THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2003 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): *** 1/2
Like one of the Weathermen's most famous moments, its "Days of Rage" riot in Chicago, the mesmerizing documentary about this 1960s and 1970s radical group, THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND, might have better been called HOURS OF RAGE, since that is probably how you'll feel watching it and thinking about it afterwards.
The Weathermen were a bunch of well-off white kids who broke away from the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in order to form a violent revolutionary movement -- which today we would call terrorists. One of them says that it was "like a children's crusade gone mad." Although they protested against everything from the Vietnam War to the plight of cement workers -- a job my dad once had -- their overriding goal was to bring down the United States government as we know it. "We wanted to become Communist cadre, completely committed to the revolution," one of them explains. They wanted "to overthrow the capitalist system and replace it with something more humane."
Like today's terrorists, they began to bomb targets of political significance. A clear forerunner to al-Qaida, the Weathermen even chose a common target, the United States Capital building. Luckily, in both cases, no one was hurt, albeit for different reasons. The documentary shows the dangers involved when groups resort to violence as a way to advance their political aims. The filmmakers, who were at our screening, said the Weathermen were "shrill and arrogant," which turned off many but inspired others.
I was a graduate student at Berkeley during the late 1960s and early 1970s and joined my share of anti-war protests, so this documentary certainly hit home with me. I remember those who engaged in acts of violence then and thought they demeaned a noble cause. I had forgotten the large number of bombings that the weatherman had caused. The film made vivid what I had, over time, trivialized in my mind.
The scariest part of the picture comes in the end. Although one of the bombers expresses guilt and remorse, more typical are the comments of one woman who says that she would happily do it all again. In fact she appears downright sad that her time of violent glory was over, and she was back to living a comfortable middle-class existence. THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND is a chilling, cautionary tale that needs to be seen by a wide audience. My only fear is that many will take away the wrong message from the film, thinking how daring these young revolutionaries were as they tried to blow up our government.
THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND runs 1:32. It is not rated but would be an R for graphic war violence, sex and nudity and would be acceptable for most teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States this summer. In the Silicon Valley it will be showing at the Camera Cinemas. The movie was shown recently at the Camera Cinema Club (http://www.cameracinemas.com/club) of Campbell and San Jose. The film is being shown next as part of San Jose's Cinequest Film Festival (www.Cinequest.org <http://www.Cinequest.org>), which runs February 27 to March 9, 2003.
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