Documentry Review Article

Deceitful Documentary Denies Holocaust 

“The broad mass of a nation will more easily fall victim to a big lie rather than a small one.” These words, uttered by the infamous German leader Adolf Hitler, are now being put to the test more than sixty years on in modern day Iran. There the Iranian government is funding the creation of racist and inflammatory documentaries, such as Merchants of the Myth, which attack the validity of the Holocaust. 

Last weekend, I had the distinct displeasure of viewing this pejorative program, which aired on Iranian TV, illustrating the lengths that a deceitful director will go to position his audience towards accepting his warped view of reality. The documentary’s argument is black and white – believe the Holocaust to be a Jewish conspiracy to occupy Palestine or be an ignoramus, corrupted by the morally bankrupt West, under the control of powerful Jews. “Today 70% of the press is in the hands...” is the narrator’s dire warning. 

“How silly of me!” I gently chide myself. “Obviously it’s the Jews who are the racists.” Bah! Personally I will play no part in this idiotic Islamic indoctrination. For a documentary sanctioned by the Iranian government it seems strange to me that no production credits were forthcoming. Evidently no-one wanted to lend their name to a work which so grotesquely misrepresented the truth. 

Of course I know that even at the best of times, documentaries are merely a representation of the truth – a construction of the director’s views and opinions. Yet the last time I saw such a blatant manipulation of the truth was when we last had a Labor PM. At least we could vote him out of office! 

I mean after all, the Holocaust is one of the most well-documented events in history – even its survivors are still alive today. Survivors like Ben Stem, who can still recall his first moments in the death camp “The people sent to the left went to the gas chambers, and we went to the right.” Yet all this is silenced or constantly negated throughout the documentary by so-called experts such as Professor Robert Faurisson or by the narrator himself, with his trademark remark “Any discerning viewer with a historical curiosity can easily identify the exaggerations in the film.” 

In fact, you have to hand it to the narrator for his ability to put a spin on the truth as well as Shane Warne can put a spin on a cricket ball. His dry, slightly condescending tone, so often attributed to academics and scholars, works to position his audience towards accepting his version of reality as fact. Yet all the while he is launching a blatant attack against Zionism and the authenticity of the state of Israel. 

Unfortunately, this form of racism isn’t limited to just Iran. The other day I was surfing the net, (as part of my daily ritual of pre-work procrastination) and to my astonishment found hundreds of videos glorifying National Socialism, using footage from the Third Reich. There were also thousands of websites disputing the validity of the Holocaust, such as those established by David Irving, the renown Holocaust denier who has written numerous books on the topic. 

With such information on the net, you would have thought the producers of Merchants of the Myth would have easily found some dubious source to corroborate their findings. Yet strangely enough, none of the information referred to in the documentary is acknowledged or attributed to any sources. The narrator simply says “According to documents obtained.” I find it difficult to believe that anyone could be ignorant enough to accept the insidious insinuations of this documentary without a shred of evidence. 

The process of deliberate misinformation continued into the documentary’s interviews, where the interviewees were constructed as venerable and wise men. Their names were displayed along with vague credentials, such as Professor Robert Faurisson who was classified as a “French Revisionist Historian.” All the while throughout his interview the camera remained focused in a close up shot of his upper-body as if to show he had nothing to hide. 

Even the grainy file footage shot by the British themselves of the concentration camps is manipulated for use as evidence. “It is obvious that these were not cremators, but merely resting rooms,” is a typical explanation. The background music also seems to have been specifically chosen because of its grave and somber nature, as though the director is struggling to right some great wrong. 

Merchants of the Myth is nothing more than a cleverly presented piece of racist fiction. They speak of the Holocaust as a lie, yet they try to prove this by lying and manipulating the truth themselves. To the uneducated masses, this documentary might successfully position them towards accepting the director’s constructed version of history. However, it is inconceivable that it would convince an educated and intelligent individual, and in that regard, in the eyes of the wider global community, it has failed as a documentary. For, no matter how painful the past is, it must always be accurately recorded, for as the writer George Santayana inscribed “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Opinionated Feature Article

Don’t Pass The Box Of Tissues!

Sad life stories are nothing more than a cheap attempt by the author to sell their novel

There is nothing I despise more than the sombre writings of the wretched people of this world. The people who whose lives’ have been blighted by suffering and whose tales of adversity will frequently render many an individual teary eyed.

I have no sympathy for the author’s of such books, who can spin a tale better than most spiders can spin a web. As Thomas Carlyle once said, “a well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one,” and these stories of how the victims of vile villains vicissitudes vary excite me as much as having a bowel extraction.

Unfortunately the number of people with horrific tales of adversity who are now publishing books seems to be growing more quickly than the Australian economy at the moment. Auto-biographies written about the author’s experiences in a foreign country, such as Mao’s Last Dancer have been enormously successful, selling thousands of copies and making the author as famous and wealthy as most TV stars.

However, after the perceived success of some authors, the market has become swamped with these types of books, as writers seek to capitalise on this fertile niche in the market. Now these novels appear to be as ubiquitous as the very air we breathe. Take for instance the Writers Festival that was held a fortnight ago in Brisbane and saw some of the most respectable international writers in the world come together. There were more sad stories there than in the emergency department of a busy hospital.

Elizabeth Kim was one of the writers at this festival, and is well known for her auto-biography Ten Thousand Sorrows, about her turbulent and impoverished childhood in Korea. However today, after publishing her memoirs, she is shaping up to be one creative cash cropped Korean character indeed.

She describes her novel as a memoir “about a cataclysmic event... the killing of my mother by members of her family when I was a child.” Miss Kim uses more emotive language in her tale than The Bold and the Beautiful can fit into an entire season. Her first words of the prologue stated: “I don’t know how old I was when I watched my mother’s murder, nor do I know how old I am today.” Call me a cynic but these kinds of comments are intended to sell more books than act as a profound reflection on the author’s part. Don’t pass the tissue box just yet!

The way that we are so drawn to books that upset and disturb us reminds me of the song I Don’t Like the Drugs but the Drugs like me by Marilyn Manson. From the first line you are addicted to the drama of the author’s experiences, which is sometimes more potent than any drug. The blur of Miss Kim’s book acts as the first hit, stating how the author’s “American features doomed her in racist Korea.” From then on your average Western reader is hooked, coming back again and again for more, no matter how repulsive or sickening it becomes.

Let’s be honest. It’s not that we like what we’re reading, but the fact that we enjoy being reassured by the author of how superior our “civilised” Western culture is. These books are inherently racist as they are intended to undermine and judge the culture of a foreign nation. Most of us seem to love Mao’s Last Dancer simply because it confirms our preconceived notions of what life in Communist China is really like. There is more poverty and hardship to be found in this autobiography than in any book published by Charles Dickens. Yet somehow I doubt Li Cunxin would have sold nearly as many copies if he had titled his book: “My Life in Wonderful Communist China.”

The same applies to Elizabeth Kim. While her memoir is indeed a very sad and emotive book, packing more punch than a kilo of chopped onions, it nevertheless begs the question of why she wrote about something so obviously painful to her and made it public. She replied how it was not her initial intention to write this novel, “but someone who knew something of my life story approached me.” That didn’t happen to be the publishing company did it Miss Kim?

Maybe I’m just being cynical again, but I’ve never been able to help looking around for a coffin whenever I spelt flowers in the past. Getting emotional over a book that has obviously been written for profit makes as much sense as crying at a stranger’s funeral.

The influx of novels into the market describing tales of appalling adolescent affairs through to the trials and tribulations of adulthood is enough to make one weep. The personal stories of individuals from foreign cultures may thaw the coldest hard, but not mine. This style of writing is yet another way for publishes to do what they do best with books – sell them.

While your average reader may find these tales of woe disturbing, my only despair is if my next project is to analyse another one of these books. Yet with so many on the market, maybe I will need that box of tissues after all. §