[Watching Canal Zone] must be disturbing for people who know little of the Zone. I can testify that it is also an intense experience for an old-line Zonian…. Much of Wiseman's film confirms and illuminates my memories….

I recall the Panama of my childhood as a spontaneous outburst of lush vegetation, sleek black panthers, huge boa constrictors, Latin hospitality, panoramas charged with such vivid hues that surely any filmmaker would want to capture them in gorgeous tropical color. Not Wiseman. He photographed the Zone, more appropriately, in black and white. (p. 286)

As an exposé of the US imperial presence in Panama, Canal Zone is effective. As a prescription for action or an "organizing tool," it is not. It depicts what has happened to the colonizers in the Zone as a tragedy, but it offers no solutions and seems even to be saying that no solution exists….

Not by...