CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY
Written & Directed by Michael Moore
Produced by Anne & Michael Moore
Released by Overture Films
USA. 126 min. Rated R  
 

How do we define capitalism in the 21st century? How did we define it 50 years ago when America appeared to be riding high and the middle class did quite well without foreign competitors (you know, other countries in Europe and Asia working at full capacity)? How is it a moral issue for someone to be fully invested (no pun intended) in a system that requires that high profits be continually maintained? How about when a system, one that Churchill once described as the "least evil" available, corrupts people's lives, systems of government, and one's own immortal soul? More to the point, what would Jesus do? If you ask Michael Moore, or for that matter one of the priests he interviews, he would not quite fit in the corporate world. Not at all.

These and many more questions are asked by Moore in his latest documentary, perhaps more ambitious and powerful than Fahrenheit 9/11. He cites Ronald Reagan as one of the contributors, maybe the key one in political terms, to the current economy mess. The film traces the fallout of Reagan's corporate free-for-all that let the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Jobs are lost and profits increase. This latter point stems from Moore's first movie, Roger & Me. Now, things are completely out of control, and the set pieces in Capitalism: A Love Story all make up a narrative of abhorrent greed and corporate irresponsibility…perhaps that isn't even a harsh enough word for what's shown here.

Moore presents his case with some sarcasm, but always with a pill of the truth. It's not that Moore is up to anything completely new in terms of his style. Indeed, the film takes into account Moore's personal history, which he's done in the past, if not quite as informatively (like his original intentions to be a priest). And sure, Moore still performs his old tricks, like trying to make citizen's arrests of the CEOs of the big banks or pulling up in a huge truck to get back the MIA bailout money. For better or worse, he still makes his movies the way he wants to, with lots of archive footage edited and scored to a kind of slick, propaganda-style perfection.

There's a lot to be angry about, and more, even if you don't agree with Moore. What happened last year was, as one interviewee puts it, equal to a dam that burst but started as a small leak years ago. But there is some hope, or the possibilities of it, and that too makes Capitalism worth your while. We see early on the sad plight of a factory in Chicago, where its workers are told they have three days until they're fired. It looks like the end for them...but Moore comes back to the factory in the film’s last quarter for a triumphant example of a sit-down strike that actually, ultimately, works. To give just the slight glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel is invigorating. Jack Gattanella
October 5, 2009