corrente

Remember Florida’s political shame? Richard Ray Perez and Joan Sekler’s corrosive documentary about the contest between Al Gore and George Bush for the Sunshine State will hold you in a state of appalled enthrallment. They cover topics that went as underreported as the votes throughout the state were undercounted. The most hair-raising, perhaps, is a purge of supposed felons from the voter rolls that denied political rights to thousands of innocent citizens, most of whom were African-American. The moviemakers also take the time to complete stories that got short shrift from print and broadcast journalists—in a swift, devastating coup, they identify the D.C.-based Republican congressional aides and other G.O.P. staffers in the famous shot of “rioters” disrupting the Miami-Dade recount outside the doors of the canvassing board. The movie equally indicts high-level Democrats for making decisions based on political calculus rather than on principle, and the mainstream media for denying the outcome of their own research—such as the conclusion that if all eligible votes were counted, including 175,000 unread ballots, Gore would be President.