Mods - Lets see if we can discuss this on its merits as a film. Maybe there aren’t any redeeming merits. But, lets discuss and find out. We shouldn’t dismiss this film without at least examining what it says.
It’s been posted by several people. I’d suggest watching it before youtube finds an excuse to ban it.
I’ve watched the 13 min movie several times. I’m still unsure if it’s trying to make any social statements or not. I will say that there’s much easier & more disgusting ways to mock Islam in a film. Including dogs or pigs are obvious inflammatory examples.
I’m somewhat at a disadvantage because I haven’t studied Islam. I miss many of the films more subtle references. He is making an obvious statement about the violence inherent in much of radical Islam. Depicting the prophet covered in blood is a powerful statement. He’s also touching on the double standard of sexuality. Women must be chaste in public, but men pursue and sexually harass women behind closed doors.
Can we at least try and discuss this film calmly and rationally?
First of all, we can’t say what we think of the film because no-one has seen it and it may not even exist. We’ve seen a 13 minute trailer which is appallingly edited, and is really pretty poor as a criticism of Islam.
The fact that during filming all the actors thought it was about “master george” a fictional desert leader and that they then dubbed in the actual “muhammed” lines just proves Nakoula Basseley Nakoula is a sleazy coward. He has a right to say whatever he wants about Islam, he doesn’t have any right to use deception to endanger the lives of other people that thought they were making basically a fantasy film about a fictional desert tribe.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Theo Van Gogh are artists that put their own name on their work and made valuable statements about Islam.
A Muslim’s reaction to Muhammad Movie. I thought this gentleman’s calm reaction and suggestions for getting the film taken down were interesting.
As a Christian there’s been many movies made that I felt portrayed Christ in an inappropriate way. The Last Temptation of Christ was highly controversial and prompted many demonstrations.
We live in a society that values freedom for artists. Some films challenge our beliefs and even anger and disgust us. Art should push the boundaries and provoke discussion. I’m glad to live in a country that allows artists to express themselves.
I agree The Innocence of Muslims may simply be a cheap grab for attention. I’m still trying to decide for myself if he’s attempting to make any honest statements in the film.
I’d like my 13 minutes and lost brain cells back. The production values and acting rate somewhere between high-end porn parody and those Biblical re-enactment clips they show on Pat Robertson’s network. All of the references to “Mohammad,” “the Koran,” and other Islamic terms are clearly overdubbed, as you can tell by the sudden absence of echo and (in a few places) Godzilla-level asynchronous lip movements. Oddly, at least at first viewing (and only viewing, unless someone holds a gun to my head) the overdubbed voices sounded a lot to me like the same actors, so either they got the same people to dub in the “offensive” lines or found some pretty good mimics to do it.
If people hadn’t died because of it, I’d think it was hilarious that a piece of shit like this would end up seen by anyone, let alone foment chaos around the world. Now that much of the Muslim world has shown how ready and willing they are to be trolled, it won’t be long before some jackass teenager’s cell phone video is going to end up causing World War III.
That’s what puzzled me too. If this was trolling to get attention and cause trouble then there were much more inflammatory things that could have been shown.
The poor production values don’t bother me. I’ve seen and written college papers on far more primitive experimental theatre.
It’s a shame this film has sparked so much violence worldwide. Anyone with a camera and a youtube account can troll the Muslims. They may have to learn to ignore it.
I’m still not sure what the intent for this film was. It’s hard to know from a badly edited trailer. If a full movie exists then I doubt it will ever get released.
Well, if the point is to make Muslims look bad, you don’t have to be especially insulting in the film. Just make it mildly critical (or even less than enthusiastically praising), get a few people to write thunder-and-brimstone responses about how outraged they are, hope one of more Muslim governments needs a new public distraction this month, and voila - riots.
Well, apparently a real movie was made and had a screening. Only the trailer has been seen on youtube and other online sources.
If the Feds have the right guy, then he is Egyptian. I wonder if he was upset that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken power in Egypt? Somebody spent some money making this film. The article says there were 79 cast and crew on the project.
I was all ready to say that means it’s Oscar-eligible, but among other things a movie has to run for seven consecutive days to be considered for an Academy Award.
I tried to watch it, and it really is mediocre. I only got about two minutes in, and figured out that there are so many better things on which to spend eleven minutes.
So, from that quote that ‘no-one was there,’ there’s nobody who can say they just went along to watch this film? The only evidence for there being a full film, rather than some people being hired to film stuff for a 13-minute trolling trailer, is one person who may not actually exist?
I’m highly sceptical this film ever existed as anything more than the trailer and ever more highly sceptical it was the actual reason real people died.
