Taking Liberties [2007]

Average customer rating:

Liberties taken

An important film all its own

Building a scaffold to hang our freedom on

4 Stars in The Times

Leaves nasty taste in mouth

Taking Liberties [2007]
Director: Chris Atkins
Manufacturer: Revolver Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Taking Liberties

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ASIN: B000S6UZRO
Release Date: 2007-10-15

Customer Reviews:

Liberties taken.......2008-02-29

This is a film that should be seen by everyone. It is terrifying to see how far we have travelled down the road to a police state with our eyes closed.

An important film all its own.......2008-02-18

I actually bought the CD soundtrack to this movie last year, long before I recently saw the film on DVD, and was not sure what to expect from the movie. Was it just Fahrenheit 9/11 in drag, or something new and original with a message all its own?

I needn't have wondered: this film is fantastic -- and long overdue. This focus of this important documentary work by director Chris Atkins focuses on the loss of civil rights, privacy and legal protection by British citizens in particular, with the filmmakers carefully avoiding the 'talking head model' of TV documentary in favor of interviewing common people who are on the front lines of defending those rights in British society.

That said, though, the same loss of liberties has been happening to the citizens of other countries whose governments have been blindly supporting the so-called 'war on terrorism'. One can only hope that the makers of Taking Liberties will see fit to give this movie Japanese subtitles and screen it over here in Japan, where the loss of civil liberties since 9/11 in some ways is worse than in Britain.

And then there are the extras. Taking Liberties, like most British independent documentary DVDs, has lots and lots of great extras that complement the interviews in the cinema version and strengthen the film's basic premise. You definitely get your money's worth here.

Merely the 'U.K.'s answer to Fahrenheit 9/11'? Far from it. Taking Liberties is an artistic masterpiece of social commentary that stands on its own, with an important message at the end of the film about who really has the power to change things in society. So ignore all the critics and detractors of this film (wink, wink), and buy this DVD and share it with everyone you know. Tony Blair, for one, will *not* be glad that you did.

Building a scaffold to hang our freedom on.......2008-01-12

This documentary has been attacked as one-sided and partisan. There is certainly no doubt that it passionately argues a case rather than presenting both sides of the argument without making judgement.
Yet it is difficult to see how any rational person without a vested interest could argue against the principal charge that our traditional rights and freedoms are under threat.

The scaffold on which are freedom is to be sacrificed is being erected plank by plank as this documentary details. First our right of protest is being restricted. New laws and worrying application of civil injunctions together with draconian actions and 'in-your face' surveillance by an increasing politicised police force.

Second, rights stemming from the Magna Carta are being removed. Detention without trial in our country in the form of tagging and house imprisonment and a blind-eye to US torture and detention in places like Guantanamo.

How do our leaders justify all this? They talk of public protection and defending democracy. The documentary, however, makes the case that we are not considerably safer but we are a lot less free as a result. One also is led to wonder if we would need all this 'protection' if we had a more reasonable and equitable approach to Muslim and Arab countries. Tony Blair knew that an occupation of Iraq would lead to an increase in terrorism. We have known for years that a slavish anti-Palestinian policy creates ill-will. Yet the same people who have created the problem now offer to protect us from the consequences - at a price!

This documentary holds your attention and serves to warn us all of the Police State that we may slide into. The most damning part of the documentary isn't the graphics, the interviewees or the commentary. It is the clips of Blair standing silent next to Bush as he lies about Guantanamo, the evasive performance of Jack Straw when questioned about torture and Blunkett in the Commons justifying his illiberal policies. It also shows ordinary folk exercising good sense and standing-up for their rights and those of their passive and silent fellow citizens. Far from being depressing it is inspiring - a clarion call to defend our hard-won rights.

4 Stars in The Times.......2007-11-06

The Times
June 7th
James Christopher

Chris Atkins's film Taking Liberties is a grainy piece of newsreel montage about the Labour Government's broken promises over civil liberties. It begins with a coach journey to an antiIraq War rally where the police arrest assorted pensioners for wearing masks. It ends with the same piece of footage nearly two hours later, after charting the Government's extraordinary knee-jerk reactions since "the War on Terror" was declared.

I came out of this eloquent mugging exhausted and in despair. It's a film that champions free speech by a director who once championed Blair. But the case is pure dynamite. Would the Tony Blair of 1995 defend the Tony Blair of 2007? The montage of evidence suggests that we have been living in a police state for almost ten years. Atkins documents the creeping grip of CCTV cameras and the blizzard of new laws that stifle simple freedoms. The film asks hard questions about the effect the Iraq War is having on personal privacy - and the answers are shocking.

What happens to our ancient democratic rights when we need them most? The portly figure of Boris Johnson looms large and sensible out of one short interview with some wonderful advice to Government about identity cards: "Just butt out of it."

Leaves nasty taste in mouth.......2007-10-24

Thoughtful and scary documentary detailing the frightening extent to which Britain's government has curtailed civil liberties and extended the police state. It shows the police as dumb puppets of the regime; you realise how something like Nazi Germany happened.
A word of warning to potential viewers, particularly those with children around: This is a 12 certificate film (it's not a 15 as Amazon has it - they're wrong, check the bbfc website) yet includes around TWENTY-FIVE uses of the strongest language, spread throughout the disc, including the extras. I found it incredible and disgusting that such language didn't warrant more than a 12. The feature itself contains two or three F words and around a dozen uses of the C word, all coming in a pitiful closing obscene song by a hasbeen singer. It's a childish yet offensive way for the film to close, and it soured the experience for me.
So, be warned: the bbfc has taken leave of its senses - maybe the examiners don't actually watch the films any more - and this 12 film contains masses of foul language.

Amazon.co.uk Review

Whether as a subject for historical investigation or social drama, the war in the former Yugoslavia is made for film, as 1997's Welcome to Sarajevo demonstrates. Inspired by the book Natasha's Story by ITN reporter Michael Nicholson, this takes very much a human-interest angle on the conflict. Stephen Dillane plays a journalist whose involvement moves from the professional to the personal as he faces up to marauding Serbian mercenaries, then family ties, to get the apparently orphaned Emira out of Sarajevo and back to the security of his own family in the UK.

It could have been awash with journalists-are-good-guys-really sentiment, but director Michael Winterbottom is mindful to present the story in the context of the siege--some of the filming here is harrowingly realistic--and draws responsive performances from a cast including Woody Harrelson as a hard-living American reporter and Marisa Tomei as an aid worker determined to save children's lives at all costs. As a film about the "why" of the Yugoslavian war, Pretty Village, Pretty Flame is unsurpassed, but Welcome to Sarajevo is a potent look into the "how".

On the DVD: Welcome to Sarajevo comes to DVD with a decent 16:9 anamorphic picture and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound that has the necessary immediacy. English subtitles are included, rightly so in a film of this nature. Special features include 30 minutes of interview snippets with cast and crew, "on location" sequences and three theatrical/TV trailers. --Richard Whitehouse

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