Capitalism: A Love Story (2009) – Review
Crime Scene: Do Not Cross
Written and Directed by: Michael Moore
Starring: (unintentionally) Ronald Reagan, George W Bush, Goldman Sachs Executives, Families from foreclosed homes, Workers from a bankrupt factory and Moore (intentionally).
“Is the future generation going to remember us like this?” Cut to ‘America’s Funniest’ videos of cats flushing the toilet, cut to the voice again,” Or like this?” Cut to a homemade video of a family peeking through blinds at sheriff dept cars pulling in their driveway. The family sits without attending to the loud knocks to find the door broken down. Sheriff enters the house to announce an evacuation of the foreclosed house being underway. I am not sure if the intensity of the scene is duplicated in those words, but ignorance won’t be a bliss, as much as the enlightenment kills the bliss. Simply for the fact that it can’t be ignored. This is the driving force behind the documentaries of Michael Moore. You can’t ignore Capitalism: A Love Story.
Its been 2 decades since Mr Moore’s first documentary Roger and Me (1989) showed an unimaginable blend of poignancy of an evacuation of one of the residents of Flint MI, while Roger Smith, CEO of GM, announces profit and hope for GM at a private dinner. If that does not create any memories then how about the scene of opening a bank account for a gun listed as one of the giveaways in Bowling for Columbine (2002). Or condemning a ‘fictitiously’ elected ‘fictitious’ president’s ‘fictitious’ war in Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004). Moore keeps coming back at you to show things CNN fails to highlight, or MSNBC overlooks, or FOX protects. Videos like a Wall Street executive openly embracing money oriented policies and advocating Capitalism,or a widow’s husband being a ‘dead peasant’, or Don Reagan, Treasury secretary and former CEO of Merrill Lynch, whispering ’speed up’ to his brother President Ronald Reagan at a news conference.
Moore’s collection goes to ‘deep backgrounds’ and as far in the history as FDR era. Barely any documentary footage existed then. Then he creates a story out of the footage to back up his theory. Not only he points at the conspirators but also shows his personal contribution to the necessary change. E.g. attempting a civilized arrest of executives at corporate offices on Wall Street who influenced the current historic meltdown of the financial system since the Great Depression. With the footage from Encyclopedia Britannica documentary about Greek civilization to tax cuts in ‘Raeganomics’ to ‘derivatives’ to ’stimulus package’ to fear tactics, Moore tries to make a point that could be an enlightenment. Some comments may seem self proclamations while some are cross referenced in end credits. The role of a director is within the collection of those footages and creating a flow through editing. At no point this film drags. It continues as a mine-field. You never know when it explodes with pain, laughter, excitement and fervor.
It is hard to recreate your own first cut, which arguably is the sharpest. With Capitalism Mr Moore almost comes close to the mind blowing effect he created with Roger and Me. There seems to be old wounds which were never healed and the bleeding pain continues through them. Maybe it poured extra essence during the making of this film. Highly recommended.
My Rating: 9/10
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Loved your review.
where did u watch it man?
it’s getting released tomorrow in USA and I have already got a 7 PM ticket… u got some special screening?
@deepbluelotus
Thank you.
@labor_day_sale
Yes, it was an advanced screening by Dallas Film Club who gave out free passes. I was just lucky to get it. You will enjoy it tomorrow.
Just a minor nitpick – Don Regan is/was in no way related to Ronald Reagan.
You are right. My mistake. Editors, could you please edit it?