Dark Side of the Moon (2002)

It is brilliant in one sense. But then, why bother. People like Kissinger or Rumsfield are the most evil, sinister, worse than the devil, nation building, murderous, imperialists. They were and are. Even though that sounds like some "socialist" student rant - should not be easily discounted even where the student may turn into an old man even more conservative than the media's most evil man, Rupert Murdoch.Evil is a bad word, sullied by biblical, fictitious illusions. I am sick of how, in this world, there are men who force an evil agenda, far worse than imagined in the bible, and they get off scot free, even celebrated - going where all the Bourgeois hang out (and make docos together), as if "everything is everything", and we are all friends and it's all a laugh. IF war were over, I wouldn't make this rant. In that case, forgiveness could start.Innocent people die, still, while war criminals are treated as heroes and make jokes about fooling everybody, or not. One obvious step further; the main reason those innocent people die is so that some other people pillage the resources to make sick jokes on very expensive film. And here some of them are, having fun at mocking the idea of a conspiracy.Hence I use words like the devil or evil, as understatements.WAKE UP WORLD. I have been saying this for a long time now. The biggest problem with conspiracy theories is that fact is already more shocking! Kissinger, Rumsfield, et al, are directly guilty for leading, sending men to kill many other men FOR A PARANOIA (WITH FAR LESS BASIS FOR IT) THAN YOUR AVERAGE CONSPIRACY THEORY/IST.And here is this Documentary maker, allowing them more fame and the arrogant position to mock. Kissinger didn't feel as though he had enough Vietnamese killed, so why not take part in a mockumentary that uses them as bit parts. They may be kidding, however, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Korea, Iraq, etc, etc, etc. the tens of millions murdered, are no joke.Certainly an interesting documentary, just as Hitler's men made some interesting experiments on people too.A very strange co-incidence for me, that I saw this so very soon after 'Exit Through The Gift Shop' - (apparently NOT a hoax, but I still dilly-dally on that). Said documentary or elaborate hoax is far more interesting and incomparably funnier. Jeez I hate Donald Rumsfield, with politicians like him you can bring back Stalin or Saddam any day.

If you feel angry or confused after watching it, that's good. That's the point, IMHO. I would give it 15 out of 10 if it was possible.I didn't know what it really was about. And I missed the first few minutes, so I don't even know if German ARTE channel put any comment to this documentary as they aired it for the first time. I was totally unprepared for the shock.I've always thought I'm a skeptic and hard to impress. Even more, few days before I've had a look at one of those "Moonlanding-was-a-fake" discussions, and knowing enough about astronomy, physics and photography, I was able to discredit most of the arguments right away. But... jeez, they had Haig and Rumsfeld and Armstrong... saying things that made my whole world fall apart. Actually, my world fell apart twice this evening. First time as I started to believe in this incredible conspiracy, second time after the credits, as I realized how easily I threw away all my reason and knowledge because of EXPERTS saying I was wrong. I remember being so fooled, that for a while I refused to believe in what they were showing in the credit part!Rewatching the documentary I just could't believe I've bought the whole story! If you know, you can clearly see how it is built, starting with innocent details.Karel does a very smart thing at the beginning. He is not stating that the landing was fake but that it could not be filmed. By doing this he avoids the film's idea being negated right away by those who do "believe" in the moonlanding. Instead he breaks in through a back door, and once the viewer starts to ask himself if it COULD MAYBE make sense he swallows the hook. The rest is psychology. When the story is getting more and more obscure and ridiculous toward the end, the audience is brainwashed enough to believe everything.In the truth all those experts' statements are nothing more than meaningless pieces cut out of context. Karel could talk about fox hunting with those people, what they really say contains not a single bit of information. Makes you wonder about history books and daily news... I couldn't watch ANYTHING in TV without suspicion for weeks after that. I do agree with people saying the final message in the credits might not be clear enough. But I also can imagine it was done by purpose, and Karel is laughing his butt off while watching conspiracy theorists using his movie as an argument. If the film was meant as a sociological experiment it has fully succeeded. I think it's a shame that Dark Side of The Moon was never released on DVD, together with comments and some additional information. I would like to know which parts are true (at least what Karel THINKS is true), without doing a huge research by myself. Kubrick getting that Zeiss lens from NASA seems to be true -> http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/interview.bl.html IMHO watching this film should be obligatory in every school -- for me it was the most valuable lesson I ever learned from TV. I have no doubts that media are using the same manipulation techniques every day. I know that Michael Moore did it at least once in "Bowling for Columbine", but without giving us any hint in the final credits. Which I think is sad, because many people are using Moore's movies as arguments too, and he is much more popular than Karel.In a time of computer effects only our common sense and our knowledge about the world make us able to distinguish between fiction and reality. But what do we know about reality? Mostly we just rely on second hand information, taking things for true because we are told they are true. One could check the sources, research arguments, try to look under the surface... but in the end all we get is someone's statement that can be manipulated or pictures that can be fake... or did you ever see with your own eyes that the Earth is round? :P Yes, Dark Side of the Moon IS scary, much more scary than Matrix.

Some of the comments here just prove precisely what the director was trying to say.One of the reasons the show was so good was that it wasn't obvious it was a "mockumentary" until you were well and truly in it. The director just kept sliding up the "mock volume" throughout the entire show. Basically, when all your friends are around and talk about it, you say something like "hey, when did you figure it out?" and one person will say, "I was sucked in. I didn't figure it out until the (obviously American) CIA troops went in under cover and left McDonalds wrappers floating about - about two thirds in", and someone else says they didn't get it till close to then end. Someone else says they sussed it out very early on.But the point is, they all get it sometime. The director keeps hamming it up until he finally goes obvious towards the end. And if you still don't get it, then you probably believe in Santa Claus!!I will say, however, that I can understand English-as-a-second-language-ers not "getting" it because it plays a lot on language cues for satire and they may not be so obvious to someone not fluent in English. I think a lot of the 1/10 people are in this category.One of the best TV shows I've ever seen. 10/10 easily. The only other show that scores 10/10 for me was the TV series The Singing Detective. Somewhat different, mind.

When i first saw this documentary I was appalled - i was very angry with the American government (under Richard Nixon). In popular culture it is many times suggested that the Americans faked the lunar-missions. Many people believed that the Apollo-missions were filmed in a studio in area 51. And when i saw this documentary i was fully convinced. In the doc Kubricks widow Christiana Kubrick, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Alexander Haig, Richard Helms, Henry Kissinger and even Donald Rumsfeld all admit more or less that the moon-landings were a hoax. But when saw it a second time I wasn't so sure about the doc was a real doc or not. In the end of the doc - when the credits are shown - we are shown outtakes of the doc. In the outtakes there are scenes were you easy can see that the people are not taking this seriously. There is one scene were Donald Rumsfeld laughs and ask the film crew: "I thought you were a real documentary". And it is also revealed that many of the men, who in the documentary are portrayed as experts and witnesses, are in fact actors. The truth came to me a year or two later, when I in a science magazine read that the documentary was made merely to show how easy it is to manipulate and fool people to think certain things. I once also believed that the Americans did not land on the moon.Partly because of this documentary.Much footage from the moon can very well be fake. That is because the could not film there, supposedly, because there was too hot and too cold.And then there is the thing about the wind on the flag.....But then there is the big problem: The Astronauts took home hundreds of kilos of rocks from the moon - KILOS. And the rocks ARE FROM THE MOON. The rocks have been spread around the world to all countries to further science. And there are for a fact from the moon, all laboratories from around the world has confirmed it: The isotopes of the basic elements of the rock could never have come from earth - only the moon.How do all you crack-put-theorists explain that?How come that many professors and astronomers from around all believe that USA did go to the moon??? Can you explain that (the only ones who disbelieve all this are all out off a job, and needs money)At first when I heard that I was enraged. I was angry that the doc fooled me so easily. But when i cooled down I began to think. This is a very good doc to show to people and then tell them later it is a hoax. Because then they will learn not to trust everything they hear. The doc is very good made - and everyone deserves to see