Bitter Lake 2015

Bitter Lake uses a mosaic of archival footage and Curtis’s narration to explore Afghanistan and how outside powers have interacted with it over decades. The film foregrounds moments featuring Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Joanne Herring, presented through historical clips that frame the broader argument. Narrated by Adam Curtis, it seeks to connect these snippets into a cohesive story rather than leaving viewers with isolated news snapshots.

It charts how successive governments in Russia and the West pursued interventions in Afghanistan, often repeating strategies that failed to grasp the country’s cultural heritage, political history, and social fabric. Rather than heroic triumphs or clear-cut defeats, the film argues these interventions produced ambiguous outcomes, sometimes fueling cycles of violence and resistance that endure into the present.

The documentary then ventures into the US–Saudi alliance, describing how Cold War geopolitics tied American access to Saudi oil with security guarantees for the kingdom. This relationship, according to the film, allowed Saudi Arabia to shelter a conservative interpretation of Islam, Wahhabism, within a system of practical support. That environment, Curtis suggests, helped fuel militant movements across the region and beyond, including the Mujahideen, the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and later the Islamic State.

Curtis explicitly states the aim of adding an emotional dimension to the historical narrative to draw viewers deeper than standard reports. The result is a documentary that runs over two hours and is released exclusively through the BBC iPlayer, inviting audiences to engage with a broader, interconnected context rather than fragmented headlines.

The title, Bitter Lake, evokes a 1945 meeting aboard a ship on the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal between Franklin D. Roosevelt and King Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia. Curtis frames this moment as a catalyst for a chain of events that shape the decades that followed. The film premiered on 25 January 2015 and was released exclusively on the BBC iPlayer.