AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Bereamic Awesome Movie

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Edgar Soberon Torchia It is as old as humankind is, but we only react when our stomachs are empty (and that is not a privilege of Marxist regimes). All over the world the ordinary people look the other way when told that actions have always been taken to control our planet (and of course its economy). I was not surprised with what I saw and heard in this fine documentary, but my info about the who, what, where and when of the whole Neoliberalism business was too vague. Therefore, when I see a film like this I appreciate to be illustrated, but I am mainly surprised at the wickedness of some human beings. My only regret is that "The Shock Doctrine" is a product from a specific time; it was made in the first decade of this century, so it ends with the Obama government. Nevertheless, the information it gives us is still valid to analyze the present. If you prefer to label this as leftist, propaganda or biased thought, well, it is your right to do so and believe in what you want. From my perspective, I do believe that such option leads us all to remain blindfold. I do not pretend things are exactly as described here, but the film does help to make us aware, a bit wiser and conscious that our rights are violated on a daily basis. We best stop believing it happens in "other countries". All of us, up and down, left and right, white and black, are subject to the decisions of evil, greedy persons, persons as those that were expelled from the temple in the Bible, as those that complain about the holocaust they were victim of, without thinking about all the wrong they do to people around the globe with their avaricious economic plans.

lreynaert This formidable movie based on Naomi Klein's mightily important book, explains how the financial 'elite' uses shocks (crises) for implementing its 'free market' gospel, or, better, to increase its economic power and concomitantly its own financial interests.Economics (general shocks) In his mightily important book 'The Secrets of the Federal Reserve', E. Mullins reveals how the financial 'elite' manipulated market prices and provoked the Wall Street Crash of 1929. What they didn't foresee was the gigantic economic slump and the massive unemployment that would follow the crash. The US government had to intervene in the economy with a 'New Deal': breaking up the banking system and impose regulations and governmental interventions in the economy. The 'New Deal' weakened significantly the grip of the financial oligarchy on the US economy. The 'free market' gospel propagated by the Chicago School of Economics (Milton Friedman) is nothing less than a frontal attack on the legislation provided by the New Deal. The gospel defends deregulation and privatization of the economy instead of regulation and governmental intervention (through its institutions and enterprises). The gospel tries to prove and to justify that free market policies (the old order) are far better than those imposed by a government. The implementation of a deregulated and privatized (by selling off government possessions) economy was first tested in Chile and Argentina after military coups (shocks). It didn't work. The deregulation of the US financial system ended in a worldwide financial collapse of the banking system, which had to be bailed out by governmental intervention (the people's money) at a staggering cost of thousand of billions of dollars worldwide, a mind-boggling anti-shock treatment. Psychiatrics, psychology (personal shocks) The movie starts with the experiments of Ewen Cameron on psychiatric patients in Canada. He tried to control (break) the minds and to reprogram (clear) the psyche of his patients with electroshocks and drugs. His methods are now used on political prisoners ('terrorists'). By creating shocks (heavy bombardments, grotesque lies, false flag operations) and also after 'natural' shocks (floods) the 'elite' tries to instill fear into the population in order to control their will, to implement their policies and, in fine, to prevent or to obstruct the establishment or the functioning of a real democracy.Reactions Reactions against 'elite' shock doctrine policies must come from 'below', from the people, whose money was squandered in order to bail out the reckless speculations of 'too big to fail' mentalities. The solution will not come from those who want to 'fight' climate change by commodifying the atmosphere (trading carbon dioxide emissions).This movie and its extras are a must see for all those who want to understand the world we live in.

tieman64 "You were such a super lady!" - Mike Yanagita (Fargo)Michael Winterbottom, one of Britain's more daring film-makers, takes a break from feature films to direct "The Shock Doctrine", an interesting documentary based on a book by Canadian journalist Naomi Clein.The documentary essentially says three things. Firstly, that big corporations in search of new markets benefit when governments import a neoliberal economic system, often as a result of pressure from the US, and that this often has catastrophic consequences for ordinary people.Secondly, that political leaders have turned to "brutality and repression" to crush protests against their ideologically inspired programmes of privatisation, deregulation and tax cuts.And thirdly, that certain "shocking events" (The Falkland War, The Gulf Wars, coups in Chile, Argentina and Russia, Hurricane Katrina, 9/11 etc) have been used, or even created, for the purpose of stealthily introducing unpopular reforms in the wake of these crises.So essentially something big and bad is designed to happen in order to distract the populace from some sneaky law being implemented, or some massive privatization deal being granted. IE- capitalists have taken advantage of natural and man-made disasters in order to promote their free market ideals, or outright concocted such shocks.Unfortunately, whatever merits the documentary has are eroded by its overly ominous, overly conspiratorial tone. Winterbottom sees macro plots and macro conspiracies, instead of chaos and confusion. He sees complex plans and careful scheming instead of a more general exploitation of opportunity. Yes, the film offers great analysis of corporatism and various authoritarian governments, and highlights how crises are used by governments to coerce people, but this shouldn't be surprising to anyone who realises that governments routinely use coercion even in the absence of shocks. And of course a focus on macro conspiracies misses the mundane conspiracy of simple, white-bread capitalism and debt based banking.Elsewhere Winterbottom makes a big deal out of Milton Friedman's assertion that reforms are best made during crises. This is odd, since almost every reformer/revolutionary, from Paine to Marx, has said the same thing. Winterbottom also implies that the "crisis equals opportunity" idea is unique to Friedman and that Friendman has "evil intentions", but neither of these claims are particularly believable.Perhaps the most interesting thing about the documentary is Winterbottom's choice of music. He uses the famous theme tune from the Coen Brothers' film, "Fargo". Thematically it's an apt song choice. "Fargo" pretended to be a "true story" but was really a work of fiction, its lead character (a police detective played by Frances McDormand) learning to suspect everyone and not take people and things at face value. Winterbottom's film may not be entirely convincing, but at least it instills a healthy air of distrust and urges us to question our surroundings.7.5/10 - This documentary isn't in the same league as Winterbottom's "Road to Guantanamo" and "Welcome to Sarajevo", two of the better political films out there, but it's still fairly interesting and packed with little moments of insight. Props must be given to Channel 4 for funding, not only this documentary and several of Winterbottom's films, but also for financing some of the more daring British film-makers over the past decade.Worth one viewing.

Chris Warrington The adaptation of Naomi Klein's book 'The Shock Doctrine' seems to have been quite convoluted. First Alfonso Cuarón and his brother teamed up with Klein to make a 6 minute short film almost as a way of advertising the book. This is just a taster for the larger issue at hand. Whitecross and Winterbottom's feature-length documentary is a journey into the meat of the matter. Each of the snippets from Cuarón's film are expanded and the story is told over a grand, even epic, scale. This is the story of an economist called Milton Friedman and his idea. Perhaps not just an idea, given the remarkable effect of Friedman's 'idea' it just doesn't seem like a big enough word, but it will have to do. The idea is one that sounds attractive, it is beguiling in its simplicity and more than that, it offers the chance of a kind of utopia - it is the notion of the 'Free Market'. Klein's book, and this film, describe how Friedman's ideas on Free Market economics went from being a marginalised backwater of economic theory to being the reasoning behind so many international events in recent years. It is the story of how deregulated trading isn't a Utopian saviour but a dangerous and unpredictable beast powerful enough to bring a country to its knees.The argument is drawn clearly and with enough evidence to be compelling; from the military coups in Chile and Argentina through the right wing governments of Thatcher and Reagan, a stop off with Boris Yeltsin and the collapse of the Soviet Union and ending with our current embroilment in Iraq – Naomi Klein has drawn a path connecting all these events to the economic ideas of Milton Friedman. At points the power of the message is a little overwhelming, it made me angry to see the atrocities committed in the service of enacting national changes. To see the rich get rich and the poor, well the poor get eaten up by the system. It is horrible and brilliant. Sickening and yet so very clever, so smart as to be almost admirable – but that doesn't make it right. They are preaching to the converted with me, but I urge you to seek out this film. Find it and watch it and understand some of the underlying ideas that run our lives on a day to day and nation to nation basis. A word of warning though, you might get angry.