What is a documentary film? Well, essentially it is a film that is supposed to document reality. There is a wide variety of documentary films. There are hundreds of historical documentaries and lately there have been some very popular political documentaries. Although, in my personal opinion, you will find that many of the late political documentaries have a partial agenda.
For example, Al Gore released an extremely popular documentary called “An Inconvenient Truth” that was about global warming. While many still say that global warming is not an absolute truth and that we are simply in a cycle of a small change in the world’s climate, this documentary asserts it as fact rather than theory. Provide only the evidence that supports the theory. While the documentary is quite interesting, it obviously has a very partial agenda.
Other popular political documentaries are the Michael Moore films, “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “Sicko.” Fahrenheit 9/11 was probably one of the most controversial movies of the last decade. It contains outrageous comments about the Bush administration and even refers to the media as “cheerleaders” for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Many people supported it, but those who didn’t like it found it necessary to make a rebuttal documentary of their own titled “FahrenHYPE 9/11”. The documentary is dedicated to trying to prove that many statements that were made in the Fahrenheit 9/11 documentary are false.
Sicko sparked his own wave of controversy. He commented on how poor the US government healthcare system really was. I don’t think it has had that much of an impact simply because most people are aware that the quality of our healthcare is so much better than most other countries, it is only the cost that is killing everyone. Michael Moore takes it to another level by stating that even some third world countries have better healthcare. I think almost everyone knows that this is simply untrue. You can simply take a look at the rampant diseases in those areas to determine the truth about it.