‘Orwell: 2+2=5’: Raoul Peck’s Powerful Examination of Our Modern Nightmare Through the Words of George Orwell

Alci Rengifo

Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck has never shied away from having bold and radical things to say with his work. He is an artist obsessed with history and the struggles of the oppressed. Whether working in dramas or documentaries, Peck’s cinema connects the personal with the political, always fueled by an intense urgency. His new documentary, “Orwell: 2+2=5,” is not so much an overview of George Orwell’s life as a potent essay about the world as it is today. The great English author’s work, especially the novel “1984,” has come to define many popular views about dystopia and totalitarianism. The way regimes manipulate language and brainwash the masses has been endlessly examined through the “Orwellian” gaze. Peck’s documentary argues convincingly that our times are even closer than we would like to think to the writer’s greatest nightmares.

Peck brings in actor Damian Lewis to narrate the documentary, which is composed entirely of texts by Orwell. It is a technique the director used to great effect in his excellent “I Am Not Your Negro,” about the life and times of James Baldwin. He does begin with the basics of Orwell’s origins, since they are important to understand the writer’s development. Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair in 1903 in British India to what he described as an “upper middle class family.” Before becoming a political radical, Orwell’s vision of the world was defined by what he saw all around at school, where the sons of the aristocrats behaved like snobbish bullies hiding their insecurities, and among the adults. The absurdities of class oppression were easily clear in how middle class British would move to colonial India where they could lord over its people, whereas in England they were the ones looked down upon by the aristocrats. As a grown young man, Orwell served as a police officer in British-controlled Burma (now Myanmar). It was an early lesson in how easily one can become part of an occupation or system of violent control.

Peck follows these narrative details of Orwell’s life and then juxtaposes them with the current state of the planet. He cuts from historical footage to contemporary news clips or bits of pop culture, such as past film adaptations of “1984.” There is a stark clarity to this approach because it makes the writer’s language so immediate. When Orwell discusses the way governments seem to invent new words to hide the real meaning of their actions, Peck uses as examples the invasion of Ukraine or genocide in Gaza, where regimes try to make the inhuman sound coldly scientific (“special military operation,” “pacification operation”). Clips from “1984,” where the citizens of the novel’s Oceania are made to rant and rave against invented enemies on a screen, sit comfortably next to speeches by Trump and other demagogues denouncing immigrants. Orwell understood clearly, like Hannah Arendt in “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” that fascism succeeds by detaching its followers from reality. When Orwell observes that the British ruling class had become needless parasites, Peck cuts to our modern billionaires going into space and flaunting their cartoonish, grand visions of futures they seek to design.

Orwell’s story is stirring on its own because of how lucid and human a thinker he could be. We hear him reminisce about going to fight against fascism in the Spanish Civil War, only to be heartbroken when the anarchists and leftists he fought with were betrayed by the Soviet Union. It would be another harsh lesson that would only fuel Orwell’s suspicion of all power systems. Peck includes the author’s original introduction to his 1945 novella “Animal Farm.” Widely seen as a brilliant satire of the rise and decline of the Russian Revolution, Orwell warned that such abuses could occur anywhere. It is stunning to hear an Englishman born in the colonial era to state that he wants readers to realize that the British are no different from any other society. Peck is himself an internationalist filmmaker whose work has covered radical thinkers like Karl Marx, doomed freedom fighters like Patrice Lumumba and the brutal history of European colonialism. “Orwell: 2+2=5” is made in the same spirit, finding examples from all corners of the world that harmonize with Orwell’s warnings. With technology now making the Big Brother vision of “1984” even more real, no corner of the globe is safe. 

“The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude,” says Orwell early in the documentary. His life was so tethered to his ideas that Peck has no difficulty in profiling just enough of the man to keep the human angle breathing. Orwell’s work defined every pore of his being. Some of the essential milestones are briefly explored, like Orwell adopting a son and the death of his first wife, Eileen Blair. Yet almost feverishly, the text makes it clear that Orwell lived and breathed his times. He also states in the narration that, “His subject-matter will be determined by the age he lives in.” He then finds solace on the island of Jura, fretting over finishing “1984” and finding the right title. Clips from the best film versions of the novel, including Michael Radford’s adaptation starring William Hurt, help evoke the despair of totalitarian living the author wished to get across. He warns about the suppression of knowledge through the denial and eventual burning of books. During World War II Orwell figures he can contribute to the cause as a journalist, though he can’t help but resign from the BBC with a letter that is both grateful and slyly acknowledging he was writing propaganda.

Aside from keeping interest in Orwell’s work vibrantly alive, this documentary also reminds us of why we need filmmakers like Raoul Peck. He seems to remind us that art should be radical. It should strive to provoke a viewer’s thinking processes. At a time when dark political forces are on the rise, manipulating information and detaching audiences from reality, “Orwell 2+2=5” works like a riveting refresher course on the art of truly asking the important questions. Orwell saw what was coming because it was already happening in his era. Great powers were dividing up the world with the common people having little to no say in the end results. The language presented here is quite a tonic about how resisting tyranny means embracing our humanity and having the courage to speak the truth.

“Orwell: 2+2=5” releases Oct. 3 in New York and expands Oct. 10 in theaters nationwide.