May 26, 2009

New World Order

Directed by Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel

Premieres on IFC Network May 26 at 6:45 p.m. ET

Runtime: 83 min.

Up-and-coming filmmaking duo Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel’s latest doc, New World Order, admirably humanizes the “9/11 truthers,” a seemingly impossible task they accomplish handily by never condescending to or patronizing their less-than-credible subjects. Led by filmmaker/radio personality Alex Jones, the group’s most vocal mouthpiece, the “truthers” insist that the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11 was an inside job orchestrated by The Bilderberg Group, a shadowy international organization comprised of foreign and domestic businessmen and politicians. Meyer and Neel let a few of them tell their stories with a minimum of editorializing, arguably only inflating beyond its natural scope the fears and unshakable anger that fuels them: They exaggerate only where necessary and only what the “truthers” willingly put on display.

The most potent message New World Order conveys is its refusal to flinch in the face of what many would call fanaticism, training a focused, steady eye on their subjects without hastily making a satisfying knee-jerk judgment. Through the tears, constant rallying, paranoiac rants and hypocritical disclaimers of their subjects, Meyer and Neel remind us that these conspiracy theorists are not to be pitied but rather understood as people doing what they earnestly believe is their civic duty. They’re rabid and frankly more than a little nuts. For example, in the impending apocalypse, red and blue dots on mail apparently determine whether you get taken to a FEMA camp or get shot on sight by stormtroopers—but they’re also a determined and militantly organized group that dares you to ignore them.

Every point-of-view can easily be accommodated by Meyer and Neel’s sprawling footage, from the people that dismiss the group because they believe “truthers” want to simplify the reasons for 9/11 and President Bush’s “War on Terror”—after these theories “everything becomes simple,” as one “truther” says—to the people that insist that they’re just misguided by their personal pain: “They have no clue how real we are,” says another as tears well up in his eyes. Even people that want to believe they’re uncovering some hidden reality buried in grainy, almost certainly Photoshopped images and so-called eyewitness reports will find plenty of convincing ammunition in Jones’ words.

Jones is easily the most mercurial and intriguing figure of the bunch. One moment he rejects the idea of being pinned down as the spokesperson and hence the originator of the "Truths" he propounds, but in another, he eagerly takes his place at the head of a mob and curses Geraldo Rivera for being a silent accomplice. Consumed by righteous anger, he casts the middle finger of blame liberally and is by no means an easily relatable martyr—though he proudly proclaims that his methods are non-violent, his spittle-flecked bellowing is an assault all its own—but he’s also right when he says that we need his kind of muckracking now more than ever.

Still, it’s not the group’s rebellious spirit that makes them pariahs. Rather, it's their out-and-out creepiness and tactlessness. The question the film accordingly tries to answer is whether or not it’s possible to fully relate to the pain of such insistent political proselytizers strictly through shared pain. Ultimately, the answer is no, but Meyer and Neel put up a valiant fight and never sink to the level of pitying Jones and his buddies.

The caricaturish red state mannerisms that many “truthers” exhibit are never exploited but rather exhibited as just one of many defining characteristics. Some of these people are born-again Christians and some are gun-toting trailer park residents but shock of all shocks, none of them are inarticulate nor are they oblivious to the fact that they’re persona non grata. Refusing to paint Jones’s cabal as the boogeymen they appear to be isn’t necessarily a daring act but, considering the insensitivity of the group’s message, it’s certainly a humane and affecting one.

www.nypress.com/article-19842-new-world-order-testing-testing.html