Where to Invade Next
Michael Moore’s first film since 2009 is not, on the surface, as seriously minded as the films he made between 2002-2009- “Bowling for Columbine,” “Fahrenheit 9/11,” “SiCKO” and “Capitalism: A Love Story.” It’s a return to the jokey, satirical barbing of his TV shows, “TV Nation” and “The Awful Truth,” as he starts by implying a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of the US military where he suggests allowing him to go to countries to see what he can “win” for America, with interviews with foreigners (whether they are government leaders, business people or regular individuals) as he learns about what each country has to offer, and then symbolically plants the American flag and declares each country conquered. However, there is a moment at the halfway point of the film where Moore is in Germany. He has started his time in the country giving us an impression that the idea he plans to “bring home” to America is how best to building up a middle class, which, in this time of harsh inequality, is much needed again, to be sure. However, we then visit classrooms in Nuremberg, and we see footage of “Triumph of the Will,” and suddenly, the tone shifts. What Moore wants us to learn from Germany, more than even their secrets to a successful middle class, is the ways they have taught, and learned from, the dark cloud of genocide that occurred during Hitler’s rule of the country in the ’30s and ’40s. Rather than pretending their violent past is ancient history, they have reconciled with it in the form of remembrances and school studies that helps them move forward, and help ensure that the sins of the past will not be repeated by a new generation. This is what Moore wants our country to take from Germany; he wonders what America would be like if we came to terms with our own bloody and bigoted past in the same way Germany had. Would we see a Ferguson happen today? Would Black Lives Matter be necessary? Would the genocide of the Native Americans be as marginalized in our history, and would we actually have a sports franchise named the Washington Redskins, if we sought to understand our fellow Americans, the original Americans, better than we have? In this moment, Moore’s film hit me on a level the most devastating moments of his best films do, and it reminded me of why, for all their political and partisan bluster in the 2000s, they remain an essential and important part of my film watching, and political, life.
“Where to Invade Next” takes a left turn into a more serious tone and topic in Germany, when Moore looks deeper at the ways countries like Tunisia, Norway, Portugal and Iceland have expanded the lives of their citizens, especially women (in Tunisia and Iceland) and criminals, or would be criminals (in Norway and Portugal, respectfully) in ways that America has either forgotten, or failed to do, and when it does that, it’s as good as anything Moore has ever put on screen before. That isn’t to say his invasions of Italy (for their paid time off for employees), France (for their school lunches), Finland (for their educational system) or Slovenia (for their free higher education) isn’t important- we could seriously learn something from each of these countries, if only more people would listen- but his tone in this part of the film is more of the jokey, absurdist Moore who staged moments like walking out with a gun from a bank or randomly entering Canadians’s homes in “Bowling for Columbine” or went into billion dollar corporations with novelty checks to highlight genuine grievances in “The Big One” than the heartbreaking humanist who chronicled the failures of American healthcare system in “SiCKO,” the change of heart of a lifelong military supporter in “Fahrenheit 9/11” or the harsh economic hardships of people in his hometown of Flint in “Roger & Me.” To some, he’s a partisan hack who will never be given the benefit of the doubt by the right after he righteously, and blatantly, went after Bush and co. for the way they manipulated the country into a needless war in Iraq in “Fahrenheit 9/11,” but he knows his audience, and he knows how to speak to them in a way that is funny, smart and entertaining. If his documentaries feel more like op-ed columns than the work of a probing cinematic journalist like an Errol Morris or Steve James or Kirby Dick, well, that’s because Moore has always put himself front and center as both the author and driver of his films. He isn’t objective and doesn’t pretend to be. To some, that’s a detriment, but it’s really his passion for his subjects that makes them strong efforts from a humorist and political activist who uses his words, and filmmaking, to present a vision of what he would like America to be while showing what America is. You may not like the way he does it, but it’s foolish to think he doesn’t do it well.
