Coup 53 (2019)
4.0 of 5 from 48 ratings
1h 58min
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- Synopsis:
Ten years in the making, Iranian director Taghi Amirani's feature debut film is a fascinating investigation into the 1953 Anglo-American coup d'état in Iran that displaced democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and installed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as Shah, turning Iran into a despotic monarchy. Tracing the coup from the events leading up to it through its aftermath, Amirani and editor and co-writer Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now, The Godfather) uncover a wealth of secrets held for over 60 years discovered in a trove of documents and film obtained from the British Film Institute (BFI). Assembling never-before-seen archival footage, animation, and interviews with witnesses on both sides of the conflict, 'Coup 53' presents a chilling exposé of one of the first covert actions by the US and UK to overthrow a sitting government in order to protect "national interests" at the expense of what could have been the largest democracy in the Middle East. - Actors:
- Ralph Fiennes, Walter Murch, Winston Churchill, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Allen Dulles, Kermit Roosevelt Jr., Taghi Amirani, David Talbot, Mohammed Mossadegh, Julian Willson, Shapour Bakhtiar, Stephen Kinzer, Hedayat Matin Daftari, Julian Amery, Ervand Abrahamian, Asadollah Aram, Fazlollah Zahedi, Abdolmajid Bayat, Esmail Yazdi, Hamid Ahmadi
- Directors:
- Taghi Amirani
- Producers:
- Taghi Amirani, Paul Zaentz
- Voiced By:
- Ashraf Pahlavi
- Writers:
- Taghi Amirani, Walter Murch
- Genres:
- Documentary, Special Interest
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Reviews (1) of Coup 53
Reaping the Whirlwind - Coup 53 review by BF
This is the best documentary I have watched in over 50 years. Meticulous, patient and creative in its making, it exposes the arrogance and greed of a former UK government in the overthrow of a democratically elected government and the installation of a dictator so that it could ensure access to cheap oil. The actions of the UK intelligence service then are significantly to blame for the mess we are in at the moment with the Iranians.
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