“Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?”
Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?: Documentary provocateur Morgan Spurlock heads to the Middle East to find the notorious terroist mastermind.
Morgan Spurlock is the director and producer of the 2004 film “Super Size Me,” the outrageous story of a man, Spurlock himself, who ate exclusively from the McDonald’s menu for a month, and barely lived to tell the tale. Spurlock has a new film opening at Sundance in the Hilldale Mall. This documentary is built on the simple, singular search of the American-designated icon of the terrorist incarnate, Osama Bin Laden.
Spurlock lives in a two-bedroom, three-bathroom brownstone in the homey, comfortable neighborhood of Park Slope in Brooklyn, New York. Spurlock learns he is to become a father (He learns about it the same way we ladies do; his wife flaunts a pregnancy test kit that turns up blue). Like any parent, he wants his baby to be born into a safe world. But he listens to the American government propaganda machine; his baby is going to be born into a very unsafe world in which there is a $25 million reward out for the capture of Osama Bin Laden. So, Spurlock goes out in search of Bin Laden - not for money, but for his family’s safety.
While his partner goes to La Leche classes and sits in lotus positions to practice for the coming event, Spurlock goes into training for his mission: he gets some 50 vaccinations and consults with the kind of trainers Halliburton and KBR use for target training and bomb disposal. He is told to practice “ch” sounds for language training, grow a longer beard, and go to a tanning studio.
He goes to the Middle East and travels country by country to Greece, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the Gaza Strip and Israel with his question, “Where is Osama Ben Laden?”
He seeks but does not find. But along the way, he does encounter mistrust, distrust, and even bitterness and hatred from the native populations on all sides and in all questions of sovereignty. It is in the Jewish ultra orthodox neighborhoods of Israel where the hostility is the most intense. He eventually has to be rescued by the Israeli Army. There are always pathetic scenes of babies and children, old men and black clad women. In a square in Saudi Arabia, people’s throats are slit in the morning because they are criminals; in the afternoon, neighborhood boys play soccer.
Eventually, Morgan Spurlock’s baby is born in a bathtub filled with water with the mother and father both in the tub. Yet the film also features horrific pictures of the aftermath of killing fields. A picture of what must have been history is left to your imagination. You can bear with it to the end when the pictures change to show the humanity instead of the pathos and tragedy of before. “Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?” features humor, wit, and imagination through pictures of what must have been a horrific history. There are also smiles and laughter holding the promise of a better life someday. No war can go on forever, no matter what Bush and McCain prophesize about 100 years of occupation.
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