For the "I Hate This Culture" file

From Daily Variety's review of a Sundance Film Festival documentary entry:

A horse is a horse, of course -- unless it's the one at the center of "Zoo," a breathtakingly original nonfiction work by Seattle-based filmmaker Robinson Devor (whose "Police Beat" was among the highlights of Sundance's 2005 dramatic competition). Based on the widely reported July 2005 incident in which a man died of a perforated colon after getting intimate with an Arabian stallion, pic will disappoint those seeking cheap, perverse thrills and likely baffle as many viewers as it intrigues. But enthusiastic reviews and sheer curiosity value should bring healthy specialized biz and strong festival interest to this ThinkFilm release.

[snip]

Given a premise that smacks of sensationalism, Devor and co-scenarist Charles Mudede have taken anything but an exploitative approach. They've crafted a subdued, mysterious and intensely beautiful film that presents bestiality not for the purpose of titillation (a la the 1970s porn films starring Bodil Joensen) or comic relief (as in last year's "Clerks II"), but as a way of investigating the subjective nature of morality.

In "Zoo," Devor and Mudede show considerably less interest in the events of that July night than in the circumstances that brought them about -- specifically, the online world of zoophiles, of which Pinyan and others at the scene were members.

The men speak with remarkable candor and lack of embarrassment, explaining their animal affinity as a natural desire. ... Despite the film's compassionate approach, the question of whether these men were right or wrong is one on which the filmmakers reserve judgment, instead turning their attention to the larger question of how human beings have revised and re-evaluated codes of acceptable behavior over the ages. ... The film's dramatic re-enactments, shot in lush 16mm by cinematographer Sean Kirby (previously responsible for the equally impressive 35mm widescreen lensing of "Police Beat") create a fascinating blurring of the line between narrative and documentary storytelling, reminiscent of the work of Werner Herzog and Errol Morris.

Yeah, I bet those dramatic re-enactments are fascinating.

I'm reading Dinesh D'Souza's book blaming the cultural left for 9/11. As you've probably read, D'Souza's caused a huge ruckus by claiming that traditional Muslims hate us because we're culturally decadent and exporting our decadence. I've got big problems with much of this -- and I'll be writing more about it later -- but Dinesh D'Souza is not all wrong. I find it hard not to despair when I realize we're defending a culture that prizes nonjudgmental documentaries about people who have sex with animals. D'Souza's main point is that this is not representative of America as a whole, but of a decadent culturally liberal part of America -- and that culturally conservative Americans ought not be afraid to side with traditional Muslims in deploring it and condemning it. I think D'Souza's thesis has big holes in it -- again, more on which later -- but boy, what do you say to Muslims abroad who'd genuinely wonder why, if this kind of decadence is the fruit of American liberty, they should welcome what we have to offer?

I believe that we have got to fight hard to defend the West against Islamic aggression. What, though, are we defending? D'Souza is right about this: the kind of people who make and celebrate "compassionate" movies about people having sex with animals are civilization's enemies. One point of strong disagreement I have with D'Souza (and I'm only a third of the way through his book) is with his conclusion that therefore American conservatives should align themselves with Muslims against their own countrymen. I see the reasoning here, but reject it, in part because I believe that Muslims abroad, generally speaking, would resent and try to defeat us even if Hollywood were Mayberry (critics have had a f ield day pointing out to D'Souza that Sayyid Qutb went berserk condemning the chaotic morals of America in the late 1940s and early 1950s -- the point being, there's no pleasing these people). And I reject D'Souza's strategy in part because I do not want to live under sharia or cultivate affinity for sharia-based societies, whose values I find in particular instances to be perverse and inhuman. Horse-screwers and hand-chopper-offers, take your pick.

That said, it's depressing and confusing to realize upon reading stuff like this review that I probably have, re: fundamental morals, more in common with the first 500 people I'd meet in Cairo, Damascus or Tehran than the first 500 people I'd meet in Park City, UT, during festival time.