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Movie Review: ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’
Michael Moore’s latest documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story, gets to the heart of the problems touched upon in his other movies and talks about the whole system.
Capitalism: A Love Story, whilst looking at the basics of capitalism and individual horrors, primarily focuses on the economic crisis and how the rich maintain power and wealth whilst people are being thrown out of their homes and sacked from their jobs.
In true Moore fashion, he mixes heart-wrenching scenes with comedic stunts to illustrate how capitalism has enriched the lives of a few whilst screwing everyone else.
It opens with families being thrown out of their homes, hitting you in the face with the realities of the economic crisis on how it affects real people. And it talks about other absurdities of capitalism, like how employers take out life insurance policies on its employees, banking on the fact that a certain proportion will die and they’ll get a nice payout.
One of the best bits for me was when Moore was making fun of the rich, of the absurd amounts of money they were making, how they’re so tied in with the political establishment in the US. Moore walks onto Wall Street to try and ask someone to explain the complex financial jargon to him and the only Wall Street banker that attempts to answer him can’t explain in any clear way what a derivative is.
It’s also hilarious when he tries to enter bank buildings to ask for the American people’s money back, to make citizens’ arrests, and then wraps some of the banks in big ‘crime scene’ tape.
But the best bits are when he shows people fighting back. Like when a community moved a family’s belongings back into their house after being evicted and they fought to stay, screaming at the police until finally they gave up and left. And it was awesome to see the story of Republic Windows and Doors, where workers occupied their factory until the Bank of America coughed up some of the billions of dollars in stimulus money to pay out their benefits.
The only main criticisms was that it was slow to start and get into the meat of the movie about the economic crisis, and in parts seemed too in love with Obama but overall is excellent and once again shows that Moore, whilst not saying everything I agree with, is on the side of working-class people.
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I have a hard time watching Michael Moore’s documentaries, knowing how much an asshole he is in real life. The crazy stunts he pulled on TV Nation were fine for a few episodes, but after a while he managed to irritate me (a person who finds everything from Jackass to Dirty Sanchez hilarious, and his feature length documentaries have descended into completely asymetrical arguments. If he was more balanced in his approach, and provided a reasoned debate as to why ‘the other guy’ is wrong, then the strength of his films would be increased.
He reminds me of the kid who created the “Truth Behind 9/11″ film on his computer. The passion and clear talent may be evident, but so is the stubborn refusal to even contemplate that there may be more complex issues at hand, and nobody likes a person who can’t be told that they are wrong. I’m almost certain that in a studio environment, against a seasoned interviewer, he would crumble. The charm only goes so far, and his carefully edited films serve anyone who disagrees with him very badly indeed.
As a matter of interest, I wonder what absurd amounts of money he is making. Not as much as the figures he attacks in his films, certainly, but he is well above the take home salary of most regular folks.