HyperNormalisation
“How did we get here? Here, the 2017 world with violent populists being elected from the USA to Philippines… Here, a world of dramas, human disasters that we watch live on our TV-screens without batting an eye… Here, a world where our identity is defined by consumerism, mercor ergo sum – which we know to be fake but we keep buying (it) to drown our confusion. Yes, how did we get here?
From the implementation of neo-liberal regulations, the rise of dangerous tycoons such as Donald Trump or tech utopians in the to the disengagement of elites and artists from the political arena or the recent fall of Gaddafi, Adam Curtis embarks us in an exploration of how we created a bowdlerized version of the world, flatten of all its complexities, where everything became normal, too normal, hypernormal…
The documentary is intense (both in the amount of information and the length) and disturbing. If the story mainly focuses on the West, similar scenarios of collective withdrawal can be observed worldwide. Curtis’ very own style of storytelling breaks away from regular documentary journalism and is a powerful tool to force us to think of what we’ve been doing – or not doing. A must-watch.
Director: Adam Curtis, BBC
Released: 2016
Duration: 166 min
IMDB ratings: 8,3/10
More info: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/02d9ed3c-d71b-4232-ae17-67da423b5df5