Collapse (2009) dir. Chris Smith
A documentary featuring Michael Ruppert

***

By Blair Stewart

At some point in our present existence predicated by its own existence civilization will run low on oil. In lockstep with this fact is the exponential swelling of our populace while entrenched battles for fossil fuels causes the global economy to pinball around. Until then.

Made by Chris Smith, the documenatarian responsible for "American Movie" and "The Yes Men", "Collapse" probes the career of Michael Ruppert; former LAPD officer, investigative reporter, publisher of the underground newsletter 'From the Wilderness' and possible Oracle of western civilizations decline. Together they sit in a grubby warehouse for an interview as tentacles crept their way around my plans for a fat retirement.

Locked into a single-person bull session with an old man shouldn't make for an unsettling experience and yet the intelligence and the paranoia and the devout cynicism of Ruppert did just that to my placidity. Switching between Ruppert's talking head and related footage of his scorn for most media, government, higher law enforcement and alternative energy, "Collapse" maps out the fierce bush humanity may need to hack through for progression. No doubt an ego boost for survivalist and vegan hippies alike. Like a knowing horror film where bloodshed outside of the frame is far worse for the imagination a similar effect is had just from Smith's subject talking. This doesn't make everything Michael Ruppert is saying to be cardinal virtues from hell; it's that he has a convincingly burnt-out way of pointing out likely cataclysms and the realities of overpopulation and peak oil overpowers my personal horseshit detector.

"Collapse" is a stylistically unusual documentary for Smith as it has an Errol Morris "Fog of War"/"Mr. Death" touch to it from the film's setting to the Philip Glass-ish soundtrack down to the poster design. This is akin to Soderbergh blatantly aping Wong Kar-wai's style and odd as Smith is one of the best in his field. A form of flattery perhaps, and possibly the proper (only?) way to approach the singular personality of the cigarette-punishing Ruppert. A good documentary on a great mouthpiece, and worthwhile viewing for everyone who has a stake in the derivatives of oil.

N.B. One piece of sage advice is passed along: buy perennial vegetable seeds for your garden, you might need them down the road.

"The Yes Men" (2003) dir. by Dan Ollman, Sarah Price and Chris Smith
Starring: Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos

**1/2

By Blair Stewart

Two men on a stage for a World Trade Organization conference somewhere in Stockholm or Cleveland gloss over collusion between business interests and local governments with a steep price paid by the countries of the third, second (Cuba? North Korea?), and occasionally first world.

Blah-blah-blah-unsafeworkingconditionsandabunchofchinesefolksdie-blah.
Yadda-yadda-industrialwastedumpedintoalake-yadda.

Then two other men get up and in a factually roundabout method that might segue into gold lame bodysuits and edible shitburgers say what the intentions of the W.T.O. and their global enablers really are.

I'd much prefer watching the latter. The W.T.O. would not.

Taking the prank-conscience activism of 'Adbusters' with a splash of the Situationists and swinging a wrecking ball at globalization, "The Yes Men" are a pack of good samaritans shaming corporation flunkies worldwide. An eponymous documentary on the two main wise-asses, 'Mike Bonanno' (Igor Vamos) and 'Andy Bichlbaum' (Jacques Servin), who go about these conferences nodding, shaking hands and smiling in suits until they get up on stage and stir shit up with their truth-telling. They've accomplished this by posting fake websites with subtle jibes towards the corporate world. Predictably by not reading-deeper this has lead to trade organizations inviting our heroes to conferences all over the globe, with the occasional appearance on primetime news. Poker-faced, the Yes Men argue in preference towards 'remote-controled foreign labour' and recycling fast-food burgers so we can sell them back to Bangladeshians. An inflatable phallus even puts on a show for the crowds.

Overwhelmingly in these situations 'Bichlbaum' as his alter-alter ego "Hank Hardy Unruh" (love that name) is met only with blank faces from the donkeys he's pinning a tail on.

A chilling reveal on the inhumane nature of capitalism while also being an enjoyable lark of a documentary, "The Yes Men" isn't exceptional in part due to an ending that peters out and the slight reveal on the real lives of the subjects. I found my latter issue surprising as co-directors Chris Smith and Sarah Price were responsible for such highly-praised works as “American Movie” and “Home Movie”, especially with “American Movie” digging right under the skin of its sad-sack dreamer Mark Borchardt.

Despite these qualms the anti-W.T.O. story is told with a lighter touch than Michael Moore's to which I am grateful, and I look forward to watching the sequel “The Yes Men Fix the World”, which involves the Halliburton-designed 'SurvivaBall', used to combat the effect of climate change. But of course.