THE SHOCK DOCTRINE
Written & Directed by Michael Winterbottom & Mat Whitecross, based on the book by Naomi Klein
Produced by Andrew Eaton & Alex Cooke
Released by Sundance Selects
UK. 82 min. Not Rated  
 

I’d be the last to fault a documentary for its strong bias, especially a left-leaning one. Somehow in this case, though, I feel there is key information missing. The film offers more an impassioned, but overachieving, polemic than an informative history lesson. True, recent political films assume some prior knowledge of their subjects—or at least they assume an audience’s willingness to go home and do the reading (Che, Taxi to the Dark Side, The Fog of War). Nobody should expect a film to simply spoon-feed information, but unless you’re a diligent student of modern political history, this one will be sure to leave your head spinning.

The companion film to Naomi Klein’s breakthrough bestseller of the same name employs archival footage that only vaguely describes some global political complicity, combined with trenchant narration that encourages a general distrust of the power elite. By the halfway mark, Klein’s theory of “disaster capitalism,” which is so well-defined and researched in her book, feels like an armchair conspiracy theory. Clips from her own lectures are the most interesting and informative sections of this doc, but a too-broad historical narrative transports us all the way from Milton Friedman’s quiet meddling in the South American economy through Margaret Thatcher’s accelerated war in the Falklands, Reagan’s arms race, Gorbachev’s Glasnost, and finally to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. The vast scope of material, clocking in at a mere 82 minutes, serves Klein’s theory poorly.

It’s a shame because this material is an essential background for progressive thinking. Klein describes an exploitative capitalist tendency, where elite interests seize upon moments of cultural upheaval in order to push an unregulated, free market ideology. The problem with Whitecross and Winterbottom’s film is that audiences have either been turned on to this economic awareness already, and if they haven’t, the film fails to provide the requisite context in which to place these salient points. The Falkland Islands as an economic watershed moment? I consider myself well informed, but the two minutes Shock Doctrine allots to this point are just not enough.

Candid interviews with victims of 1950’s electro-shock therapy lead to interviews with CIA trainers specializing in torture methods. There is a genuine (and frightening) correlation between human torture and economic exploitation, but missing are the supporting details. Perhaps it’s the reason I’d label this a companion to Klein’s book. Read it. As stated, the documentary film is no substitute for actual research.

It’s interesting to note the usual documentary elements at work here. There’s an animated section, personal interviews matching archival footage, and Klein, as guide, attempting to lead us through the mountains of information. Gorbachev plays the usual patsy, and we are even offered Eisenhower’s iconic warning about the military industrial complex, but the best footage comes in the form of the self-incriminating lines delivered by Friedman, George W. Bush, Alan Greenspan, and the like. There’s one thing the economic crisis has given us. It’s justified our vilification of these folks. Michael Lee
February 12, 2010