AN AMERICAN IN EUROPE

It is a bit strange being an American in Europe these days. I am now into my second week here, attending two of Europe’s most socially conscious film festivals, the Rotterdam International Film Festival which concluded last week and the current Berlin International Film Festival, one of the most intense on the Festival circuit.

I have not heard a word of anti-American feeling, even though I know it is strong. I have not been the target of any anti-American political criticism, even though the positions of the majority of the Europeans I encounter is clearly anti-war and anti-Bush.

The strangeness comes from an unexpected place. After being in the United States for the past few months, and living through the disasterous Presidential election in November, I was keenly aware of how so much of the information about my country’s isolating political positions and ill-conceived foray into war in Iraq was expressed by the supression of images.

In America, we are not allowed to see photos of our returning dead soldiers, coffins wrapped in the American flag in full military style. In America, we cannot see the images of the suffering of normal Iraqi citizens, caused by the bombs dropped by American planes or the car bombs set off by the insurgency.

In fact, we are “spared” such images because it is understood by our political officials (quite rightly) that if we citizens would witness the suffering, hatred and contempt that our course has created, that we would be stimulated to put an end to this misadventure in a matter of months.

If Iraq is this generation’s Vietnam, it is not a completely accurate picture. In that earlier war, once television viewers began to see images of the death and destruction on their television screens every night, the mood began to change and a true resistance began to emerge that went beyond the protest on college campuses.

So, what does this have to do with film and the current film festivals I am attending? After living in a media vacuum, suddenly I am surrounded by images that are strictly verboten in my own country. Documentaries showing the true horrors of war, fiction films exploring the connectedness of our global community, and an international outlook that makes it so clear how isolated we Americans have become.

While FAHRENHEIT 911 explored the heart of the matter (and the Bush dynasty’s involvement with the conservative autocratic regimes in the Middle East, particularly the Saudi royal family), we still have not seen images that give the victims a human face.

In Rotterdam, I attended the world premiere of a film that was shot, underground style, on the mean streets of Baghdad, with destroyed buildings everywhere, people walking the streets in a state of numbness, and the constant sound of gunfire in the background. In the film, a group of artists and intellectuals attempted to make a film about the horror that surrounded them. The camera lingered on the faces of a people that we barely understand, and instinctively brought our instincts for human feeling, compassion and empathy.


In Berlin, various fiction and documentary films cast the United States as a power-mad destroyer of human values and a polluter of dreams for a more enlightened future for the planet. While some of these films could benefit from a more balance point of view, it is intriguing to understand the strongly held views that have isolated America from its allies and friends, and made us an international pariah viewed as being only concerned about our own survival.

Being in the company of such a diverse community of film artists and industry executives, it is humbling to realize how much information we are shielded from, how many images are not part of our everyday experience. We are isolated in a way that I have not experienced in all my years, when America still stood for a moral, democratic and inclusive ideal.

My international colleagues, who certainly do understand that there is a difference between the American government and a great majority of the American people, speak to me imploringly, looking back with great nostalgia to the Clinton years, when America held a moral stature that threatens to wither away.

To be reminded that the world is a big place, that it is not divided into allies and enemies, to understand my place in a community of thought and belief in a better future……I wish more of my countrymen could have this enlightening experience.

Yes, due to the weak dollar, a cup of coffee can exceed US $5.00, and one looks twice at the price tags before buying that piece of clothing or that gift for one’s friends and family, but the biggest adjustment is from a society with a death grip control of its media outlets to a more open environment where varying ideas can co-exist and where debate is welcomed and not considered unpatriotic.

To be an American in Europe is an eye-opening experience. But how will I feel when I return to the United States in a few days, and the veil of “protection” of images that stir our hearts and our souls again becomes the reality? Only time will tell.

Sandy Mandelberger
Industry Editor