In recent years Michael Moore has become the butt of many jokes from both the left and the right for his sensational tactics in approaching documentary film-making. From blowing himself up in Team America: World Police or having Fakes News consider him one of the worst American's alive, Michael Moore never ceases to disappoint. His most recent work goes directly at the source of many of his films, capitalism.
In Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore looks at the most entrenched special interest in Washington, D.C. Business itself has become a lobbying firm where congressman and women are up for sale to the highest bidder. Take your pick and you can get your own personal democracy for a nominal fee. He tackles many issues which are still on minds of Americans from foreclosures, to bailouts, CEO bonuses, and workers taking back their places of employment for the workers.
As someone who lives in Illinois and has close connections to the Chicago area and central Illinois, this movie had a personal connection to myself as I am sure it would to most people living the in state. One of the first families we meet in the film is from Peoria, IL and they have become victims of the sub-prime mortgage lending scheme, because lets be honest, there was no way it was a legit aspect of the lending business. Also, there was a focus on Republic Windows and Doors and the work in which they did in restoring their dignity as workers when faced with a bank who received public bailout funds and then closed the business down.
Looking back at his first major work Roger and Me, Moore hearkens back to a time in the late 1980's when many conservative capitalists would consider the glory days where we had it right. However this film brings his original vision of Roger and Me full circle where we the viewer see the consequences which that first film foretold 20 years ago. Moore also takes a very hardline approach in looking at the policy makers who perpetrated this quagmire as well as those who were bought and sold like derivatives on the open market.
While Moore's bias is already known, this film is probably one of the more unbiased films he has made since this is an issue which affects 95% of the population, regardless of political party. We look at the everyday worker who struggles to get by, only to find a CEO who basically inherited the company making money off their labor and devotion to their work. Feudalism has returned but this time it has been hidden behind the veil of profit margins and CEO's while the peasants toil for their daily bread.
This film will make you mad, confused, saddened, but also hopeful to some degree. Near the end of the film Moore takes a look at how the economic landscape has begun to change in the United States to where people realize that capitalism is not the perfect system which we have been indoctrinated through education. He looks at the campaign of Barack Obama, who while still receiving large amounts of money from corporate banks in an attempt to calm his "socialist" talk, could not stop him from telling "Joe the Plumber" about spreading the wealth.
Many times Moore has been prematurely criticized for his views but by looking at his last 2 films in perspective, he was right about Iraq just as he was right about the current state of our healthcare system. Now he takes the leap into the ever so holy doctrine of capitalism which has caused the film to see such a small release. This mindset of distributors and theater companies in my view only perpetrates the bias in which the business world has for new ideas. Moore does not ask for a complete revolution of the current economic system but a refinement to a time where the worker had rights from their employer the same way we as citizens have rights from our government.
This 2 hour and 7 minute film on economics has in my eyes should become a wake up call for the entire nation to realize that cheaper is not always better and that just because you are doing well does not mean you are doing good. There needs to be revolution though for the people to realize that they themselves are not workers with free choices but slaves stuck to their masters in which in many cases there is no freedom or underground railroad for you to travel.
Capitalism: A Love Story delivers as that wake up call for a new generation of Americans to reevaluate the choices in which they will make later in life to not only do better for themselves, but for society as a whole. Perhaps in a few years the majority of people will look at this film with the same sense of reflection as many now view Fahrenheit 9/11 or Sicko. While I went into this film looking to become angry at the "Evil Empire" on Wall Street and look for a revolution I realized that each person can hold their own personal revolution in which we just chose not to participate in their system. Because their system requires obedience and participation and I willingly accept the challenge to refuse their ways of living.
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