Breaking Social (12A)
Directed by Fredrik Gertten
⭑⭑⭑⭑☆

 

FREDRIK GERTTEN’s latest documentary examines the human and environmental consequences of global kleptocracy and extractivism.

The director takes bold risks with the structure of his narrative. It is dense. In 93 minutes, he foregrounds injustices in Chile, Malta, Britain and the USA, while referencing struggles in many other parts of the world. There is commentary from 27 contributors, consisting of reportage, observation, anecdote, theory and fragments of classical mythology relevant to the contemporary class struggle.

Furthermore, the presentation is nonlinear, cutting back and forth between people and events. Stories are initiated, but aspects of their significance are left to dangle. Resolution is accomplished – and causation fully established – only in the film’s closing segments.

Coherence is sustained by slick editing; and the realisation that common patterns are emerging across the case studies makes for satisfying viewing. Some issues might have benefited from more in-depth analysis but Gertten’s focus – the development of global systems of exploitation – requires a broad set of examples.

These include a mining company, owned by a Democratic senator, which accesses public money while laying waste to the mountains and lakes of West Virginia; the destruction of agriculture and water supplies by large-scale mining in a “sacrifice zone,” the Choapa Valley in Chile; the role of UK consultancy Cambridge Analytica in harvesting data and influencing elections; and the murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia while investigating systematic government corruption, including the sale of passports for cash.

This last example illustrates a key aspect of contemporary kleptocracy: it is run by a transnational elite who – as journalist Sarah Chayes points out – live in jets, yachts and luxury hotels while rejecting allegiance to any nation or group.

Further cogent analyses of the ways in which the billionaire class have taken control of politics are provided by Dutch historian Rutger Bregman, British former military specialist Sven Hughes and New York Times journalist Peter Goodman.  

While Gertten is unflinching in his exploration of the decline of democratic culture, the illegal accumulation of wealth and the formation of elaborate webs of international corruption, his film is not defeatist. There are insights into a range of resistance projects – the establishment of a union for US Amazon workers; a teachers’ strike in West Virginia; and campaigns by political and arts activists in Chile.

Breaking Social is a powerful indictment of the pernicious influence of the super-rich on our culture, politics, landscapes and prospects for survival.

In cinemas March 6