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Aug 19, 2006


(Repost from Aug 2004) You have seen F9/11, you felt it wasn't objective. Moore had a script, a pre-written story in his mind and his film was less of a documentary and more of a hard hitting goal oriented feature film. If these were your thoughts, make yourself walk that extra mile - go watch The Control Room.

The Control Room is an underrated but exceptional documentary about the Al-Jazeera network which is currently banned in Iraq, the same network which both the Americans and Iraqis blame is propagandizing for the other.

Jehane Noujaim, the Egyptian-American director was familiar to me from her earlier documentary - Startup.Com which I saw a couple of years ago. But The Control Room is in a league of its own

The joke going around in the film says that the people who used to work for BBC end up quitting their jobs and work for Al Jazeera.

The Al Jazeera headman, Samir Khader admits that if the dipped in red-white & blue news channel, FOX offers him a job he'll most probably accept. Moreover he discloses that he's planning to send his children for higher studies in US because he do not want them live the 'Arab nightmare'.

There are so many other valuable insights in the film that'll convert the one track telescopic vision of the world in to a stereoscopic one. Al Jazeera ceases to be an Arab news channel that faintly smells of terrorism and Bin Laden, there is a whole different world out there, only if you care to watch it!
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