This review is mine and mine alone. It does not reflect the views of anyone at Twitch.
All of this for a 15 minute movie? Are you kidding me?
As has long been a policy of mine, If a reader ask me to review a film, the majority of the time, I will review the film. Well, last week, I was asked will I do a review of this 15 minute film. "FITNA" I said yes. Well I have watched the film and here is the review.
(At the time of writing this review, the above link was hosting the video)
The film starts off with a disclaimer that there are some very graphic videos and photos that will be shown in this movie.
For 15 minutes you are shown act of terrorism, People speaking about hatred towards the USA, UK and some very anti-Semitic speech highlights. You are also shown words from the Koran that incite hatred towards all non Muslims. It shows some very graphic scenes of the brutality thrust upon women. The last part of the film talks about the Muslim population in the Netherlands and then links radical Islam To the Nazi's and the Communist.
(Please read the Wikipedia link for more information)
Well the film ask one very interesting question? Will the west surrender to radical Islam? (My vote is no!)
In the study of propaganda, I learned a fact a long time ago. If you scream a lie, loud enough and long enough, the lie will soon become a truth. This is why I am puzzled by the reaction to this movie.
The maker of this film went after the radicals, who are using terrorism to achieve their means. He listed worlds from the Koran that state to kill or burn your enemies. He also showed speeches given in Mosques that incite war and hatred.
Now readers, All followers of the Muslim faith are not terrorist and he clearly shows that in this film. He is showing how the holy words on the faith are being mangled and used to incite those to kill in the name of ones love of their God.
In my opinion, the films goal is to warn against the radicals of Islam. In that part the film is correct. If you believe in freedom, democracy and liberty, then the radicals speeches that the film maker has captured will show you that they are a very determined enemy that want you to conform to them.
At the end of the day the final decision about the film worth or worthiness will not be decided by me, it will be decided by those who believe in free speech. I saw no hatred of all just a select few who are extreme. If you believe that this is a criticism of all Muslims then, you are sadly mistaken.
After I watched the film i was reminded about the movie Jesus Camp when I saw the 3 year old Muslim girl say that Jews were pigs and that the Koran said so. I recall the extremist in this film also. One is being called a hate video while the later was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature.
What will the west do?
Release Date Online March 28th.
There is nothing new shown in this little movie. The footage has mostly been ripped off the internet and newspapers. The extremes of Islam are shown, but only one side of the issue is adressed. The movie does not offer solutions, only shows us a problem we already knew existed.
The only reason anyone should be enraged by this short, is because of the terrible production value.. politics ok, but don't make it look like a two-year old with Movie Maker made it.
Great review...NOT
There's nothing much to review in these 15 films, as Chris said this is all stuff you've seen before used to make muslims look like maniacs. This is a film trying to excite Dutch people to go against the muslim immigrants instead to trying to persuade Dutch muslims to go against extremism.
I was thinking of writing a review for this, and placing it in the current political context within the Netherlands. But before I could see ALL of it (parts have been shown on the telly here ad nauseam) it was already yanked from the internet.
Its creator, Geert Wilders, is a rightwing politician who enjoys a big following because he's not afraid to speak his mind about subjects which other politicians fear to discuss, like problems with immigrants (illegal or not).
Problem is, when you get to the solutions he proposes for these problems it gets tricky. And he considers ALL Muslims to be a threat. Example: his solution to stop Muslim extremism in the Netherlands is forbidding the holy book Koran. Also he wants the religion of Islam to be forbidden because he considers it barbaric and anti-democratic. This film was supposed to explain his view to a wider audience.
Basically it's a huge publicity stunt. From the start this was mentioned to be THE follow-up (some even called it a straight sequel) to Theo van Gogh's 10 minute film "Submission", which told about the abuse of women in some Islamic countries and showed partially nude women with texts from the Koran projected on them. This movie enraged Muslim extremists to the point where one idiot took it upon himself to assassinate the director in 2004.
But unlike "Submission", "Fitna" is not made by an actual filmmaker but by a politician who, in my opinion, has badly stumbled with this cut-and-paste botch-job and has made himself look like the sort of crazy extremist that he is supposedly warning us about.
Not a minute of footage has been shot for this movie, it's all existing bits edited (sometimes stolen) together. I would even have said not a second is new but I'm not sure whether or not the text inserts count. :cheese:
And it's sloppy as hell. When telling about Theo van Gogh's murderer they show the wrong person (a local rapper who happens to be bald and have a beard, just like the assassin had). Bits have been inserted from other documentaries, without any warning to the makers that their voices and faces would be included. Unforgivable. You'd almost think Geert seems to hope someone less protected than himself will be murdered for this film so he can preach the evilness of Islam once again.
What Ardvark said. This "film" doesn't deserve the attention it's getting. I find the whole thing just sad, as I do Wilders and anybody who voted for him.
I think the most ironic part is probably that you could look at any number of jihadist sites and see videos cobbled together using virtually the same footage and quotes - which would never get a word of protest from most muslims who are currently going out of their way to voice their protest of this film, the Danish cartoons, etc. Then one avowed Western anti-jihadist splices them together into a short film with a different goal and they all go ape-shit. The hypocrisy is beyond belief.
To be honest, I thought it was fairly tame overall compared with any number of koran quotes and videos that could have been used. See the ongoing project "Blogging the Koran" at jihadwatch.org for some more detailed analysis.
Honestly,if i didn't know that the movie came from Geert Wilders;i would have thought that it was a propaganda movie from Al-Qaida.Wilders is nothing but an extremist who tries to divide the Dutch society so he could win more votes during the next elections.He uses the same tactic as Bush did to win his second term,and the same propaganda that Hitler did during the second world war.At one side you have one extermist Wilders and on the other side you have other extremist Al-Qiada and company.I really pitty the innocent hardworking Muslims and Dutch who are caught in the middle.If someone wants to criticize a sick minority who twist the word of God, he has to watch out of not offending the big majority who use the same religion for goodness.
Conclusion:Cheap ass 15 minute movie that does nothing but generalize people,because a nuance would not divide Holland and a good atmospeher would not earn him some extra seats in the parliament in a few years.
"At the end of the day the final decision about the film worth or worthiness will not be decided by me, it will be decided by those who believe in free speech."
Wilders wants to ban the Quran. Woohoo, go freedom of speech!
Seriously, this piss poor excuse for a documentary shares more similarity with Der ewige Jude than Jesus Camp.