Machinima: the eyes of French democracy?

Right before the Thanksgiving holiday, I was tapped on the shoulder from Xavier at Machinima.fr in regards to a new Machinima made about the riots in France, called The French Democracy.

It's a simple yet effective piece - a straight forward recount of the how/why behind the recent civil unrest in that country. The filmmaker, who goes by the screen name Koulamata, is a French citizen who decided to use the recently released game-cum-machinima-app The Movies, to give viewers his/her on-the-ground perspective of the riots and how it is impacting their people. The film itself is almost documentarian in its structure, and we're left with nearly a Gus Van Sant-experience of interpreting the unfolded events.

The director also chooses to run the film's dialogue in subtitles, obviously due to the lack of voice-over resources (note to you voice synth folks). However, the English subs (though broken in a number of places) prove extremely efficacious. In the end, I'm wholly glad the director didn't try to supplement the film with VO that would have ultimately detracted from the work.

Since my becoming aware of the film, others are also tuning into its message. Clive Thompson blogged his thoughts on it, as does Gonzalo Frasco over at Water Cooler Games, with mentions on gaming blog Kotaku and Alice Taylor's W0nderland too.

Blogging has clearly given voice to the numerous masses, but the message behind this film says more than anything I've read about the riots to date. While I'm not sure Machinima can or will propagate political rights activism across borders or cultures, the medium does provide the power to do so. And where else is that more appropriate but in the hands of people who need to have their message seen?