Taking a low-key, quietly moody approach, German filmmaker Marc Bauder employs a vast, empty Frankfurt bank building (made obsolete, we ultimately learn, in a colossal merger) for a one-man interview/soliloquy with former investment banker Rainer Voss (after Voss clears things with his lawyers). The rumpled, middle-aged businessman (laid off, we later discover) recalls the staid, regimented world of European high finance before the dizzying Reagan/Thatcher era of deregulation and globalization. The advent of computer spreadsheets and digital trading would usher in a new generation of young traders such as Voss (more cautious seasoned older guys simply weren't able to handle the new technology), and enormous wealth transfers in tiny spans of time quickly became commonplace. But so did high-risk ventures, bad debts, and junk-finance peddling that brought down entire nations. Archival clips cover the Goldman/Sachs, Lehman Brothers, and Jérôme Kerviel scandals, as traders faced inhuman pressures to create “growth” (real or not). The economic lessons and warnings that Voss attempts to impart here are not as simple as those found in polemical agit-prop pieces from the left, but the documentary does convey a strong sense of looming financial gotterdammerung, as incomprehensibly huge corporate entities fail to take up reform. Following a predicted upcoming collapse of France, says Bauder, it will be "game over." A disturbing overview of the continuing recipe for global economic doom, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)
Master of the Universe
(2013) 88 min. In German w/English subtitles. DVD: $29.99. KimStim (avail. from most distributors). Volume 30, Issue 2
Master of the Universe
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