Twenty years after Michael Moore burst into public consciousness with his criticism of the American car industry, Roger & Me, the polemicist and documentary filmmaker goes back to Flint, Michigan, via Wall Street to show why capitalism is a bad way to run society. In the most controversial scenes of the film, Moore interviews church officials about their views on capitalism; they all see the free-market principals espoused by luminaries such as Adam Smith as a sin. Often when filmmakers make movies criticising a system or belief, they shy away from offering a solution. But not Moore, who rather ingeniously says that American society would benefit from an economic system of not socialism but democracy, although he admits that the two ideas often overlap. All the usual Moore traits are here. He doorsteps banks in an attempt to get answers to why the economy is in such a bad state; he uses his own family to illustrate how the problems he's highlighting affect the Everyman, and he asks simple questions in an attempt to get straight-forward, clear answers. There is a hilarious sequence in which Moore tries to get a plain answer about what exactly a derivative is and receives only ridiculous replies. Naturally, Moore also uses the film to promote himself and his view on the world. It's his usual shtick, and occasionally it's too much, but there is no hiding from the fact that it's a fun ride. This documentary is a weird melange of the Marx brothers and Karl Marx.
Capitalism: A Love Story screens tomorrow at 9.30pm at the Emirates Palace auditorium and Saturday at 2.30pm at Cinestar 1, Marina Mall.
