Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, asexual nudity, drug use and brief violent images
By Derrick Bang
Guerilla documentarian Michael
Moore has matured considerably as a filmmaker, since debuting with 1989’s Roger & Me. I daresay he also has
gained wisdom during the intervening quarter-century.
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| After learning how an Italian couple has traveled the world and enjoyed fabulous holidays, thanks to their six weeks of paid vacation each year, Michael Moore, right, symbolically plants the American flag in their living room, in order to formally "invade" their country and thus "steal" this fabulous idea. |
He’s still mightily dismayed,
disappointed and disgusted by the inexorably advancing death of the American
dream, but he has gotten much smarter about the way he presents such
information. Where to Invade Next is
a playfully sly bit of cinematic propaganda, with a message that becomes
inescapable through repetition.
In a nutshell: The United States
can do better. As a country, as a culture, as a people.
Moore’s new film is, at times, an
enchanting travelogue: a trip that centers mostly on Western European
countries, with the corpulent and disheveled filmmaker serving as guide, his
dryly mordant commentary at times making him sound like an edgier Bill Bryson.
Moore is “invading” these various
countries only in a rhetorical sense, as an excuse to highlight and
subsequently “steal” socio-economic concepts that appear to work superbly Over
There, so that they can be made to work equally well Right Here. His rationale
is cheeky but incisive; if we’ve genuinely invaded countries in the past for
oil, or illusory political control, why not do so for more rational reasons?
He cheerfully acknowledges
cherry-picking from countries that have their own problems, but that’s all
right; as he notes, early on, “I’m after the flowers, not the weeds.”
His journey begins in Italy,
where a typical couple extols the virtues of their roughly six (or even seven)
weeks of paid vacation per year, not to mention the five months’ paid maternity
leave granted new mothers. OK, fine; no surprise there. What employee wouldn’t delight in such treatment?
The point is hammered home more
persuasively when two different company owners
agree with the underlying premise: that well-rested employees work harder, and
become sick less frequently. There’s also a genuine sense of bonhomie and
mutual respect between workers and owners: a feeling of family.
More tellingly, the owners don’t
feel obliged to make themselves obscenely rich, by cutting back staff salaries.
The employee culture in Germany
is much the same way, perhaps even more so: If workers at the Faber-Castell
pencil factory — yes, still going strong, even in this era of laptops and
tablets — start to feel overstressed, a doctor will readily prescribe a stay of
several weeks at a health spa ... on the government dime. Again: content
workers = superior workers.
Education comes into the
crosshairs during several subsequent stops. University education is free in
Slovenia, and not merely for its native citizens; the same is true for foreign
students (following a token registration fee that Moore neglects to mention).
Indeed, Moore interviews a few expat American students, both of whom confess
that they simply couldn’t afford college back home.
This one’s a no-brainer, right?
Higher education should be free for
students. They’re our future government and industry leaders, and God knows we
want them to be as intelligent, well-informed and well-rounded as possible,
yes?
Moore’s film includes a list of
several dozen countries that have figured this out. He also deftly demolishes
the knee-jerk shibboleth parroted by America’s conservative wing: that such
countries have “much higher taxes” than we do. Well ... no. Yes, the per-person
“tax” rate may be higher — slightly
higher, in most cases — but we’re saddled with far higher out-of-pocket
expenses (tuition, etc.) that simply aren’t labeled
as taxes.
That’s just a shell game. And,
like the victims who get suckered by street hustlers offering the illusion of
victory in three-card monte, we lose.
Moore’s politically motivated
jabs aren’t entirely absent, of course. His visit to Slovenia offers a juicy
thrust, when he discovers that the local alphabet has only 25 letters, to our
26. Most tellingly, there’s no W ... which gives Moore the perfect opportunity
to take another poke at his favorite, much-despised target, George W. Bush.
(For the record, the Slovenian alphabet also doesn’t have Q or Y. But it’s
still a droll jab.)
The funniest segment, by far,
comes when Moore visits the massive kitchen of what appears to be one of
Michelin’s five-star restaurants in France. Ah, but this is a public
grade-school kitchen, preparing nutritiously well-balanced, multi-course
lunches for children: sumptuous main dishes that change daily, accompanied by fruit
and cheese — always cheese; the French adore their cheese — and dessert.
As to the beverage, the kids
drink water. Lots of water. No
sugar-laden alternatives of any kind, whether fruit juice, milk or oft-maligned
sodas. Moore gets considerable mileage out of the “contraband” he sneaks into
the classroom: a can of Coke. He offers tastes; most of the kids express little
or no interest.
Granted, they could have been
coached, could have recognized that this was a gag.
But their reactions definitely
aren’t feigned as they grimace with disgust when shown photographs of typical
American school lunches, dominated by unappetizing, indefinable glop that
shouldn’t even be served to dogs.
Again, a no-brainer. But not
here, apparently.
Finland, which once languished in
the school system basement — right alongside the United States, in terms of
first-world public education — today boasts the world’s best-educated students.
Finland tried something different a few decades ago, and it seems to be succeeding.
School work stays in school; homework
is rare. Teaching methodology focuses on the panoply of subjects, from civics
and science, to art and sports.
Most emphatically, no
standardized testing. Which, a collection of Finnish teachers insist, “teaches”
students only one thing: how to pass a standardized test. Which isn’t a life
skill.
As for the absence of homework
... well, the theory is similar to the approach taken with Italian and German
workers: A rested, happy student is more likely to excel during class time.
Seems to be true.
Thus far, Moore’s tone has been
light, his “flowers” sensible and reasonable. (Well, they certainly seem reasonable, although I have no
illusions about quick implementation on these shores.)
Things get both more fanciful,
and more serious, in the film’s second half. Norway’s benevolent prison system
seems to depend upon bad guys — even acknowledged murderers — who promise never
to do it again. While there’s no question that America’s often sickening
guard-on-prisoner brutality — and this film offers numerous video examples of
same — contributes to an increased potential for riots and other violence, I
rather doubt that our worst gang-bangers and meth addicts could be housed
safely in Norway’s comfortably appointed “studio apartment” prison cells.
At the same time, Moore begins to
offer some intriguing theories. Isn’t it interesting, he suggests, that
America’s so-called “war on drugs,” which from the beginning has
disproportionately targeted and jailed people of color, was implemented just as
those same people had successfully marched, demonstrated and agitated for their
God-given civil rights?
And isn’t it ironic, on that same
topic, that said incarceration strips voting rights from those same people of
color ... which, in effect, affords historically racist states the same
opportunity to “control” access to voting, much the way they did prior to the
intervention of folks such as Martin Luther King, as we’re reminded in recent
films such as Selma?
Moore offers another cogent
theory during a visit to Iceland, whose economy crashed catastrophically during
the recent global financial crisis. Only one large financial institution didn’t
fail: the lone bank run by women. Moore therefore wonders if banking and stock
market downturns might be exacerbated by the arrogant, testosterone-fueled irrationality
of Wall Street’s almost entirely male
risk-takers.
Interesting thought.
Oh, and Iceland also jailed its
financial criminals. The guys at the top. Scores
of them. Obviously, they’re no longer in a position to do that again.
We didn’t jail any of ours.
Worse, they’re still in a position to do it again. Indeed, they already are doing it again. And they’re
complaining about how recent legislation, weak as it is, interferes with their doing it again.
We can do better. We really can.
Actually, we must.
Moore saves the best irony for
last: the fact that most of these “great ideas,” which he wishes to “steal,”
have a common source.
Where to Invade Next runs a bit long, at two full
hours; it’s a lot to absorb, all at once. Moore maintains a brisk pace, and his
commentary is never less than engaging, as are his exaggerated reactions of
disbelief. Unlike past films, notably Bowling
for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11,
his agenda isn’t nearly as blatantly partisan, and his tone isn’t nearly as
shrill.
If he has learned, finally, that
he’ll more likely attract us with honey and gentle guile ... so much the
better. The message here is no less important.
Six weeks of paid vacation?
Restorative spa visits?
Sign me up!
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