denis888 Awful effort on alternative outlook on history. Spike Lee? He made mistakes, too. Why on Earth making such a blatant parody of Ken Scott and Shelby Foote's Civil War masterpiece which was and is an unbeatable peak? Why, even if you did, do this newer effort such a rushes, rash-ed, rueful, woeful mish mash of all wrong elements possible? Badly calculated, poorly executed, terribly done, this short (and this Is the only redeeming quality of the effort) mocks the very core essence of Civil War achievements and depicts several sacred cows as desacralized calves. The worst moment? Alleged older Lincoln interview. Made me sick and filled with wrath. Wasted effort of dubious merit and horrible conclusion.

Theo Robertson The writer/director of CSA Kevin Wilmott is black . I thought I'd point this out to guard my back . I also thought I'd mention that I seeked out this film because it received a rave review on Richard Schieb's Sci-Fi movie review page which can be accessed on the external reviews of this page . I feel the deep need to do this simply because CSA is a film of such biting , brutal bleak and brilliant satire featuring an America that still enforces slavery that it'd be very easy to be picked up wrongly by saying I laughed outloud at a great many scenes . Often it was nervous laughter and this was no doubts Wilmott's intention . I did feel very foolish at the end credit scenes . Again this was no doubt Wilmott's intention The premise involves the South winning the American Civil war and Abraham Lincoln being jailed as a war criminal . With great credit Lincoln is portrayed as an opportunist who wanted to get his hands on the South's cotton fields and one suspects Spilebergs upcoming bio-pic starring Daniel Day Lewis might just miss out this very important detail . As it stands history takes a diverted path where the USA become The Confederate States of America ( CSA ) and all the fall out this involves . The biggest divergence being that slavery is not abolished The story is told as a mockumentary by the " British Broadcasting Service " which hints as how unsubtle CSA is . Credit to the makers because at the outset we're shown a public information film called Why We Fought which does give a rather Eurocentric view of America then we start the documentary proper and everyone will be jumping on the outrage bus at one point . Try suggesting a scenario where " Union forces flee in the face of British and French fire " and you'll get the impression red necks aren't going to enjoy this as much as they were hoping . Of course African Americans will take the brunt of the outrage via stereotypical portrayals but if you've seen BIRTH OF A NATION then you'll realise this is an attack on moral climates of early 20th Century America . And it's the Hollywood sections that are the most scathing and unsubtle which is not a criticism . Quite the reverse because these are the most identifiable parts of the mockumentary to an international audience - Hollywood where men are men , where myths are made and where Europeans with a brain shake their head . The mockumentary is cut with advert breaks and trailers for spoof TV shows such as " Runaway " a send up of COPS complete with banjo music . This type of brutal and scathing satire outdoes the ones seen in the ROBOCOP movies As much as I can praise CSA in its witty satire where it fails very badly is in its alternative history aspect . For example if a scenario is created it can be clumsily forgotten about as in America creating a South American empire but later on we're told the rest of the world has brought in sanctions against the CSA because of its attitude to slavery which means the government has to bring in rationing ? In reality America is more than self sufficient in food and raw materials and widening this to South America means more food supplies so why introduce rationing ? There's also illogical ridiculous aspects such as women never having a vote in this alternative America and at the same time an America crippled by sanctions and citizens on rations this alternative America can still fight wars in Vietnam and lead Operation Desert Storm and land men on the moon In summary CSA is a very memorable mockumentary . It's unsurprising that there's a lot of mixed reviews on this page . Some people will have seeked it out on the grounds that it's an alternative history documentary and they'll be slightly disappointed in it . I certainly enjoyed the satirical aspects of it only to feel foolish when at the end when the " satire " was slightly closer to home than I thought it was . I will point out that I do realise that the photos of dead native Americans and lynched blacks are in fact real photographs and that William Wilburforce deserves to be remembered more than Abraham Lincoln

imdb-3918 I found this gem on Netflix.Other reviews are criticizing the improbability of events depicted in the movie, starting with the involvement of France and the UK in the Civil War. That's why it's fiction: the precipitating events *did not happen*. It's a "WHAT IF" work of fiction. The film maker presupposes a few alterations to history, and then examines what would happen as a consequence. Chaos theory indicates that just about any imagined set of consequences of a few initial changes to a system are as plausible as any other. This movie is essentially "alternative Earth" fiction. It's fanciful by definition. It has a lot more in common with something like the sci-fi series "Sliders" or the "barbarian universe" riff in Star Trek than it is to be taken as a serious critique of modern US society. It's essentially "historical science fiction", with the aliens being the citizens of the "US" (CSA) in a different reality.I also really did not feel that it was liberal or minority grievance agitprop (it was pointed out at the end of the movie that "Aunt Jemima" and "Uncle Ben" are major US brands, but I don't need to be preached that they are somehow embody racist evil.) What CSA is, is an exploration of where the US would be if certain of the values of the antebellum South had been captured through the expanding US, and had then evolved to the present day as mainstream US values. How would the US relate to the rest of the world? What would become of the Americas? What about WWII, Nazi Germany, and the cold war? What would the major political dynasty of our time be in such a country? The film explores a fascinating series of possibilities that could have resulted.The film is only "ha ha funny" for the commercial segments. The meat of the narration is a bit satiric. The historical figures that the film portrayed, including Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas, and minor figures like Judah P. Benjamin and doctor Samuel A. Cartwright, show a serious effort to take one implausible assumption (the Union forces lose at Gettysburg to combined Confederate, French and English forces) and run with it to many logical or at least plausible conclusions.What I found very implausible has not been mentioned by most reviewers. Given that the CSA was born as a xenophobic and virulently intolerant society, I don't see a CSA type nation as having accomplished most of what the US has done, particularly in terms of the sciences, militarily, and economic development. The white supremacist establishment would have rejected and marginalized many of the most productive and brilliant members of "real world" US society. IE, would a CSA ever have developed the resources to conquer most of the Americas? Would the CSA have been in a position to plant a confederate flag on the moon? (Great sight gag, BTW.) Would a CSA have invented radio, TV, atomic fission, and the internet? "CSA" only got this diminished society aspect partially right by showing that the arts and entertainment flourished in the Canada of the film, and therefore arts in the CSA were stunted and mostly tended to government propaganda.The part that I felt rang very true was how values are transmitted from one generation to another. Supposing that abolition had never happened, and also supposing that it a preference of the government - what else could you say about the society? So in CSA, women in 2004 do not yet have the vote. And Canada is despised for "stealing" the CSA's slaves.If you have an open mind and a small interest in US history, I highly recommend this movie. It's fun. It's good when it is over, and you can breath a sigh of relief for our flawed but still superior real life world.

gonewishing CSA is a "historical documentary" interspersed with TV commercials. Pretty pathetic movie, actually. I didn't finish watching it because the people who made it were too lazy to study history and interpolate future events from the WORLD of 1863. There are humorous episodes, but the history isn't there. For instance, a win for the south wouldn't have prevented war in Europe; without US intervention the Kaiser would've been in charge of Germany in 1932, etc. C'mon- a BERLIN WALL stretching from sea to shining sea? They didn't come up with ANYTHING original. If they had simply made a comedy or drama that portrayed a 21st century CSA, that might have been really interesting.