Reporters tell us that the anti-American riots that have broken out across the Middle East are a spontaneous outpouring of rage prompted by the presence on YouTube of a trailer for a movie called “Innocence of Muslims.” The fact that the riots began on September 11 apparently was coincidence, and in that region RPGs and mortars are evidently the tools of spontaneity. But, notwithstanding the silliness of the claim that a movie trailer was the cause of this week’s violence, I couldn’t help being curious: what’s the movie all about, anyway?
So I looked it up on YouTube and watched the long version of the trailer, which is around 14 minutes. The film appears to be rather odd: sets, lighting and sound all contribute to a cartoonish air of unreality. Often, the tone of the film seems to be comic (which is not to say that it is funny). At other times, clearly not. You can’t tell for sure from the trailer, but the movie may be, in broad outlines, a historically accurate account of Mohammed’s life. Here it is, for what it’s worth–the trailer for “Innocence of Muslims.”
UPDATE: Meanwhile, if you want to see lots of remarkable photos of the violence and demonstrations from Morocco to Yemen, the Daily Mail, as is so often the case, has them. I think it is fair to say that the demonstrators are not doing anything to convince observers that the image of Islam portrayed in “Innocence of Muslims” is inaccurate.
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