Berlinale: "The Shock Doctrine", de Michael Winterbottom y Mat Whitecross (Variety)

The Shock Doctrine

(Docu -- U.K.) A Channel 4, More4 presentation of a Revolution Films, Renegade Pictures production. (International sales: E1 Films Int.l, Toronto.) Produced by Andrew Eaton, Alex Cooke, Avi Lewis. Executive producers, Alan Hayling, Hamish Mykura. Directed by Michael Winterbottom, Mat Whitecross. Screenplay, Naomi Klein, Winterbottom, based on a book by Klein

With: Naomi Klein, Kieran O’Brien (voice).

By LESLIE FELPERIN

A handy cinematic summary of radical-left pundit Naomi Klein’s bestseller of the same name, polemical docu “The Shock Doctrine” attempts to connect the dots between shock therapy and torture, Milton Friedman’s economic theories, and catastrophic recent events. Judged against the many other docus around now that also critique the machinations of modern capitalism, Michael Winterbottom’s and Mat Whitecross’ “Doctrine” looks eminently sober, polished and persuasive. Stauncher critics, however, on both the left and right will have the same beefs with the film as they did with the book. Limited release and airings on upscale TV are sure to follow.

Something of a poster-girl for the anti-globalization movement, Canuck journalist Naomi Klein has built a formidable following for her lively, accessible, detail-rich books, particularly the anti-brand tome “No Logo” (2000) and her latest, “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” on which this film is closely based. Klein herself appears on camera here (although not as much as some might expect), mostly giving lectures to packed halls of worshipful students, one group of which rise to give her a standing ovation at pic’s end.

To summarize brutally, both book and film postulate a connection between psychological techniques such as shock therapy developed in the 1950s to “brainwash” subjects, more extreme forms of torture (used now by the U.S. military), Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics free-market-boosting economic philosophy, and the way in which repressive regimes since the 1970s have sought to “shock” and coerce whole countries into perpetuating pro-privatization, anti-communitarian social orders with the backing of the CIA, the U.S. military, and multinational corporations. This, in essence, is the Shock Doctrine.

Using a mix of well-researched archive footage and animation, co-helmers Winterbottom and Whitecross (who co-directed Berlinale Silver Bear winner “The Road to Guantanamo” together) work through case studies of how this doctrine was put into practice over the last 40 years, starting with Pinochet’s Chile. Pic traces explicit lines between Friedman’s neoliberal disciples in that country, the denationalization of its industries, the Nixon administration’s support of Pinochet, and the murder of thousands of Chilean citizens. Parallels are drawn with Iraq and Afghanistan today, as well as what happened in Blighty after the Falklands War and in Russia under Yeltsin.

Niftily integrated blend of voiceover narration (spoken by Brit thesp Kieran O’Brien) and visuals is fluent and mesmerizing enough to sound persuasive, as well as offering a freshman-level refresher course on recent history, albeit with an unabashedly left-wing slant.

However, there’s a certain wooliness about Klein and Co.’s argument here, which rests more than it ought on a rhetorical sleight of hand. Listen really closely and the link between the shock tactics (let alone “shock and awe” tactics) exercised by governments and armies on whole societies and actual shock therapy, as practiced on victims like Janine Huard (interviewed here by Klein) by psychological experimenter Ewan Cameron in the 1950s, seems based on nothing much more than metaphor. Similarly, pic and book’s use of Friedman as the whipping boy for so many of the world’s ills necessitates a vast oversimplification of what happened in, for instance, Russia in 1996. Still, compared to the usual comic-book level of discourse in so many anti-globalization docus, “The Shock Doctrine” looks as rigorous as John Kenneth Galbraith’s prose.

For the record, pic was presented in Berlin as a work in progress, and version shown lacked any end credits. All info in the credit blocks here was drawn from the Berlinale’s official catalog and press notes supplied by the film.

Camera (color, B&W, HD, digital projection), Ronald Plante, Rich Ball; editors, Winterbottom, Whitecross; sound designer, Joakim Sundstrom. Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (Panorama Documentary), Feb. 9, 2009. Running time: 85 MINS.