by David Adelman

Created on: May 18, 2009   Last Updated: May 19, 2009

Spurlock's Adventure

Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? (2008) is a documentary film produced, directed by and starring an independent filmmaker named Morgan Spurlock. The title of the film is a play on the title of the television game show and computer game series, Where in The World is Carman Sandiego?

This film brings out political taboos about the United States government by showing the reality of the Arab world through live footage. I was interested in this film within moments because the documentary, Morgan Spurlock, has taken a different approach towards the controversial subject of the War on Terror and the war in Afghanistan and Iraq by showing the day to day lives of not only Iraqis and Afghanis, but their neighbouring countries as well. Spurlock visits Egypt, Morroco, Israel, Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and interviews the populations concerning the whereabouts of Bin Laden, feelings about Islamic Fundamentalism as well as their thoughts on terrorism and the West. Spurlock uses several documentary styles to authenticate his film as a documentary by giving the viewers a sense of reality as Spurlock actually travels to each country and interviews real people. Spurlock also uses a mixture of live footage to show events that happened in the news prior to his interviews. He uses statistics and charts in some scenes to show the impact of the wars and the rise of terrorism. Interestingly, Spurlock uses satiric animation to reveal truths about the American government. Spurlock dedicated this film to his newborn son, Laken, and from time to time shows footage of himself talking on the phone to his pregnant wife. Spurlock does this to emphasize the reason for his quest to find Osama, as a concerned new father, who fears for his own son's growth as well as the children growing up in war, poverty and religious fundamentalism in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The scene I am about to present contains each of the aspects that Spurlock uses in his documentary. The beginning scene is an animation in which we follow a camera venturing into the Middle-East map, shaped liked Bin Laden's head. The camera then goes into his ear and follows the ear tubes to get to his brain. His brain is an office full of American celebrities and terrorist to-do-lists. This leads us to a 3-D image of Osama in a jetpack flying to Egypt. The song in the background is an Arabic version of the Shaft theme song. Spurlock then introduces Osama's mentor, Ayman

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