HottWwjdIam There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

Delight Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Ersbel Oraph Adam Curtis is in the business of selling veiled conspiracies. Or better giving conspiracy arguments, while masquerading as reasonable. I like the drastic drop in narration. That is an extra point for a film maker like Adam Curtis. No more "those in power" without giving names or "political leaders" with no references. This time is a blend of footage stitched together rather nicely.Sadly this movie remains an Adam Curtis product. Curtis has wonderful and strong powers of hindsight. So 30-40 years later the mistakes are clear. The facts are mostly circumstantial. The data scarce. Bonus: the silent parts are mostly irrelevant to the main story and they are brought only to enhance the emotion.Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch

saunderspd Bitter Lake is described as "a new, adventurous and epic film that explains why the big stories that politicians tell us have become so simplified that we can't really see the world any longer".Unfortunately this is somewhat at odds with around 20mins (if that) of explanatory content in a film with a 136min runtime and the majority of that explanatory content consists of flat statements made by Curtis. I'd hoped for 136mins of well researched dense substantiated content what I got was a childishly simple narrative spaced out with some 100+mins of beautiful footage (much of it irrelevant or unexplained). Spend 5mins on Wikipedia and you'd learn more than you would from this film...To describe this as a deep and multi-layered documentary on its subject would be as naive as taking a politician's sound-bite at face value.3 stars for the footage and soundtrack. None for the research and exposition.

smeltman Bitter Lake is for the most part a history of interventions in Afghanistan by the US, the UK and also Russia since halfway the 20th century.The film follows the extremist Islamic idea of Wahhabism. It was transported east through the Arabic world, influencing the formation of the Taliban, Al Quaida and ISIS. All because the US accepted the idea in the partners they dealt with while looking for oil.It's an interesting documentary, told mostly chronologically. This allows Curtis to compare events through time, for example the Russian invasion to the more recent western occupation.A lot of the footage that is shown is filmed in Afghanistan and this stresses the constant violence the land has to witness. Because of the many groups involved in each area, enemy is a diffuse term there.The film is advertised as epic on the BBC Iplayer but could have been shorter. In the first half there were shots in between the narrative that could have been left out. But all in all Bitter Lake offers a perspective that is great at telling us something about the modern world and a lot about Afganistan.

davehooke1973 'And so the story goes, they wore the clothes to make it seem impossible. The whale of a lie like they hope it was.' The music of the chameleonic, ambiguous, faded jaded star who fell to earth and sold the world is the key to this film, which challenges the very concept of a documentary. Is this postmodernism in extremis or a clarion call to revolution? That question is the very point. Curtis presents a very clear and persuasive narrative of world events over, no, within a surreal AND undeniably real meditation that is at once document and dream. It is as true and fabricated and horrific as Apocalypse Now while being somehow less stagey. The footage is real. Most of it. (Although Bowie could be as stagey as any marionette or as sparsely bleak as the shellshocked junkie). Bitter Lake is a documentary about Afghanistan. And the modern world. The media. Itself. Chameleon, corinthian, and caricature. It is an attempt to be as contemplative as Tarkovsky, as bitterly ironic, and yet it is clear that Curtis is trying to tell not (only) an artistic truth but a historical truth. The good men of tomorrow, according to the Western forces, turned out not to be what they seemed, buying their positions with heroin and trust. The complexities of Afghanistan's politics and the relation of Afghanistan to world politics, these are not just tackled by Bitter Lake, they are evoked. Is the lake beyond comprehension or can we come to terms with it and ourselves? Bitter Lake is never as glib as that question. You could say it was postmodern and experimental, but it seems too well constructed, or perhaps dreamed, to dissolve into a sea of perspectives. Perhaps it is something new. A myriad that reassembles itself into a guided missile. It certainly feels vital, important, but from these shores the eventual impact is... far off. I might just slip away.