The Weather Underground

‘You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows’, Bob Dylan sings in Subterranean Homesick Blues. In the late sixties, everybody sensed a revolution in the air. A group of subversive students took their stand and formed The Weathermen. Their goal was to undermine the Establishment, without shrinking from radical means. They saw apathy as the real act of violence. The horrible unjust violence of the Vietnam War and brutal US police actions against Afro-Americans at home convinced The Weathermen of their just and moral cause. The war had to be fought ‘in the belly of the motherland’. After three Weathermen were killed in New York while constructing a bomb, other members went underground. In the early seventies, a series of bomb attacks on government buildings made them heard again. They had a role in the spectacular escape of counterculture priest Timothy Leary from a Californian prison. When the Vietnam War ended, the revolution was suspended. The group disbanded, some voluntarily turned themselves in, others remained hidden. The film is illuminated by candid, stimulating and humanizing encounters with former Weathermen. It is a balanced, personal look at issues of war, peace, resistance and idealism which still confront us today. Taking us to the heart of the action, the film intercuts lively archives and contemporary visits to essential sites. Green offers us a compelling lesson in recent American history and the nature of ‘terrorism’.