Post by StevePulaski on Jan 16, 2018 11:15:13 GMT -5
The Final Year (2018)
Directed by: Greg Barker
Directed by: Greg Barker
Samantha Power speaks candidly in The Final Year.
Rating: ★★½
Three years ago, Greg Whiteley's Mitt came to be one of the most transparent documentaries ever made about a presidential hopeful amidst a hard-fought election. It found a way to minimize politics just enough to allow, for the first time in Mitt Romney's long, expensive campaign, a real person to come through all the political grandeur and boring, interchangeable talking-head that the then-Republican candidate was and always will be. It was an enlightening documentary, and most importantly, its focus was to humanize a person even the sensational media couldn't.
Greg Barker's The Final Year doesn't have the succinct focus, but as a result, it has broader implications than the hurt feelings and lost finances of Romney and his large family following the outcome of the 2012 election. It follows four individuals integral to Barack Obama's foreign policy. Where Mitt was concerned with the person, The Final Year is concerned with diplomatic policy as well as legacy in regards to Obama's final year as President of the United States.
The individuals tasked with the ostensibly insurmountable task of dealing with US relations across dozens of countries come bearing different titles and roles. One man is Ben Rhodes, who is in his late thirties and serves as a confidant to President Obama as well as a Deputy National Security Adviser and speechwriter. Alongside him are names you probably heard on Fox News or CNN in passing: Samantha Power, who serves as Ambassador to the United Nations, John Kerry, the Secretary of State and former Democratic presidential nominee, and Susan Rice, another National Security Adviser. Then, of course, we have President Obama, whose final months in office involve various meetings with these individuals, discussing everything from the Middle Eastern refugee crisis in addition to weighing options when it comes to whether or not the American military should intervene in Syria, where a hotbed of political turmoil begins to boil over.
For 87 minutes, we watch as conflicting interests and mutual desires for a better tomorrow clash throughout the Obama administration as everyone scrambles to provide some semblance of order for the next president. Rhodes, on one hand, doesn't pay much attention to the heated presidential race, and just assumes Hillary Clinton will win. He spends much of his time writing speeches for the president or briefing him in the halls of the White House during casual conversation. It's abundantly clear through his on-camera monologues that Rhodes's political philosophy and how he views the world has greatly been shaped by the way Obama views it, which is optimistic with a strong belief that the youth of the world will band together and continue fighting for change and equality.
Samantha Power, however, doesn't harbor that same kind of positivity. On top of being a devoted mother to a young six-year-old, Power spends a lot of her time traveling around the globe to impoverished or war-torn countries, such as Laos and Yemen, both places that share less than positive sentiments in regards the United States. She's given the thankless task given America's geographical and international ignorance, to try and act on behalf of an entire nation that shares the pain with these countries when likely more than half of her country's citizens can't point out these places on a blank map. But Power's up-close-and-personal look at the lives of these individuals makes her sick, and the congressional stonewall coupled with international charity being unpopular renders much else besides lip-service possible. This becomes more evident as Power and others come to the realization that the rest of the Obama administration will be succeeded in office following the election with people who may or may not possess the same proactive tendencies. She has a much more negative view on the direction in which the world is going.
The Final Year works best when it illustrates this divide within Obama's cabinet, even if it's a divide that doesn't disrupt the functionalism inherit to a successful president's term. Both Rhodes and Power clash over one the tone of one of Obama's last speeches as president. Power becomes critical of the optimistic, almost light-hearted tone by saying that there are clear and present trend-lines of democracy that are on the wrong trajectory. Neither her nor Rhodes are outright wrong, but one person comes with more firsthand knowledge and glimpses into the lives of people in other countries.
The Final Year could've been a documentary series, and likely would've worked better in episodic form. At 87 minutes, there's simply too much to show, and little attempt at meaningful chronology is employed besides the occasional newspaper or cable-news headline popping up on-screen from a month in 2016 you vaguely remember but cannot recall. Shots and extended scenes of closed-door meanings provide the kind of transparency that probably would've been better to get out to the public well-before the 2016 election took place, so people could see of the kind of see-through government Obama hinted at but mostly failed to deliver. Barker and his film-crew compile a lot of great footage but fall prey to the conventional misstep of documentaries that is trying to do much. Everything from humanizing each of these four individuals and their vital roles on top of getting candid interviews with the president step on the toes of cohesion, making for a hodgepodge of a documentary.
The film ends with a great monologue from Obama, who provides Barker and the film with one of the best quotes I've ever heard from him. He simply states, in regards to his prolific trips to monuments and historic sights in order to get a real look at the history that surrounds us as the human race, "we do the best with the link of chain that's allotted to us." The Final Year is a documentary that would've benefited from several more links to form a longer, more engrossing chain.
NOTE: The Final Year will receive a limited theatrical release on January 19, 2018 and air on HBO as part of their line of "HBO Documentaries" soon after the new year.
Directed by: Greg Barker.