I just can't believe that even now, there are people like one reviewer on this page who are so nakedly towing the fascist party line on Genoa. The Diaz raid WAS as bad as this film makes out... at least, according to the severely injured and traumatized protesters, it was. And, call me crazy, but their take on the events matters a lot more to me than what some disconnected overseas film critic who wasn't even there has to say. Especially a critic who is more or less quoting the same anti-communist lines that the police in this film dispensed as they were beating people up...!
That aside, I want to say that this film, while overlong and brutal, is extremely hard to stop watching because it is so heartfelt. I was 24 when these events happened and I was attending the equivalent actions in London. Being that we were all so connected to the global anti-globalization movement (if that's not a contradiction in terms?) my friends and I were among the first people outside of Genoa to hear about the events at Diaz. Back then, I assumed from the descriptions given by Indymedia that it was pretty awful (they described the blood on the floor and walls, as well as the fact that women and elderly people were beaten in their sleep). Even so, I still didn't grasp the full extent of the damage until I saw this re-enactment. What would have been a good addition to this film, though, would have been to show some of the aftermath, in which various countries pursued justice for their respective citizens and were rebuffed by the Italian authorities with what can only be described as fascist zeal. This left the rest of Europe shaken, I believe, in the same way that the abuse meted out by the police left the left activist scene shaken. It was also a telling moment in the anti-capitalist movement, because it demonstrated how little the values of the masses actually mattered to the elite.
One interesting commentary that kind of sums the whole event up was made by Nick Davies of the Guardian, eight years after the fact. He wrote that, at Genoa, "the police acted as though somebody had promised them impunity". Since none of the assailants ever served time for their crimes, we can safely assume that that promise was upheld... and continues to do so. But by whom? I guess the answer lies is in the name of the entity whose summit the Genoa Social Forum was protesting against.
That aside, I want to say that this film, while overlong and brutal, is extremely hard to stop watching because it is so heartfelt. I was 24 when these events happened and I was attending the equivalent actions in London. Being that we were all so connected to the global anti-globalization movement (if that's not a contradiction in terms?) my friends and I were among the first people outside of Genoa to hear about the events at Diaz. Back then, I assumed from the descriptions given by Indymedia that it was pretty awful (they described the blood on the floor and walls, as well as the fact that women and elderly people were beaten in their sleep). Even so, I still didn't grasp the full extent of the damage until I saw this re-enactment. What would have been a good addition to this film, though, would have been to show some of the aftermath, in which various countries pursued justice for their respective citizens and were rebuffed by the Italian authorities with what can only be described as fascist zeal. This left the rest of Europe shaken, I believe, in the same way that the abuse meted out by the police left the left activist scene shaken. It was also a telling moment in the anti-capitalist movement, because it demonstrated how little the values of the masses actually mattered to the elite.
One interesting commentary that kind of sums the whole event up was made by Nick Davies of the Guardian, eight years after the fact. He wrote that, at Genoa, "the police acted as though somebody had promised them impunity". Since none of the assailants ever served time for their crimes, we can safely assume that that promise was upheld... and continues to do so. But by whom? I guess the answer lies is in the name of the entity whose summit the Genoa Social Forum was protesting against.