Mark Reviews Movies: THE BRINK

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 4, 2019

I first learned of Steve Bannon's existence at a screening of his 2011 documentary about Sarah Palin. After the movie finished, he held a Q&A session, which I politely sat through, after determining that I wasn't going to write a traditional review of his movie. Even then, it was obvious he was a political gamesman, except that, at the time, he primarily called himself and referred to his activities in the language of a filmmaker.

Eight years later, Bannon has moved far beyond that role. Most notably, he had been the CEO of the campaign of the sitting President. Bannon himself would be the first person to say that, if not for his participation in the campaign, the candidate would have lost. The President himself seemed to think so, or at least he did until Bannon left the White House and, in an insider's book, was reported to have said critical things about the President. Bannon lost a lot at that point, including his executive position at a right-wing "news" website that he had co-founded.

The Brink follows Bannon during this period professional turmoil, after his departure from the White House and up until the 2018 midterm elections. If not for director Alison Klayman's reminders of what had happened to Bannon and what is happening to him during filming, one hardly would guess that the man's entire career seems to be constantly upending upon itself. He's a man who clearly looks back only rarely, if ever.

There's always a new thing on his plate. In 2011, he was just an overtly political filmmaker, and by the end of this movie—after helming a (technically but not popularly) wining Presidential campaign and being ousted from the White House, before being summarily dismissed as a person by the same President he helped to elect—he has moved on from the United States and into shaping the politics of Europe.

One almost wants to admire him, and if he were not dead set on transforming the entire world by way of the politics of hatred and anger, one almost could. That description of his goals and his methods, by the way, are not some blind, blanket attack on the man. The description comes from Bannon's own mouth.

It's not a slip, either. He knows exactly what he's saying. Bannon also knows exactly what he's saying when, discussing the editing of a self-described propaganda movie he has made about the President, he wonders, "What would Leni Riefenstahl do?" To further the point, he also knows precisely what he's saying when he freely states his admiration for the design of the Nazi death camps.

Bannon's politics are pretty obvious by the end of this, although he is prone to denying that there's anything sinister about them. When a reporter brings up that some of his language is either blatantly anti-Semitic or an obvious attempt to appeal to anti-Semitic people, Bannon doesn't simply deny it. He tries to gaslight the reporter into thinking that such assumptions are irrational. We've seen him, in private meetings and in conversation with Klayman, celebrate Nazis, though. It's difficult to tell if he's simply trying to fool others, using terms like "populism" and "economic nationalism," or if he somehow has managed to fool himself.

Klayman clearly doesn't believe in the same things that Bannon does. She makes that point a few times in the film, challenging her subject on certain political points, on the meetings he's taking with far-right political entities across Europe, and on the pronunciation of a Chinese politician's name. Every time, Bannon asserts that he's correct, and he further asserts that, even if he's wrong, it doesn't matter. He asks who would care if he says a Chinese name incorrectly. When Klayman points out that about billion people might, Bannon just dismisses the whole of the population of China.

The man knows what he's doing, though. He's seen as a celebrity at public speaking engagements. He plays the mainstream media that he claims to despise like a fiddle, even going so far as to point out that coverage of himself and his actions is the only thing keeping his movement (which he literally calls "the Movement") afloat. If the coverage were to stop, his rise and the rise of those he supports might stop, too, which should be a wake-up call for some.

As discomforting as it is to watch Bannon consult with and bolster far right-wing politicians across Europe to victory, the process is enlightening. It's as much in what we do see as in what we don't. Klayman's cameras are allowed in multiple meetings (When asked by a reporter about them, since there are some extreme people present, Bannon refers to them as "informal dinners"), and at a certain point during one of those meetings, Klayman's crew is kicked out. Something happened there—something that no one in the meeting wanted to be made public. Considering what we do see and hear from these people, such hiding is as informative as what we've seen and heard.

The portrait here is of an intelligent and cunning man, whose downfall by way of his stubbornness should seem a guarantee. Somehow and repeatedly throughout just the year or so of this film's timeline, though, Bannon keeps going without any sign that his political maneuvers and schemes will stop. That stubbornness is what keeps him afloat. When one path arrives at a dead end, he finds a new one. Within the context of what Bannon is trying to accomplish and how he's working toward it and with whom he's collaborating, that makes The Brink terrifying to watch.

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