I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with guest anchor Zuraidah Alman to talk about new movies in theatres including the sports drama “The Smashing Machine,” the action comedy “Play Dirty” and the documentary “Orwell 2+2=5.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 12:57)
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make the bed! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the sports drama “The Smashing Machine,” the action comedy “Play Dirty” and the documentary “Orwell 2+2=5.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join the Bell Media Radio Network national night time show “Shane Hewitt and the Night Shift” for “Booze & Reviews!” This week I review the documentary “Orwell 2+2=5” and suggest a cocktail to enjoy while watching the movie.
Click to HERE to listen to Shane and me talk about AI star Tilly Norwood, Snoop Dogg’s return to the Olympics and more Simpsons on the big screen!
For the Booze & Reviews look at the George Orwell documentary “Orwell 2+2=5,” and some cocktails to enjoy with Big Brother click HERE!
SYNOPSIS: “Orwell: 2+2=5,” a new documentary now playing in theatres from BAFTA-winning director Raoul Peck, is an in-depth look at how the personal experiences of iconoclastic writer George Orwell influenced his work, most notably his dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” Linking the personal with the political, Peck provides an unnerving, look at Orwell’s ideas, which feel as timely now as they did when he wrote his most famous work seventy-five years ago. “If you want a vision of the future Winston,” O’Brien says to protagonist Winston Smith in the book, “Imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.”
CAST: Narrated by Damian Lewis. Directed by Raoul Peck.
REVIEW: Analysis of Orwell’s works, primarily “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and “Animal Farm” is nothing new, but in “Orwell: 2+2=5” Academy Award® nominated and BAFTA-winning director Raoul Peck digs deep, connecting the personal with the political, to weave together a fabric of agitprop that looks to history to provide a glimpse of the future.
The biographical element begins with Orwell, born Eric Arthur Blair in what is now the state of Bihar in India, questioning imperialistic rule. Using Orwell’s own words from letters, books and essays and narrated by Damian Lewis, “Orwell: 2+2=5” is a portrait of political awakening.
Using vintage movie clips, newsreels and contemporary footage Peck draws parallels between Orwell’s ominous vision of a world controlled by Big Brother, the totalitarian leader who wields complete power, and various governments now operating around the world. The usual suspects are essayed, including Ugandan dictator Yoweri Museveni, Indian Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, Israeli P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump.
As Orwell’s moral and political opinions take root, the film toggles between his personal observations on injustice and vintage and contemporary footage of how the author’s ideas of “newspeak”—ie: Putin’s classification of warfare against Ukrainian citizens as a “special military operation”—“doublethink,” the holding of two contradictory beliefs simultaneously as truth, colonial exploitation, historical revisionism, media disinformation and, of course, the core value of personal freedom, are as relevant and provocative today as they were when “Nineteen Eighty-Four” was published in 1949.
Peck doesn’t back down from presenting confrontational images and ideas. His juxtaposition of the mass 1946 execution of Nazis by hanging in Ukraine butted up against the US Capitol melee on January 6, 2021 feels overwrought, but should, nonetheless, inspire conversation, which is, ultimately, Peck’s purpose in making the film.
A two-headed hydra of a documentary, “Orwell: 2+2=5” works as both a biography of Orwell and a look at how his political observations and lessons are chillingly revelatory today. The ideas in the film aren’t exactly new, but the timeliness of his political philosophy is chilling. It’s a slick plea for the awareness of how totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere.
