Saturday, January 18, 2014

The Square

Up close and personal coverage from Cairo's Tahrir Square, the focal point of the Egyptian Revolution that began with the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011 after years of military brutality and oppression. This was followed by yet another ouster, this time of his successor Mohamed Morsi when similar practices continued and were even heightened in some instances, leaving the people continuing to battle the ongoing corruption and attempting to instill a fair form of democracy. The Square, an Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary, features extraordinary, often breathtaking footage taken by several protestors off the front lines (a knowing, successful tactic in displaying their government's ruthlessness), but runs into problems in terms of storytelling when the filmmakers attempt to transform their remarkable material into a movie, resorting to following a few revolutionaries who constantly regurgitate the same idealistic platitudes over and over again.