Control Room

Here's the sliver of hope: In contrast to everything we've been told, the people who run Al Jazeera turn out to be decent and level headed.

A surprising, puzzling and in many ways brilliant work.

May be most valuable for its depiction of the strength of democratic ideals, even in the most precarious and contradictory of circumstances.

Remarkable and timely film.

The film's buried message is that there is a reservoir of admiration and affection for America, at least among the educated classes in the Arab world, and they do not equate the current administration with America.

Shot during the March 2003 invasion and the early stages of the American occupation, it tells us more about how the channel decides what to report than we probably know about most American newscasts.

It is easy to point out gaps in Noujaim's account. (What, for instance, about the rebuilding that tries to go forward in Iraq?) But the prime importance of this film, I'd say, is that it is not an eye-opener. Of course this change in reporting, this bilateralism, has occurred so far only in wars where the U.S. was the overwhelming superior in force.