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"an act of guerrilla humanity"... Michael Moore's new movie, "Where to Invade Next"
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150911-toronto-review-is-michael-moores-where-to-invade-next-any-goodWe think of Michael Moore, in his antic disheveled way, as a warrior – an embattled grizzly bear of a satirist stalking the rich and powerful in their office lairs, armed with spitball witticisms and damning statistics and, just maybe, some distortions about everything that’s wrong with the United States. Yet as this flame-throwing veteran of theatrically combative nonfiction has grown older – he’s now 61 – he has begun to get in touch with his inner flower child.
The title of Where to Invade Next, the new Moore documentary that opened the Toronto Film Festival on Thursday, makes it sound as if Moore is taking a swipe at post-9/11 attempts by the US to police the world. But that title is deceptive; the movie isn’ta jokey riff on military colonialism. Its central gambit is that Moore himself ‘invades’ one by one a dozen countries in Europe, Scandinavia and North Africa, looking for examples of how things operate there so that he can ‘conquer’ those ways and bring them back to the US. Many of the ideas hinge on government policy – statutory holiday leave in Italy, the legalisation of drugs in Portugal – but what Moore is really looking at is less political than cultural.
As portrayed in Where to Invade Next, these nations have based their way of doing things on a social contract: the belief that we’re all here to look out for each other. Moore is saying that the US used to think that way too, but that it no longer does, because the hands of its compassion have been tied by bureaucracy and greed. His message is that US citizens are now organised – by their leaders, their habits, maybe something in their hearts – so that they live life at each other’s throats.
The title of Where to Invade Next, the new Moore documentary that opened the Toronto Film Festival on Thursday, makes it sound as if Moore is taking a swipe at post-9/11 attempts by the US to police the world. But that title is deceptive; the movie isn’ta jokey riff on military colonialism. Its central gambit is that Moore himself ‘invades’ one by one a dozen countries in Europe, Scandinavia and North Africa, looking for examples of how things operate there so that he can ‘conquer’ those ways and bring them back to the US. Many of the ideas hinge on government policy – statutory holiday leave in Italy, the legalisation of drugs in Portugal – but what Moore is really looking at is less political than cultural.
As portrayed in Where to Invade Next, these nations have based their way of doing things on a social contract: the belief that we’re all here to look out for each other. Moore is saying that the US used to think that way too, but that it no longer does, because the hands of its compassion have been tied by bureaucracy and greed. His message is that US citizens are now organised – by their leaders, their habits, maybe something in their hearts – so that they live life at each other’s throats.
And the trailer
I'm really looking forward to seeing this.
3 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
I've liked every one of his movies so far.
