In search of enemies

September 11, 1996
Issue 

Independence Day
Directed by Roland Emmerich
Australian cinema release August 29
Canadian Bacon
Directed by Michael Moore
Released on video, 1996
Reviewed by Greg Adamson

Canadian Bacon, John Candy's last film, is a humorous and startling look at the US government's need for enemies. With Russian mafia capital uninterested in giving the US president (Alan Alda) an excuse for a new cold war, enemies are sought closer to home. In the absence of anyone else, the government launches a propaganda campaign against Canada.

This is both hilarious and sinister. The style used against other US enemies of convenience is immediately recognisable: "Canada has located 90% of its population along the border with the United States". A map of North America with maple syrup trickling down from Canada across the US. US children telling television reporters, "I hate Canada, it's so cold".

The film is an allegory of US treatment of Cuba: the big lie is made up of thousands of stupid, petty, irrational claims.

Independence Day, which avoided major name actors (or was avoided by them) deals with the same issue, the need for enemies. Five years after the Gulf War, the filmmakers must have decided that a straight representation of that conflict would be about as interesting as President George Bush's 1992 re-election campaign. But there is lots of Gulf War imagery: what is the 15-mile-long hostile alien craft hanging above a defenceless city if not the US aerial bombardment of Baghdad?

The president (Bill Pullman, the dumb male blond from Ruthless People) doesn't need to negotiate to find out the aliens are bad. He makes telepathic contact with them, and discovers they simply want to strip the world of all its natural resources (an idea close to the heart of any US president).

The film radiates triumphalism: The US is top (male) cop directly controlling the armed forces of the whole world. The whole world is meant to welcome this US protector by celebrating July 4.

The film is corny, lacking plot and originality. There are no new special effects or camera angles (Close Encounters of the Third Kind had the sky-filling ship; Star Wars had every space-based effect; Solaris did the bubbling surface thing; buildings have been blown up for decades; and Twister used a flying semi-trailer). Unlike the Terminator or Die Hard series, or Mission Impossible's helicopter in the train tunnel, this film has no imagination. The high point is a simple effect, the destruction of the White House (at which point US audiences apparently cheer).

So which film will audiences watch? Independence Day had a $1 million Australian advertising budget. I found Canadian Bacon on the shelves of a video store.

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