Deadly Embrace: Nicaragua, The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund

One thing is for certain: Nicaragua is in trouble, and the World Bank and the IMF have something to do with it. I could have told you that by reading the cover of the tape. But I've watched the video twice, and I still can't figure out the connection. The images are powerful. Starving kids pick through a garbage dump looking for scraps of food. Nicaraguans testify to the hardship of their lives. Teachers march for higher wages. Producers Elizabeth Canner and Ashley Eames obviously have a strong emotional attachment to their subject, and a clear cut political agenda. But they also lack the storytelling skills to give a balanced, persuasive report to an average viewer who is not already deeply familiar with the subject matter. I doubt many of us are conversant about international monetary policy, debt servicing, structural adjustment policies, portfolio investments and free trade zones. (I know that whenever I discuss these concepts, I usually phrase them in the form of a question, bracketing the terms within the words "What is ____ anyway?") Nor, I would venture, are the inner workings of the World Bank and the IMF familiar concepts to most. Instead of giving us an objective historical, cultural and political foundation, this video stridently tells us how we should think and feel about a situation we don't even understand. It is typical of the misguided, collegiate approach of the tape that the filmmakers often cut to a dreadful violin solo by the Bread and Puppet Theater and an actor onstage reading a letter of resignation by an employee of the IMF. Although slick in style and well meaning, this tape takes an important situation and presents it to us in a way that is scattered, confusing, and disjointed. Not a necessary purchase. Aud: C, P. (R. Ray)