Propaganda

Borrowing themes from Fahrenheit 9/11, Capitalism: A Love Story, The Corporation, and many other left-wing features—and then cranking them past 11—filmmaker Slavko Martinov's angry diatribe dresses up a lot of Occupy Wall Street complaints in an iffy mockumentary gimmick: as a film smuggled out of insular North Korea, in which agents for the Pyongyang dictatorship have scrutinized the West and now (with an English-language voiceover) report to comrades about how the "democratic" world works. Item: it appears that a tiny, unaccountable, criminal super-rich minority—all Big-Business capitalists—run everything. Item: U.S. presidents (Obama included) and U.K. prime ministers are all corporate-controlled puppet warmonger imperialists and protectors of the Rothschild terrorist rogue-state Israel. Item: the American people remain docile, stupid, and ignorant of the actual world situation thanks to trash-reality TV, violent video games, and consumer-brainwash ads (replacing the state's old brainwash method, namely religion). The satirical message seems to be that even the ultimate outsider, Kim Jung-un, can have a better idea of what's going on than the entertainment-numbed masses in the "free world." Take note that the media-barrage style of news clips and illustrative footage can sometimes be hideously violent (including footage of mutilated Palestinians and abused animals). Disturbing but also thought-provoking, this is a strong optional purchase. (C. Cassady)