We're straight back into bleak, what-the-heck-is-wrong-with-humanity territory with 1989's Roger and Me, the cinematic debut of legendary wind-up merchant Michael Moore. In this shocking documentary, former journalist Moore returns to his birthplace of Flint, Michigan to demand answers about the sudden and devastating closure of all the city's once thriving General Motors automobile plants. With 30,000 people forced out of work, Moore investigates, aiming to track down General Motors C.E.O. Roger Smith to demand answers about why this happened. He also interviews various locals to get an idea of just how badly the closures have affected the city and caused crime to skyrocket.
This is another one that definitely isn't a straight-up Christmas film per se, but has wound up on just about every list of festive documentaries I can find, becoming legendary due to a depressingly memorable sequence that cuts back and forth between Smith reading a passage from ‘A Christmas Carol’ while an ex-GM employee is callously evicted from his home…on Christmas day. As filthy rich fat cat Smith enjoys a cosy, pleasant yuletide, we get to witness this poor average Joe’s Christmas tree being dragged from his home and dumped on the sidewalk. This, I believe, is what they call very effective juxtaposition, highlighting the awful gulf between the penniless, laid-off workers and the mega-rich who made their fortunes off the back of them. It’s not very merry at all.
The film explores how all this happened just so GM could move the work to Mexico in the name of cheap labour. Cue lots of awkward interviews with entitled, affluent pricks in boardrooms blathering about how it was a smart “business decision” to effectively kill an entire town to make themselves even more money. If ever there was a real life Ebeneezer Scrooge, Moore will convince you that Roger Smith is that man.
Moore has a canny way of getting people to open up while keeping them completely unaware they’re being ridiculed. One scene at a ‘Great Gatsby’ inspired garden party sees well-to-do millionaires enthusiastically discuss how great life is in Flint, while some of the town’s desperate, unemployed auto-workers perform for their amusement in a paid gig as ‘human statues’. It’s gobsmacking.
Various local celebrities are interviewed and smile inanely but can’t offer much advice to the jobless townsfolk other than to pep up and keep dreaming. It’s an infuriating state of affairs that hasn’t changed in the three decades since, with overpaid ‘stars’ continuing to offer us life advice when they know they could stamp out poverty in a heartbeat if they just shared their wealth. But who wants to help others when there’s exclusive golf clubs and members-only clubs to attend?
Watching this one completely ruins my day - I’m not at all prepared for a grisly, graphic scene where one despairing Flint native very casually and matter-of-factly clubs a rabbit to death for food while being interviewed. People were apparently up in arms about this scene, though Moore has decried why people weren’t similarly appalled by the shocking treatment of human beings throughout the film. It’s a fair point. The same bastards who thought nothing of ruining thousands of people’s lives to line their own pockets then try to pander to them by quoting Dickens, smiling all the way.
The whole film is a dispiriting allegory for all the problems that come with rampant capitalism, a system that effectively pits us all against each other in a game of winner takes all that is decidedly un-Christmassy. It stinks. Despite all the bleakness, Moore has a brilliant knack for injecting humour into proceedings, keeping things just the right side of hopeless. A key scene is ironically soundtracked by the Beach Boys’ ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’, while the film ends with a title card that reads “This film cannot be shown within the city of Flint…All the movie theatres have closed.” This one is another powerful reminder of the importance of remaining incredibly thankful for all you’ve got and is a great proponent for the festive spirit of altruism.
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