The Oil Drum

17 comments on Some thoughts on Syriana

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Glenn on December 7, 2005 - 1:40pm

Thanks for writing the review Super G - I just saw the movie last night and I really came away feeling more helpless than ever before - kind of like Clooney waving the white sheet from the car...

A few other points that I'd like to make:

The LNG angle was not fully explained - my companion did not understand that part at all. I really wish they had shown more on that.
Like the movie Traffic, it protrays a system that is deeply flawed that cannot be corrected by well meaning individuals - those who fight the system get chewed up and spit out - like Clooney.
They never blamed the end user of the oil, which I think was a mistake. The best parts of Traffic were linking the end user to all the negative impacts of the system. They also offer nothing on Alternative energy or any other way out of the current paradigm.
The Matt Damon character to me represented the ideal of true unfettered global trade, which in reality is a farce for oil and other strategic resources since military/security/control interests will always come first. Democracy is not a priority compared to security and trade...

The final thought that I had at the end of the movie was that we are already about waist deep in quicksand in Middle East politics on purely based on oil issues (Israel was never mentioned in the movie that recall). The more we struggle to get access to oil, the more we are drawn into petty local battles that only makes us a greater target for terrorists and ever more dependent on cheap oil from the region.

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Super G on December 7, 2005 - 5:58pm

While blaming the end user of oil is warranted, it is financially risky. If people walk out of movie thinking all of the world's problems are their own fault, they are not likely to tell their friends to see the movie.

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AngryChimp on December 7, 2005 - 6:15pm

I seems, on the face, noble to blame the "end users". This system is set up, whether you accept it or not, so that a select few of "intellectual elites" determine the best course of action for the "people". The men with this sort of knowledge, Rockefellers Club of Rome for example, could have molded society on conservation and awareness instead of gluttony and consumerism (special interest maximum profit). The mass of people do what they are told, whether or not you can accept it, it is the truth. The great mass of society has been brought to the cliff of civilization for the greedy wants of profit. Consume Consume Consume, if you don't, you not part of the herd. While this group of intellectuals might scoff at this, it is never the less the reality of the situation. What a sad display of the human condition...

==AC