Film Screening: TAKING LIBERTIES

Irish Film Institute

6 Eustace Street,
Temple Bar,
Dublin 2

Chris Atkins will attend the screening in IFI

A summary of recent attacks on free citizenship in Britain, this documentary was made for cinema because such a ‘one-sided’ (i.e. honest) appraisal of the Blair regime’s record would not survive the requirements of ‘balance’ (i.e. censorship) on television. Supported by the producers of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, the film apes his populist combo of comic buffoonery and acid commentary in romping through New Labour’s neurotic erosion of rights to privacy, protest and freedom of speech, and the more-or-less tacit embrace of imprisonment without trial, unaccountable extradition and torture. Emphasising the personal experiences of a wide swathe of victims – from peace protesters to those persecuted in the War on Terror – the background to a convincing picture of escalating totalitarianism is then sketched via animated vignettes of the history of legal ‘checks and balances’ on state power over the centuries, set against a jaunty Britpop backdrop.

Reviews

http://libcom.org/library/taking-liberties-written-dire...eview

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/jun/08/documentary

http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2007/06/04/taking_liberties_...shtml

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