Jehane Noujaim: Control Room (2004)

by Chris Knipp

Roughly, another point of view

Control Room gives a human face to Al Jazeera, a TV station unknown to most Americans (it broadcasts only in Arabic) and demonized by shills of the administration like Fouad Ajami in the New York Times Magazine and administration officials like Donald Rumsfeld. To see that several of Al Jazeera’s chief people are reasonable and articulate and not the least wild-eyed or rabidly anti-western or anti-American –- one of them, Samir Khader, even says he hopes to send his children to school in the US and would take a job at Fox News in a second if one were offered to him –- must be instructive for anyone with an open mind who watches this film. To see the invasion of Iraq briefly from the viewpoint of an informed Arab, as US press officer Lt. Josh Rushing also had occasion to do, must be an eye-opener for American viewers.

Lack of initiative and organization behind the production however make watching Control Room somewhat frustrating. Like Andrew Jarecki’s Capturing the Friedmans it’s a documentary with terrific material that fell into less than brilliant hands. This isn’t by any means a thorough study of Al Jazeera or its coverage of the US invasion of Iraq. The film doesn’t give a complete picture either of Al Jazeera’s war coverage or of how it’s produced, and we get hardly a glimpse of what its other programming is like -– though it’s possible that in the Arab world it's not the news footage but the station’s international call-in discussion shows that are its most significant element, because they provide instant dialogue among the Arab peoples across thirteen nations -- a power of communication that one day may have untold impact.

Lacking any striking organization, the film succeeds chiefly through the Al Jazeera folks’ willingness to talk to a US documentarian and being in a good place at a good time, just as Noujaim was for the Internet débâcle in StartUp.com . Not a world-class documentary, Control Room hasn’t a fraction of the structure and impact (and publicity) of Michael Moore’s Farenheit 9/11. But for Iraq-watchers, Bush-watchers, and media-watchers, it’s still a must-see. Merely placing an American camera inside the “control room” of Al Jazeera was, in itself, a radical act.
(For the whole review, go to http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?t=327)