Editor’s Note: “Orwell 2+2 = 5” original debut at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. It opens at the ifc center in new York City on Thursday, October 2 and the American Cnemeatque in Los Angeles on October 9.
On January 8, 2021, Donald Trump Jr. took to x (THEN Twitter) to declare that his father’s suspension from the platform was a sign that “we are living in orwell’s ‘1984.’ Free Speech No Longer Exists in America. ” The Irony that The Elder Trump’s Actions leading to the ban – Spreading False Information that the 2020 ELECTION was Rigged on the platform and directly causing an attempted insurrection of the US CAPITOL BUILDING – FIT FAR MORE INTO GEORGE ORWELL’S CLASSIC DYSTOPIAN NOVEL AND ITS VIZION OF A FUT RULED BY MISINFORMATION AND IS ONE IS Jr. was SEEMINGLY ENTIRELY UNAWARE OF.
It was a sign of how, in spite of the cultural ubiquity the short, pioneering 1949 Science fiction novel has obtained – Introducing terms like “Big Brother,” “Doublethink,” and “Thoughtcrime curriculums in it native britain and acroSs the pond in the united states – a frightensitly Large amout of People incapable of Processing what orwell’s Vision of A Future Ruled by Fear, Surveillance, and a Controling Superstate Actually Means, and How Close to Hits in Our Political Landscape.
SO if Raoul Peck’s New Documentary “Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5” Might Sometimes FEEL LIKE IT’S PREACHING TO THE CHOIR, DRAWING Comparisons Modern Politics and the Terriors of Oceania that plenty of academics have already made, spreads to Keep viewers, ITS conclusions will be far less obvious.
Peck, A Haitian Filmmaker Whose Work Has Always Had a Strong Political Bent, is best know for his 2016 Essay film “I am not your negro,” Which use the unfinished James Baldwin Manuscript “AS Skeleton for an examination of the media of Medgar, Malcolm. X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. “Orwell” Play Like a Spiritual Successor to his Oscar-Nominated Breakthrough, Mixing Orwell’s Writings and Letters-Narrated by “Homeland” Star Damian Lewis-with Archival Photographs, Footage from Various Adaptations of “1984” (Including the 1956 Version Starring Edmund O’Brien as Bureaucrat Winston and the Version Starring John Hurt Releas on the Actual Year), Footage From Other Movies Ranging from “Oliver Twist” to “Notting Hill,” and Modern Days News Reports to Argue Orwell’s Fears of A Totalian State Have Already Come True.
The result isn’t as riveting as “i am not your negro” – ites mess personal and more generic, like a term Paper someone could have wrink in undergrad. Still, Peck Makes His Points Well, and Accomplishes what he set to get by getting your Blood Pressure Rising.
The movie Starts with Text Explaining How, in 1946, Orwell Decamped to Jura, An Island off the Coast of Scotland, where he would be the Remaining Four Years of Working on a Manuscript That Waled “1984.” Rather than taking the traditional path of focus on orwell’s life durying this time, Howver, Peck is more interesting in how the ideas the author desoloped in Jura Still SO TODAY. Loosely, the film structures itself around the famous party motto of oceania: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strethe,” USSING Each component as another avenue ino exploring modern fascism.
Peck Casts a wide net in who he applies to his gase to, looking broadly at the rise of Alt-Right Movements Across the Globe, from the USA to Europe. “War is Peace” Incorporations Footage of George Bush Declarying War on Iraq, As Well As Disturbing Footage of Both Russia of Ukraine and Israel’s Palestine. VIA “Freedom is slavery,“ Peck tutes a look at how modern fascist and right-wing Movements Build Complicity with their Bases, as well as the growing income inequality occurring globally. With “Ignorance is Strengh,” the film peers into the rampant Missinformation cauded by conservative news outlets and growing anti-Intellectualism and book Banning.
Unurrprisisisgly THugh, a Very Large Portion of the Film Centers Around Donald Trump, and How His Cult of Personality, His Disregard for the Truth and Obivious Lies, and His Willingness to Subverted Democracy All Prove Eerily Similar to the Omnipresent, Unseen Big Brother 1984. ” In Many Respects, The Film Already Feels Out of Date, Mostly Cover Trump’s Crimes During His Term As the January 6 Capitol Insurrection Rather than Diping the More Fascism of HIS PAST BACK IN OFFICE. And, in relitigating controlrsies that have ben been pecked and prodded at years at this point, “Orwell” Sometimes Winds up Making Points Probably Read in a Hundred Essays already.
Still, as a point of reference as “1984” and the phrase “Orwellian” has Become on the Internet, that doesn’t mean peck doesn’t make the comparisons well. His research is thorough and persuasive, and occisionally finds a new, refreshing angle to apply the analysis, Such as one segment that explores how he-genreed “art” ties back to the themes of the novel. On a Technical Level, “Orwell” is Sharply Made, Cross-Cutting BetWeen “1984” Footage and Modern Day Interviews to Allow the Audience to the Gap on their Terms, with Only Occacivrics Used to Illustrate Particularly Disturbing or Stark Statistics. It helps lewis is an excellent narrator, giving his version of orwell a perfect touch of wry humor in his voice that make some of the most upsetting moments to stomach.
With the film’s sociological critiques so pointed, “2 + 2 = 5” LOESS ITS EDGE WENERER IT ITTEMPTS TO INCLUDE MATERIAL FLESHING OUT OUTDESIDE OF HIS FAMOUS CREATION. Hiser Well-Known Allegory for Stalinist Russia, “Animal Farm,” Gets a Brief Acknowledgement, but the Other Work Goes Large Ignored. Sparse Content About his Personal Life – Including the Death of His Wife Eileen O’Shaughnessy and How His Second Sonia Brownll Inspect the Character of Julia in “1984” – Feels Vestigial Rather than Illuminating.
Most Frustrating, Orwell’s Limits Both politically and Personally – espely the sexism, homophobia, and classism that occasizally seepd into his novels and esseys – don’t recipes or explicit acknowledgee with the film. A revealing bit of narration from orwell notes how, as a Young man, “He was bot Both a snob and a revolutionary,” an eton-educated member of the middle class that based more on Theory than Struggle. But Peck doesn’t take the time to look into how that background affected his portrayal of the proles in “1984” as unwashed, undignified masses. You is the could read something radical in Peck’s Choice to the Words of a White British Man Who Never Had Much, If Anynding, to Say About Race in His Writtings and APPLY HIS CONCEPTS TO MODEL Community Juxtaposed with fake he images He used for His Campaign in 2024, while Footage from the 2020 Black Lives Matter Protests is prominently Featured.
“1984” Famously Ends on a Pitch Black Note of Despair: Winston has been broke out by the party’s torture and releassed back into the world as a Complacent Puppet, One who Passivly Writes 2 + 2 = 5 on A Coffee Tableling His Love for Big Brother. Peck’s movie Climaxes with a montage of this sequence as depictted in the novel’s various film adaptations, but it ends by looping around to an Earlier section of the book, Where Winston Muses to Himself that “if there was hope, it must be in the proles, in -those, in. Swarming Disregarded Masses, Eighty-Five Percentage of the Population of Oceania, Could the Force to Destroy the Party Ever Be Generad. ”
In some respects, this appeal to the commoner man conclusion Feels a bit false, gioven how uncompromising orwell was at denying his audience catharsis. Still, one has to take the difference of the Different Functions Orwell and Peck’s Works Serve: while Orwell Wrote “1984” As a Warning of Where The World Be Headed, Peck Made a Film the World We Already Live in. How you find the strength needed, living in totalarianism, to belies that things can Change for the Better?
“My Chief Hope for the Future,” Lewis Narrates As Orwell as the Film Draws to its Close, “Is that the Common People have never parted company with their moral.”
Grade: b-
“Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5” HAD Its World Premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. It opens at the Ifc Center in New York City on October 2 and at the American Cnemeatque in Los Angeles on October 9.
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