To Sell A War - Documentary

In class last Friday, we watched a 28min documentary called 'To Sell A War'. The link to the youtube clip can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaR1YBR5g6U 

"It exposes the Citizens for a Free Kuwait campaign as public relations spin to gain public opinion support for the Gulf War. As well, it reveals that Nurse Nayirah was in fact Nijirah al-Sabah, the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the United States Saud Nasir Al-Sabah, coached by Hill & Knowlton to forge her infamous testimony about Iraqi soldiers removing babies from incubators, which was widely reported and repeated throughout the media."

The documentary, I believe, can be classified as a mix between Exponential and Observational. The way that there is a god-like voice speaking in an authoritative tone throughout the film, shows that it has aspects of an exponential documentary. Also the information being told was rhetorical and was trying to persuade the viewers, proposing a strong argument and point of view. However, it also has Observational documentary aspects as it observes a situation without actually being involved or making an impact on it. The film shows the viewers two sides of the story.

The film had a large emotional impact on the audience and this was one of the reasons why it was different to the other documentaries that we watched in class. At the beginning, footage was shown of a young girl crying over a matter that would have damaged her for the rest of her life. We were positioned to feel sorry for her. However, as the documentary goes on, the audience is informed that the young girl may have been putting on an act and the whole story that she told was a lie. Knowing this, the audience is put through a confusing emotional journey as we don't know what to believe and we don't know what pieces of information we are being given, is true.