Sicko (15.)
Directed By Michael Moore. Documentary. 123 mins. (Manufacturing Dissent, directed by Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk.)
After the furore of Fahrenheit 9/11 it’s a quieter, less jokey, less in-your-face Michael Moore who returns with this look at the state of the privatised American health care system. Perhaps the less incendiary approach is to disguise that this is his most radical piece yet – nothing less than a discreet attempt to entice Americans towards an acceptance of some of the basic, less scary tenets of socialism.
The first thing to note is that this film isn’t really meant for us at all. Moore’s narration is explicitly directed at his domestic audience. For British audience it’s like intruding on a private grief. That the States do not have an equivalent of our NHS is one of those things we’re long known but not really understood – the reality of a system where penny pinching insurance companies control access to health care is shocking.
It also means that the first third of Sicko is like an episode of Watchdog, with endless tear stained testimony from people who’ve had their cover withdrawn because the insurance company found a loophole to allow them to escape paying out. The middle section is taken up with an exploration of various state health services around the world, including a rose tinted view of the NHS that has been widely objected to. I can see why he needs to interviews a GP who lives in a million dollar house in Greenwich – to counter the doctors' unions inflating a fear that state medicine will impoverish them – but without a mention of the underpaid nurses it’s just propaganda. Still, the point is what it says about American society and as an expose of the barbarity at the heart of the American system it is startling.
No Michael Moore film is complete without The Stunts and though he restricts himself to just the one here, it is a biggy – taking 9/11 rescue workers to Cuba to get free health care. You don’t need to be a Republican senator to wonder just how much of a publicity stunt this all was but the emotion of it does get to you. It’s quintessential Moore – a strikingly anti-American gesture done with All-American schmaltz.
The anti – Michael Moore movement has now gained enough credence that Manufacturing Dissent, the film which set out to expose him, got a slot in the recent Raindance independent film festival in London. I can see their point but it’s still a slightly pipsqueak attack – his own films reveal Moore to be a smug, manipulative, drama queen. Manufacturing Dissent’s only interesting angle is the idea that his films, especially Fahrenheit 9/11, do nothing to benefit the causes they support, possibly even hinder them, but in true Moore style they assert this and then fail to back it up with any real evidence.
Though for British audiences Sicko is likely to be a touch underwhelming compared to Moore’s previous efforts it is remarkable in its vision of a nation so fearfully insular, so enslaved to notions of Freedom and so indoctrinated to be repelled by any hint of socialism they have left themselves so weak and powerless that even our own faltering NHS can be held up as utopian in comparison.
Sicko (15.)
Directed By Michael Moore. Documentary. 123 mins. (Manufacturing Dissent, directed by Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk.)
After the furore of Fahrenheit 9/11 it’s a quieter, less jokey, less in-your-face Michael Moore who returns with this look at the state of the privatised American health care system. Perhaps the less incendiary approach is to disguise that this is his most radical piece yet – nothing less than a discreet attempt to entice Americans towards an acceptance of some of the basic, less scary tenets of socialism.
The first thing to note is that this film isn’t really meant for us at all. Moore’s narration is explicitly directed at his domestic audience. For British audience it’s like intruding on a private grief. That the States do not have an equivalent of our NHS is one of those things we’re long known but not really understood – the reality of a system where penny pinching insurance companies control access to health care is shocking.
It also means that the first third of Sicko is like an episode of Watchdog, with endless tear stained testimony from people who’ve had their cover withdrawn because the insurance company found a loophole to allow them to escape paying out. The middle section is taken up with an exploration of various state health services around the world, including a rose tinted view of the NHS that has been widely objected to. I can see why he needs to interviews a GP who lives in a million dollar house in Greenwich – to counter the doctors' unions inflating a fear that state medicine will impoverish them – but without a mention of the underpaid nurses it’s just propaganda. Still, the point is what it says about American society and as an expose of the barbarity at the heart of the American system it is startling.
No Michael Moore film is complete without The Stunts and though he restricts himself to just the one here, it is a biggy – taking 9/11 rescue workers to Cuba to get free health care. You don’t need to be a Republican senator to wonder just how much of a publicity stunt this all was but the emotion of it does get to you. It’s quintessential Moore – a strikingly anti-American gesture done with All-American schmaltz.
The anti – Michael Moore movement has now gained enough credence that Manufacturing Dissent, the film which set out to expose him, got a slot in the recent Raindance independent film festival in London. I can see their point but it’s still a slightly pipsqueak attack – his own films reveal Moore to be a smug, manipulative, drama queen. Manufacturing Dissent’s only interesting angle is the idea that his films, especially Fahrenheit 9/11, do nothing to benefit the causes they support, possibly even hinder them, but in true Moore style they assert this and then fail to back it up with any real evidence.
Though for British audiences Sicko is likely to be a touch underwhelming compared to Moore’s previous efforts it is remarkable in its vision of a nation so fearfully insular, so enslaved to notions of Freedom and so indoctrinated to be repelled by any hint of socialism they have left themselves so weak and powerless that even our own faltering NHS can be held up as utopian in comparison.
