Reviews

Standard Operating Procedure is a very disturbing documentary. The music and the images allow us to understand the prison and to see what went on in the prison. The clear context of the crimes against humanity that is so off putting and mainly off camera is contrasted with inviting film work that draws us into this story. There are very interesting images and techniques that are used that must be seen again for the simplicity and elegance of them. It is therefore a bit unsettling. Questions are asked and answered, but in doing so other questions arise. We find ourselves again asking for more information and questioning the truthfulness of everyone interviewed. Where are the commanders that ordered this to happen? Where are the political leaders that legitimated these behaviors? They are in the background. They seem to have run away to hide from the story and from history. Without pictures would we have been unable to see the abuses reported? Are we yet, with pictures, unable to see the real abuses? The aberrant seems to be the Standard Operating Procedure. We find ourselves questioning our own beliefs and wrestling with our own culpability.

The story telling in Chicago 10 is inviting. Once inside it transforms the audience into witnesses. With your own senses you see what many have for decades refused to see. It is a work well done. 1968 was a year that changed the US of A as much as May '68 changed France. The movie is not an history lesson. This movie brings us into that time in a way that allows us to reflect not only upon what happened in Chicago, but moreover what was yet to come in the USA. The trial of the Chicago 7 almost did not happen. Ramsey Clark the US Attorney General until January 20, 1969 was not going to allow this case to be prosecuted. After January 20th, Nixon's Attorney General John Mitchell made sure that the silent majority got their show trial. It backfired. The rest is in the movie.

The little tramp comes to life through Peter Seller's wonderful interpretation as Hrundi V. Bakshi. The timelessness of this comedy cannot be ignored. One can see the contemporary work of Ricky Gervais and Larry David's comedy throughout this movie. It has been said that "Sellers found in Blake Edwards a devoted director who could delicately underline and follow his comic rhythms. Edwards defined Sellers as a "mercurial clown" who could turn comedy into drama, and vice-versa, in an instant."

Because of Peter Seller's excellence, we may overlook the many other comedians' performances that Blake Edwards weaves into his tapestry. A good hearted easy pace allows us to enjoy the many comedians who support Seller's work. It is especially evidenced when viewed a second or third time.

It has been reviewed; it has been explained. For almost forty years now this movie has been a mystery to a vast audience because the viewers and reviewers miss the obvious: "How I Won The Won" is comedy. When one has the opportunity to enjoy this movie one will find that the director and writer worked well together to bring us a movie that one can enjoy again and again. Much like "Duck Soup" thirty-four years earlier made a mockery of the Great War, "How I Won The War" mocks the "good" War (The Second World War.) Richard Lester's directing style brings this movie to his audience in a similar way that Brecht brought "The Three Penny Opera" to his stage audience. Lester has an ability to force you to laugh at times when you wished you hadn't laughed. Now circa 2005, it is a movie that has been re-discovered for its vitality and its humor. Let yourself go, relax and enjoy a classic movie experience.

Having seen this movie more than ten times, over the last decade and one half, it as taken on many shades of meaning, but it continues to show how the more things change the more they stay the same. The reporter's sense of gathering news seems to be one of self-sacrifice and a search for truth however, the director shows how the American reporter possesses a quixotic sense of right and wrong that is overwhelmed by self-interest and self-indulgence not unlike the American public. He is unable to report with the clarity of a John Reed. Other points of interest are the visuals of the local life of peasants, who just want to live. They are shown to be no different than the peasants of Chile or Vietnam. Contrasting this life is the ruling elite that manipulates the meaning of the simple needs of the peasants into an ideology that threatens the middle class and the business interests that exploit the resources of this third world country. When the environment becomes so intolerable that the peasants begin to revolt, the forces of the ruling elite call on the American military might to help quell the rebellion. Here we discover the atrocities that become the daily part of life and bring the audience emotions out of its dispassionate viewpoint into one that feels the helplessness of a beaten people.

It seems to me that the director was more into making a movie than selling tickets. For this we are grateful. This movie is as fresh with insight and meaning as it was when it was released. Dr. Zim Robert