Moore himself says it is the culmination of 20 years of work. All his previous documentaries were all building up towards this latest assault, upon aspects of American society, which he sees as morally wrong, reprehensible and dangerous to the health of the country.
Whatever you personally think of Moore, in the light of what happened to the economy of the USA over the last year or so (and by default the rest of the world) his latest documentary is well worth seeing, in fact, I think it is mandatory.
The film production was commenced in 2008, and was still in production when the crisis fully exploded into the public arena last year. We see Moore and his team catch up with some of the players and their victims as the ‘proverbial’ hits the fan.
Moore balances the shocks he delivers with his irreverent and piquant humour, all done in a masterly fashion. At times you are nearly strangled in your seat by indignation, making you gasp, then he makes you wheeze with laughter, in equal measure.
Moore’s well woven documentary epic, is his filmic Bayeux Tapestry of the finance industry which, like the actual tapestry, follows a tale of usurpation and destruction.
Moore also raises questions regarding elements of government which collectively (knowingly or unknowingly); by their actions, or inactions, criminality, collusion, or plain gross incompetence, worked in concert with the financial industry to help bring the USA financial system and most of the developed world besides, to the brink of ruin and chaos.
And then there was a second brink; we learn that, after the Senate initially opposed the rescue Bill’s passage in Congress, the Stock Market took another sudden dramatic plunge. The financial industry pundits and puppets then warned Washington and the Treasury that much worse was to come, if they didn’t get their money.
Dastardly and hasty deals were done. Republican and Democrat then agreed to pay and save the very companies who caused the market emergency in the first place. (Although a few were sacrificed and allowed to fail therein lays another story.)
There is even a suggestion it may really have been a financial coup d’état. It is engrossing viewing that educates, surprises, amuses, shocks and terrorises even an Australian audience, I kid you not. The preview I attended was peppered with audience gasps of incredulity as often as it was with laughter and they were all seasoned reviewers who, by nature, are difficult to impress.
I can only imagine what it will do for the American public!
The opening of the film is very amusing, as Moore posits the question, “What will we be remembered for?” The closing scenes of the film are hysterically funny, as Moore does his best to embarrass the denizens of Wall Street.
Moore asks the questions many have thought, but never dared utter; is our system really for the benefit of all?
Moore also asks, is there a way we can recreate a better version, a more humane system? We then see companies which are practising profit share with their employees; their profits are up and the product is being made in their own country.
It is to be expected that big business will resist such an arrangement, for they only want to share their profits with their stake holders. But the desire for ever increasing profit margins, each and every quarter, is often made on the backs of poor, badly paid workers, in countries with a history of bad human rights abuses. Of course, retrenchments, longer work hours and low pay contracts, since unionism was mostly sidelined, has become normal business practise in our own countries.
That is the real cancer within our collective Western societies; the demand for ever increasing profit, usually gained by the loss of the rights and conditions of the poor, uneducated and disadvantaged.
Today, we live with a much more selfish and aggressive form of capitalism that has robbed real free enterprise for all and handed it on a silver platter to the very few. Moore’s epic makes us all too aware of that fact.
Moore does not promote socialism, but he does point out we have a real need to get back to where we once were, a capitalistic system with a conscience.
A system that once paid for health and education for all. A system that healed many nations, after the tumult of WW2. A system we have collectively lost, to the grotesque greed of corporate organised gambling, the Stock Markets, and with the proliferation of companies who give little, or nothing, towards building a better society for all.
The big corporate players have been slowly creating a system of economic enslavement; with ever increasing costs of living and decreasing civil rights, services and pay.
Now, it is time for you to watch Moore’s documentary, Capitalism: A love Story.
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