Directed by Mat Whitecross & Michael Winterbottom
As the new release parade continues here on new release Tuesday at video stores across Toronto, the incredible variety of selection can at times be a little overwhelming. If you’re in the mood for something with a bit of social conscience, there’s a documentary out today from our friends at eOne films that just may fit the bill. Based on the New York Times bestselling novel, it’s time to strap in for “The Shock Doctrine”.
“The Shock Doctrine”argues that the free market policies of Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman who acknowledged that collective traumas like wars, natural disaster and terrorist attacks put us into a state of shock and allow governments to push through harsh and painful economic reforms like that allow the wealth of a nation to pushed from the many to the very few, before the nation had a chance to react. Using historical examples like Pinchot in Chile all the way to the most recent Iraq war, it is implied that some man-made crises, such as the Falklands war or the threat of Marxism etc, may have been created with the intention of being able to push through these unpopular reforms in their wake.
The result of “The Shock Doctrine” is a thin argument that despite being well documented really doesn’t go anywhere. The film never provides the viewer a key salient argument to hold on to as it attempts to make its point. Starting with the behavioral modification experiments that involved shock treatment in the 1950’s it than makes the leap to economic policies of Milton Friedman who championed the free market and deregulation of major governmental industries. To narrow down all the woes of the world to this man’s economic policies is while having a certain degree of truth to it a little one dimensional. The focus of the film jumps around far too much, for the viewer to lock into one singular idea; it just throws a bunch of horrible historical atrocities at the screen and wants us to agree with it that all these things are connected. For a documentary to work; the message has to be clear, and with “The Shock Doctrine” it really isn’t.
The message of “The Shock Doctrine” of needing to push back against the indentured economic methods that got us in this global mess is an important one, but the delivery of it was flawed. If it sparks public awareness on the topic than its purpose has been fulfilled, but as a film it was the first documentary that I have ever seen that sort of made me want to read the book as I suspect a lot of what made it a New York Times best seller never made it to the screen. It may have worked better as documentary type series, but clocking it a measly 78 minutes it rushed through everything and was over before it said anything.
2 out of 5 stars.
“The Shock Doctrine” is available at video stores across Toronto; click here for a list of some of the finer independent video stores near you.
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