“War only brings more war.”
In his latest documentary Where To Invade Next, American documentary filmmaker Michael Moore takes on a more laidback storytelling technique , but delivered in the same hard-hitting format that really makes one question America’s standard of living. The film sees him take on a pretense that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has put him in charge of deciding where to invade next because America is unsure which country to bring to war due to their previous failed war efforts. Moore attempts to solve the faults in the system by highlighting the discrepancies between America and other countries.
Proposing a different kind of war with no casualties, no post-traumatic stress disorder, and no prisoners of war, Where To Invade Next is a more positive movie compared to Moore’s previous works like Sicko and Bowling for Columbine. Shot in pseudo-documentary style, Moore throws it all in your face, one after another, as he traverses countries which seem to have a better deal from their countries. And then you realise the American Dream is not as sweet as the entire world makes it out to be when you know that Italians get five weeks of paid vacation, French children are served three-course meals in school, Finland high-schoolers get 10 minutes of schoolwork tops, and drugs are treated more of a problem than a crime in Portugal.
Moore might have done his cherry-picking of the flowers, but it still has the same impact as all his previous works have done in exposing the deficiencies of the American government. America has been so focussed on being the biggest global power and for exerting its influence all over the world that it has forgotten the one resource that helped them ascend to power — the people. Moore said that “welfare is something that Americans don’t like to hear,” because all resources go to furthering war that the government is more befitting.
Moore certainly does make a point on how America is lacking compared to other countries, but it hasn’t escaped the fact that the countries he invades are contained in Europe. What about other Asia or Oceania countries? Is Moore whitewashing his documentary by not even casting his invasion over the entire world? I’m sure America can learn a lot from other parts of the world as well.
As a critique of society, Moore definitely has a flair of storytelling, but his documentary might have fallen a little flat, since it pretty much oversees topics that are well known, merely more backed up with substantial comparisons. If you haven’t seen any other of Moore’s films, Where To Invade Next is a nice little package of his frustrations.
Moore ends the movie at the Berlin Wall, a subtle reminder that a country’s reputation all culminates in one thing – the values by which the government goes by. Moore highlights that all these values preached by these various countries actually originated from America. It is during the run for being the most powerful country that America loses sight of the very thing which brought the country to where it is today – its citizen’s welfare.
Catch Where To Invade Next when it opens in cinemas on 28th April 2016. Watch the trailer here:
