Moore docu is ‘impishly entertaining’
Print Edition
OF course Michael Moore exaggerates. Of course he engages in cheerful, unabashed cherry-picking. Of course he sees black and white where most of us see shades of gray.
That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s wrong. It just means he’s being Michael Moore — and in his latest documentary, “Where to Invade Next,” it’s a more impishly entertaining Moore than usual, using comedy and even a bit of fantasy to prove his point. Which is, basically, that Europe has some ideas on how to run a society that Americans should plunder and pillage — er, adopt! — forthwith.
A jocular tone is set from the start, when Moore is “summoned” to the Pentagon. In this fantasy, US military leaders beg him for help. “Michael, we don’t know what the (expletive) we’re doing,” they say. “We’ve lost all the wars since World War II.”
Can Moore help? Why yes, Moore replies. Here’s the plan: Moore himself will “invade” other countries to bring home what’s useful. The first “target” is Italy.
He zooms in on a working-class Italian couple that seems to truly have it all: good jobs, plenty of leisure time, and the money to enjoy it, thanks to seven weeks of paid vacation, an extra month’s pay each year, and oh, 2-hour lunch breaks. Maternity leave, you ask? Five months paid.
To twist the knife, Moore reminds us there are only two countries in the world that don’t have mandated maternity leave: Papua New Guinea, and, yes, the USA.
Next stop: France. “As usual, the French offered little resistance,” Moore quips. But soon you won’t be laughing at France’s expense — not when you see how well they feed their schoolchildren.
On to Finland, where a forward-looking education system sees excessive homework as a hindrance to learning, and even eschews multiple-choice questions. In Germany, Moore marvels at worker benefits.
In Portugal, the country’s drug czar patiently explains that it’s not illegal to carry or use drugs. In Iceland, the strong leadership of women is extolled. In Norway, Moore visits a prison where guards don’t carry weapons, and inmates live in well-furnished apartments.
Near the end, Moore detours to Tunisia, where he finds a young radio journalist wondering eloquently why Americans know so little about others.
It’s the heart of Moore’s argument, actually: that wherever we stand on the issues, we could stand to learn from others. And that’s pretty hard to argue with.
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