Customer Reviews

Tribulation 99

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The disc actually contains three inventive, odd short experimental documentaries.

Wild Gunman (1978, 3 of 5 stars). 20 min. Using cut up pieces of westerns, Baldwin
explores the military macho myth. Has its moments, but not as strong as the other
two shorts.

RocketKitKongoKit (1986, 4 of 5 stars) 30 min. Again, Baldwin uses cut up pieces of
Hollywood, instructional and government films, to tell the story of how the West
destroyed the Congo, then turned it over to a madman they continue to support.
Very informative, and a truly different way to deal with documentary storytelling.

Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America (1992, 3.5 of 5 stars) 48 min. Baldwin's
most extreme mix of real footage and B-movie silliness tells the story of the US domination
of Latin America, but reinvented as the tale of a a fight against evil aliens.

What is funny and creepy, is how close to reality this fictional paranoid version of the US fight
against the left is.

Baldwin has managed to make political hard leftist films without being didactic or boring,
that, in itself, is an accomplishment.

I've been hearing about this unique film for years now, since a good friend and associate from WCBN-FM told me about seeing it at Ann Arbor's Film Festival some years ago. Surprised to find it available on DVD, I was happy to order it and see it for myself. It does not dissapoint! Narrated in a sort of "hush-hush" nervous whisper, the film purports to "tell the truth" about the communist conspiracy in Central and South America. It does so by using stock footage of various political figures and fifties b-movie sci-fi thrillers clips, and "suggesting" that the communists are in fact alien invaders, mutants who came from a paralell world, slipped through crevices into the earth's crust, where they bred with snakes. In fact, in its round about way, it tells an accurate history of the US C.I.A.'s direct involvement in the overthrow of a number of popularly elected governments. Thank god that the CIA were there to save us from the...ALIEN conspiracy -- or not! This film is not for everyone -- you'll need to dig irony and sci-fi or art films -- but it IS amazing!

Praise the almighty "BOB"! this fil crams into a brief 48 minutes what most of the sci fi and conspiracy section of your local video store try to fit into entire genres and walls of the video store. Hail the mighty eris for she showed this mind blowing and paradigm imploding flim to me back in nineteen ninety six, after an all night marathon of bing decadence and bauchaus style memories, and this movie tops all those memories combined! drop all of your preconceptions and sit down with a dear friend and watch this film at least three times consecutively, and will scrape the mucus off your brain and all will revealed. snatch a copy today!