Can't Get You Out of My Head

As a friend said, you have to let this wash over you like a painting. And I think I did and got rewarded with a wonderful conclusion that was neither naive nor cynical. Curtis is a masterful storyteller and curator of the marginalized while he never becomes a counterfactual historian. He tells the stories we know, but through characters that we decided to ignore and the question becomes: Is this still the same story? How much reality do we share?

I am a big fan of some of his previous works, but this one is just too long, ambitious, and unfocused. He succeeds in drawing lines between certain trends throughout 20th century world history, but a focused look at any one of those would have been a more palatable and enjoyable experience.

The global scope and span of time covered here make it in some ways Curtis' most ambitious work, even if some parts are inevitably more familiar. Some might say that these stories or parables about the origins of our contemporary psychosocial affective pathologies conceal an absence of analytical concepts, but it is up to us, not just to produce concepts, but ones from which worthwhile proposals can be made. The chorus of the concluding This Mortal Coil song, and accompanying montage, is genius.

S1: 9/10

We are living in the post ideology world for a while now and it's time for Curtis to finally accept it. Past and future are just human mental constructs while the present is all that we have. The irony is that people can't live in the present without the stories of past and future being here for us to use as crutches for what we don't like. Also, where's my Burial, Adam?!?!?!!?!

The information provided was at times fascinating, but the display of it is clunky, cumbersome and sluggish. So many times they just let the camera linger for no reason. It was infuriating to have to wait through the long stretches of boring and repetative stagnation. Overall, it was a chore to finish this, and it was not really that rewarded. I'm glad I watched, but it could have and should have been so much better.

The ambition is commendable and it in many ways succeeds, but I wonder if the whole subject isn't really suited for the format. I couldn't shake the feeling that this could just as well, or even preferably, have been a book or an article.

Deep journey through dark post war history, connecting things in unsettling, gripping and unexpected ways. Equally inspiring and melancholic.

Adam Curtis was never known for focused and tightly-edited storytelling but this series stretches too long and crosses too frequently between loosely-linked stories.