Let's Make Money is an Austrian documentary by Erwin Hofer car from the year 2008. The film deals with various aspects of the development of the global financial system. 2009, the film won the documentary prize was first awarded in Germany.
Content
Structure
The film is divided into 12 chapters:
Let your money work
Investment India
Opportunities in emerging markets
Planned well in advance (via the Mont Pelerin Society)
Rising deposits - Rising Debt
Basis for survival
Expropriation of the Community
In the name of freedom
Rising profits - Falling Wages
Profits for the few - for all losses
How long can we afford the rich yet?
Selection mechanisms.
People
In
the film, rich managers, investors and numerous prominent business
representatives and the banks have their say, but also economists and
university professors as well as simple and homeless workers. Some examples:
Mark Mobius says in the film, the emerging markets. He is fund manager who manages a budget of approximately $ 50 billion. In
the film, is shown in his statements that he invested money in
developing countries in order to make a profit through targeted
exploitation.
Mirko
Kovats, an investor who is among the 15 richest Austrians, is shown in
the film during an inspection of an Indian company. There
he makes highly controversial statements about the working conditions
of its Indian employees and workers in India generally.
Gerhard
Schwarz, former head of the economics department of the Neue Zürcher
Zeitung talks about the founding of the Mont Pelerin Society and their
influence on politics.
Terry
le Sueur: The Minister of Finance of Jersey explains the development of
the Island of Jersey from an agricultural-and tourism-heavy economy to
an international financial center and one of the biggest tax havens.
Hermann Scheer, SPD Member of the German Bundestag, critics of the current financial system.
John
Perkins: Critical Globalization best-selling author, tells the story of
America's intervention in the politics of other countries from economic
interests.
Quotes
The following are some selected quotes from the movie:
"There was a famous saying that the best time to buy is when the blood is in the streets. I would add: even if it is your own. Because
if there's war, revolution, political problems and economic problems,
then drop the price of shares, and those people who bought at that depth
have made tons of money. "
- Mark Mobius, president of Templeton Emerging Markets
"Spain is one of the countries where the real estate bubble has developed most intensively in the last 5 years. One can speak of a massive urbanization in a cement tsunami that rolled over the coast and the islands. From the coast ... the first kilometers of the coastline is already installed on 80%. "
- Ramon F. Duran, University of Madrid
"Here no one cries for the state, self-help is called for here. Here you go only to the economy "
- Mirko Kovats, Austrian Industrialists
Stylistic devices
The action in the film is driven by interviews and on-screen text lines. Between artistic style elements illustrate the action. At the beginning about the concentrated eyes a seamstress to show what seems to work until late at night. In the next scene Mark Mobius is shown, on the treadmill reads the economic news in a gym. The camera is temporarily in close-up on his wrist and on his expensive clock. In another scene, describe Mirko Kovats and a university graduate in economics from India, the parallel economy in India. Between them is a large advertising poster for the "Millionaire's Club" is shown which is built in the middle of the slums.
Direct
comments filmmakers to what is shown there is not, however, the
headlines and scenes of action, it will be shown as well as the
translated opinions of the individuals interviewed, occasionally also
selected numbers. In
an early scene we see, for example, as workers in Ghana gold loaded
into a helicopter, which is brought into Switzerland, where it is
melted. A pop up on the scene following line of text says: "Distribution: 3% for Africa, 97% in the West." Moreover, the documentation for the technique of parallel editing is applied repeatedly.
Both
the trailer for the film and the film itself is claimed by a
translation error that there was 11.5 trillion dollars in private assets
worldwide in various tax havens. The English word "trillion" Billion is here wrongly translated as trillion. Only
from the subsequent comparative analysis that, assuming a yield of 7%
and a tax rate of 30% of an annual loss of about $ 250 billion as tax
revenues arises worldwide, the actual magnitude is hervor.Produktion and
evaluation
Was
filmed in the spring of 2007 included Austria, Germany, UK, Spain,
Singapore, India, Burkina Faso, in the U.S. and in Switzerland.
Theatrical release was on World Savings Day, which in Germany on 30 October was celebrated in 2008, in Austria 31 October. In German Switzerland, the film ran on 22 January 2009. The rental is done in Austria by film loading, film distribution in Germany by DELPHI and in Switzerland by Frenetic Films. The world holds distribution rights Celluloid Dreams.
In
Austria started the film with 28 copies and reached the opening weekend
(Friday, October 31, until Sunday, November 2) as the third most
successful film of the weekend 15,325 visitors. By
the end of 155 409 people visited the movie. The number of
simultaneous outstanding film copies reached after three weeks with 61
copies of their peak.
In Germany the film reached 179,480 admissions until the end of January.
Reviews
The criticisms of the film are divided depending on the expectations of critics from positive to negative. Receives
positive reviews of the film, especially by those who approve of the
simplified and crisp presentation of the financial world and its
injustices. Negative votes criticize a precisely this simplification, the complexity of the financial world will not do justice. The other part is criticism that the film was no answers to the questions that raises Wagenhofer in this film. Some
critics see the simplified representation of the contents of the
message to the audience that "getting the other", "up there", and blame
are the "little man" as opposed to We Feed the World, not with the
feeling from the movies go, he himself with his "modest share portfolio" could do anything about it.
To those critics who see the simplicity of the film as its thickness, belongs among others, the Berliner Zeitung:
"Of course it would mean to call Erwin Wagenhofer one of the major beneficiaries of the current stock market mange. The
Austrian has his documentary, Let's make money 'three years ago finally
started with the stated aim to provide the perversions global money
flows only. Meanwhile, these money flows from merely have to fend alone. And
so Wagenhofer is now time for the World Savings Day with a documentary
in theaters that could be something like the film on the financial
crisis. [...]
Wagenhofer documented what he calls the modern gold robbery with a
visual language that is strongly reminiscent of the shipment with the
mouse. However, this childlike perspective is not a weakness, but the great strength of this film. In
that - even for people who are interested - not to be looking crowd
from offshore markets, cross-border leasing and private equity funds,
there are in fact simple, one might almost say that promote naive
questions about enlightening days. Wagenhofer explains the world in a monumental educational film. "
- Boris Herrmann, Berliner Zeitung
the
daily newspaper, however, does precisely this simplicity, the biggest
weakness of the film, the guilty remain their view, backgrounds and
responses and therefore bring nothing new:
"[...]
Wagenhofer goes from the premise of an unbroken confidence among fund
managers and large investors, for which there can be no doubt as to the
beneficial forces of neoliberalism. [...]
That may be called for in times of crisis such maligned state as the
last safety net before the bankruptcy itself under Hayek's supporters
again, is a knowledge that is not obtained from the film. [...]
In the dedication to the sheer abundance of material he reduced his
concern on getting the same message: the West increased his wealth at
the expense of the Third World, the neoliberal profiteers privatize
profits and socialize their losses. Both are certainly true, not only as particularly original insight. More
than that, actually hidden key questions remain: how it came to be and
what role we - the Western society - play in the whole. [...]
Guilt 'are, as it suggests the film, only the other, never the little
man respectively the small woman with her modest stock portfolio. "
- Dietmar Kammerer, the daily newspaper
Similar criticism puts forward the weekly Friday. These complains about that film his examples not recessed or analyzed. He
was content with it, "to spread a diffuse critical mood that mobilizes
neither investigative nor polemical energy." The episodes stood "almost
anecdotal and somewhat unconnected." In another review of the same
newspaper is criticized that the film never "over the stage beyond criticism "and would" gain political knowledge "therefore remains low. After
that the world is unjust, "we knew before Let's Make Money." This film
raises "many questions, he answers, however, remains guilty."
The
accusation that car Hofer's examples were "arbitrary" - such as the
allegation of daily newspaper (see above) - countered the time with the
finding that Let's Make Money as We Feed the World have an existing
"closed reasoning system", "Without demagogic overwhelming but with the secure feeling for some almost unbelievable punchlines. Your
price is the simplification of complex relationships, without which the
political enlightenment cinema, it is to be successful, today
apparently no longer manage. The
analytical gap-filling thick Lots of additional materials or
discussions with organizations such as Attac or fair trade. "In the
result, today's widespread populist workmanship is questioned by
documentaries and Michael Moore," which formed the genre to the
blockbuster "," climate minister "Al Gore
and Hubert Sauper "groomed" referenced Nile perch in order to
subsequently determine the words George Seeßlen: "The best documentaries
are from people who have a desire to the ugliest of people who have a
conviction, and the most sincere of people who approach the world with nothing but taste, curiosity and method. 'Erwin Hofer car meets all three criteria. The least distinguishes it from most other political filmmakers these days. "
The
issue of distinguishing the documentary style of chariots on the
example Hofer Michael Moore is also dedicated to the daily newspaper in
another article and praises in this context also Wagenhofer due to its
sober style in comparison to the polemical Moore:
"Wagenhofer presents some particularly absurd and disastrous for the countries concerned excesses of neoliberalism. [...] Wagenhofer often mounted to extreme contrasts. [...]
Wagenhofer works without comment in the off and, therefore, must
necessarily ascend many experts that analyze the extremely complex
relationships. These
are the 110 minutes is certainly some talking heads too much [...]
Pleasantly be sober tone that conveys the devastating diagnosis much
more impressive than other political documentaries of recent times, the
polemic in the style of Michael Moore. Here,
however, John Perkins speaks very quietly that he corrupted the
so-called economic hit countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and
that after him came the jackals. The
Lord is so kind about chatting much more impressive than the mounting
of news images from the mentioned trouble spots that could have used a
documentary here who does not trust his own material. "
- Wilfried hip, the daily newspaper
