Nick Broomfield's "Sarah Palin--You Betcha!" debuts at the BFI London Film Festival.

Joan Churchill and Nick Broomfield at the 55th BFI London Film Festival.

This from The Film Pilgrim:

Sarah Palin – You Betcha! is a political, biographical documentary of Sarah Palin. 

Throughout the film Nick Broomfield and his team come up against many obstacles; from people who are increasingly unwilling to discuss Sarah, to Sarah herself who claims she will give an interview, but inevitably doesn’t. The film is a mix of one-on-one interviews, archive footage and also some beautiful scenery shots. Seeing the development of Sarah’s career is eye-opening and gives stark evidence of what it has taken for her to become such an influential woman in American politics. The range of interviews with her old colleagues and neighbours also provides a personal insight into what she has done to get where she is in politics; including firing people who were once her friends and helped her get into a powerful position within the community. There is also evidence of bitter family feuds, and other disputes she regularly gets into. 

The archive footage dug up is relatively unseen and deeply personal, including Sarah Palin playing basketball in school. With this extensive archive and interview footage comes a sense of naivety or to put it plainly, stupidity. We are informed that Palin thought Queen Elizabeth II was the head of the UK government, incorrectly believed that she made all the decisions regarding policy and legislation, she couldn’t find Iraq on a map even though her son was being sent there, and the film ends with the famous prank phone call in which Sarah believed she was accepting a call from French president Nicolas Sarkozy. Some of the people interviewed are very worried that if she won the presidency she would have no qualms with starting a nuclear war. There was also evidence that she doesn’t always want what was best for the people, and is more concerned what was best for her. This was seen in the way she behaved to her ex-brother in law, whom she tried to get fired purely because he split from her sister. Quite a scary picture is painted of the incompetence of this powerful figure in American politics. 

There were a total of 125 hours of rushes and another 125 hours of archive footage that had to be trawled through during editing. The fact that this extensive amount of film was condensed down into an incisive and very well structured hour and a half documentary is a monumental achievement in itself. On top of this, the filmmakers also had to change the direction of the film numerous times as it was not clear whether Palin was running for president or not. 

Sarah Palin – You Betcha! is witty and funny, yet rather than taking the easy route of ridiculing a figure who is regularly mocked anyway, it takes a serious look at a character who could have had a catastrophic impact on the world. Broomfield maintains his already established filmmaking style, there is unfortunately no attempt at an evolution in his approach, but it is nevertheless another remarkable achievement from one of the documentary genre’s most vital auteurs. 

Sarah Palin – You Betcha! is showing at the BFI London Film Festival on the 15th and 16th October

I am still very much looking forward to seeing this film even though it did not exactly set the movie world on fire with its limited release here in the states. I have to blame a portion of that on the fact that Palin is no longer considered a viable Presidential candidate, nor a real threat to our democracy as we know it.

Essentially the majority people are starting to "get over" her. Something which I have little doubt is driving her insane.

By the way I have been badgering Fred about his book and when the website will be up. I am told that it will be very soon. I was giving a date, but I refuse to share it just in case there is another setback.

I also apologize for the tease, but this time it is totally not my fault. If it were up to me I would have had both the website up and book published ages ago.