Good Enough for a God?

Rating: Null/10 (6 February 2009)

There's a scene early in this film that is reprised at the end. our hero at 40 says he's done nothing he is proud of, nothing that mattered. Then we follow him in the next 8 years until his death, where he -- we are convinced -- has. Its a patriotic story, and I cried. But the timing is bad for this effect, because its quite clear that in real terms we are not much better off as a nation after thirty years.
The country is more driven by Christian fundamentalism than ever, and remains more fundamentalist than, say, Pakistan. Gays are even more attractive scapegoats for rousing the base than ever before. Though the Anita Bryant of the events we see was publicly humiliated, we manufacture Anita substitutes in large numbers.
This ran through my mind, because though the life we see may have seemed significant, I wonder. And the same can be said of the film, and that's what this comment is about.
Van Sant knows how to make an effective film. This has all sorts of narrative devices based on recall, each of which reinforce the others.
Its framed by a tape made by the soon-to-be-murdered activist. It merges staged drama with real news footage (peppered with fake ones). It merges real and imagined threads in his life. Most profoundly, it merges clear "modern" visions of the Castro in its day with seemingly genuine footage as we would see it today: grainy, jerky, dated dyes. There are other intermingling of things from the time with modern ones. We notice them because the times are so close. Simple things like colloquialisms, political notions. Bigger things like the carriage of key characters, the cadence of speeches, even street chats.
This is all to say that there is a lot of very clever engineering here to fold us into the thing, its times and energies. But is it good enough?
Sure, we are glad that a "movement" was started. We celebrate his life at the end as we are supposed to. But is the project strong enough to change us? Surely I have encountered films that are powerful enough to turn lives, to crease souls. Does this material deserve something like that, or is it enough to make us feel right for its last hour? Can you have a powerful film and a simple celebration? Can significant true events be recounted in a way that causes more significant events  which is to ask whether the true can come from the true.
I only know that this film was fine. It worked well enough to engage and elicit patriotic urges. But I know it isn't good enough. No, and we need those that are.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.