Cinema - Taking Liberties

Taking Liberties is a documentary designed to make you angry about the way the New Labour government has eroded our civil liberties over its ten years in power. But it also attempts to make you laugh. “It’s impossible to make a 90-minute documentary that just makes people angry,” says director Chris Atkins, down the phone. “You have to mix it with other elements.” So far, I venture, so Michael Moore? “We often get compared to Michael Moore, because he has made a number of great hard-hitting documentaries in a similar vein,” continues Chris. “But the difference is that there is no Moore figure in the film. His films tend to be about Michael Moore as much as they are about the other issues, and we wanted to avoid that. Instead we tell the stories of real people whose lives have been affected by the new legislation the government has brought in. It is more akin to US documentaries like Meatball and Spellbound, where there is no dominant narrator figure.”
“Some people have said that it’s not a very British documentary,” he continues. “But that’s not true. We are talking to British people about British issues. The film is as British as roast beef and fish and chips - it’s just that this country has not made films like this before. Hard-hitting documentaries with a bit of humour. They have done in France; they have done in the USA. Why not here?”
In order to hit home exactly how much damage the government has done to our civil liberties, Atkins goes back in history to talk about how our rights were developed. “It’s hardly news to accuse Tony Blair and Jack Straw and the like of being crooks and liars. We don’t need to tell people that to wind them up. But by going back in history and looking at how our rights were fought for - up to a 1,000 years ago - and how easily they have now been discarded, that really makes people angry.”