Secrecy

The staple of SXSW is documentary. Not usually my favorite genre, they're A) better than average at SXSW, and B) hard to avoid. Still hung over from last night (due to lack of sleep, not excess <...>), my first was Secrecy.

This film looks at U.S. government secrecy efforts from World War Two to the present day. The directors do their best to paint a balanced picture around their chosen theme - namely, that some secrecy is good, but that all-too-often the government uses the same power of secrecy to hide its mistakes. The theme and topic are broad - probably too broad for an hour and a half - and so it's hard to cover the spectrum of issues. My wife pointed out that the Valerie Plame events were completely neglected, for example.

In my opinion, the arguments and eloquence of Charles Swift were the highlight of the film.

Secrecy
2008, 85 minutes, directed by Peter Galison & Robb Moss