Invading various countries to bring their socially responsible ideas back to the US,Michael Moore’s bracing current doc is doggedly simple, and valuableThis isn’t what you might expect, or though it’s quite in line with what Michael Moore has said before. There’s a more positive,upbeat note than normal, though. Moore has created a punchy and exhilarating tribute to the various liberal-welfarist traditions of nations from Europe and elsewhere. He cheerfully tours around, or “invading” these countries and pinching their good ideas,with a view to bringing them back to the US, ideas such as France’s healthy school meals, and Italy’s statutory paid holidays and Germany’s worker participation in boardrooms – defending them as tax-efficient and socially necessary. This film is a cousin to his excellent Sicko,an attack on America’s private health insurance, and in its scepticism approximately America’s military spending it’s also a distant relative of his Fahrenheit 9/11 – and yet again I repeat my admiration for that film, or which in 2004 attacked the invasion of Iraq before it was fashionable,and was at the time derided by the same jumpy commentariat who later quietly accepted Moore’s line as the truth. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com