Article 3V3VD One or Two Questions review – gripping doc gets to heart of Uruguay

One or Two Questions review – gripping doc gets to heart of Uruguay

by
Phil Hoad
from World news | The Guardian on (#3V3VD)

Kristina Konrad's four-hour epic is an unsettling but vital exploration of the effectiveness of referendums - and what peace means in a democracy

This gruelling but vital film should be required viewing, perhaps in school-detention conditions, for Putin, Trump, Farage, opportunist Brexiters, amoral consultants, veteran lobbyists and anyone else from the current mob of democracy-bashers. Four hours discussing a 1989 Uruguayan referendum is probably not somewhere you ever thought you needed to be. But this surprisingly gripping patchwork of regular Joes expressing their intentions and apprehensions to director Kristina Konrad, then working for Swiss television, couldn't have greater relevance.

The immediate issue - whether a law granting immunity to members of the outgoing military regime who abducted, tortured and murdered their socialist insurgent opponents should be repealed - is interesting enough. As the interviews pile up in all their eloquence and clumsiness, what comes into focus is a sharp probing of the effectiveness and potentially destructive nature of referendums, and beyond that a stand for the sanctity of democratic debate.

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