creator of The Wire, and it’s a doozy: “The drug war is a holocaust in slow motion.” The visuals and the editing are OK, but it’s this sort of punch in the face wake up call soundbite that really sells Jarecki’s films and highlights his mastery as an interviewer and director, capable of drilling down to the core of a difficult issue. In Why We Fight Jarecki took on a massive, complex, and horrifying reality about American militarism, explained it on a systematic level with a wide spectrum of experts and pundits, and then found the boots on the ground personal stories to really drive his point home. If he’s done anything like that in House, we’re in for a real hard this-is-going-to-ruin-your-weekend come-down. The necessary, sobering kind.
Advertisement