The Century of the Self

I was quite hopeful for this documentary. The topic sounded pretty interesting and I'd seen and liked Curtis' Politics of Fear. It ended up being quite a disappointment though. Rather than uncover part of the human psyche, it's a documentary that's more interested in the who's, when's and why's of group psychology.

Curtis explores how the individual became the center of attention in the 20th century. Rather than focus on the media and consumer behavior, and try to bare the underlying mechanics at play, Curtis takes a more political angle and dredges up wars and political left/right mind games. Not really what I was hoping for.

There are some interesting anecdotes scattered around this documentary, but they are few and far between. Instead, this is a pretty dry history lesson, with little cinematic value. It also doesn't help that the film is 20 years old and a lot of extremely relevant things happened in those 20 years. Not the eyeopener I was expecting to see.