DVD: The Fog of War

The futility of (The Fog of) War

The DVD rental sites are letting us catch up on some of the movies we missed at the cinema. This evening's offering: The Fog of War. Being the lefty peacenik that I am this documentary naturally fuelled my "war is bad" point of view. But, much deeper than that, it took me to a place I hadn't visited since my teens - a world where our total annihilation was just a button press away.

It's interesting to ponder that all those times I sat in my bedroom thinking that we could all die at any moment, we could have died at any moment. If this documentary is anything to go by we were lucky to have made it that far. That knowledge probably wouldn't have helped my teenage mood, as I wondered what was the point of doing anything if we were living on borrowed time. My apathy can be easily explained - the only other reaction to certain death is to go crazy, fuck around, but sex meant death during the constant adverts, talks and Government campaigns about AIDS (whatever happened to the HIV virus? I assume it was cured since no-one really talks about it these days, must check the BBC news website).

Life lessons

The final lesson offered in the documentary is: You Can't Change Human Nature. It was this point that brought a tear to my eye - not the wars, the bombings of innocents, the deaths of conscripted soldiers. You see, I have a real problem with humanity. I hate that people can't get along in any capacity, whether we're talking about countries, communities, neighbours, the people you work with, your family. We're nasty to one another. Just think about it for a moment and I bet you can name at least one person (probably more) in every area of your life that is mean and vindictive, willing to injure your feelings or your interests without any care for what it will do to you.

I was so appalled by human nature as a teenager that the first time I saw the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers I wondered what the problem was. In the movie, humans are replaced by emotionless copies all working towards the same goal and all completely equal - no one at the top of the pile living off the misery of others. Seemed fair enough to me.
So, while I like my cinema to be thought provoking, I really wish The Fog of War hadn't led me back to that particular thought.