What's Up Doc? Political Documentaries in 2009.

It’s been a few years since Michael Moore first appeared on our cinema screens. In 2002, Bowling for Columbine, brought the world’s attention to a baseball clad American who surprised viewers with his frank exposure of the lunacies and injustices of his own society. The film marked a new type of political documentary which used humour and the occasional prank to bring a liberal message to the masses. And to prove their popular status, three of Moore’s documentaries (Bowling for Columbine, Sicko and Fahrenheit 9/11) have made it into the top ten highest grossing documentaries of recent times. However, Moore has not been without his critics, even those who agreed with what he was saying often struggled with the way he was saying it, his last film Sicko which revealed the tragedies of America’s health care system was criticised for verging towards the sanctimonious. And, in 2007 Moore was the subject of a documentary entitled Manufacturing Dissent which revealed the misleading tactics that the director used during his filmmaking.

Michael Moore may not be quite the golden boy he once was, yet that’s not to suggest the demise of the popular political documentary. Over the last few months several films on a variety of political issues have received excellent critical and public reaction. The Age of Stupid, which starred Pete Postlethwaite, looked at climate change through the eyes of an old man living alone in 2055 looking back at footage from 2008. The End of the Line examined the global problem of overfishing and just last month Burma VJ intelligently explored the restriction of freedom of speech in Burma. All these films have been distributed and promoted by one small, independent company called Dogwoof, one of the few film companies who are driven by an ethical manifesto. In it they state that “the price of inaction is far greater than the cost of a mistake”. It seems that in a small corner of the film industry (and it’s an industry hardly known for its morality) is a company that appears to be practising what it preaches.

Dogwoof’s next release is The Yes Men Fix the World. It follows two guerrilla political activists who, donned in charity shop suits, try to infiltrate large corporations in order to smuggle out stories to reveal the unethical side of big business. They impersonate top CEOs on television and at conferences and present ludicrous ideas to reveal the ridiculous side of big business (no doubt impacting the share prices of the companies in question in the process). They’ve been hailed by some as the next generation of activists.

In a world which is often flagged as increasingly apathetic, political documentaries perhaps have an important role to play. They can stir debate and draw attention to causes that would otherwise be overlooked. Really effective films can sometimes lead to direct change, for example, shortly after Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me (about the horror of a fast food diet) showed at the Sundance Film Festival, MacDonalds removed the super size option from their menus.

As a testament to just how influential a film can be, this week, what should come through the post at Skinny HQ than an expensive looking media pack from the charity Action Against Hunger. The mail out, designed to look like a launch pack for an upcoming film, came with the tagline “with your help, this could be Al Gore’s new movie”. Further reading revealed that the charity’s aim is to get supporters to lobby to Al Gore and encourage him to make a film about what they believe to be the greatest tragedy of the 21st Century: acute malnutrition. This surely must be a first: the promotion not of a film but of an idea for a film and ultimately the promotion of the publicity that such a film would bring to the cause. Whilst the campaign itself will create a buzz (and this must surely be one, if not the main intention of the charity), the idea of putting pressure on a public figure to make a film about a given topic raises interesting questions about the role of documentary filmmaking. Few would doubt that world hunger is a devastating problem that needs to be addressed, however is it the role of a charity to initiate the making of a film on such an issue? And if they were successful would audiences approach the film differently knowing its genesis?

The recent releases from Dogwoof show a variety of filmmakers engaging with topics that audiences and critics are keen to hear about, it’s a small trend that should be encouraged. Yet, as Michael Moore’s adversaries have shown, even the slightest whiff of cards not being played straight can lead to cynicism, even where intentions are good, which highlights the thin line that these films tread. As a comic book hero was once told ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ and many documentary makers will surely testify there’s a moral responsibility not just in what you say but how you go about saying it.