Let's Make Money

Excellent documentary without any disturbing biases. Although not unravelling the question where the bank-money goes to, the used examples are diverse and relevant to the gap issue between the west and the 'emerging countries'.

I got to agree though this might be a movie hard to watch, as moderate knowledge of economic terms are needed in order to enjoy and keep up with the story. Also, the connections between the different scenes weren't obvious. Although it all had to do with money and investors, the link between them were vague and not chronological. This tended to be dragging down the movie: you could sense people were waiting for the final scene, as they couldn't figure out which one would be it.

I liked the way how globalisation as subject was captured by filming in all these locations, showing how it applies to all these people.

Release at a time of world wide financial crisis with banks stumbling around the globe is coincidence, but a good one.

Do you know what happens with your money? How banks use it to be able to pay the interest they advertised? To fulfill their investors' expectations? I did, partially, but certainly not the whole story.

Do we want to know it all? You can say as well: I like beef steaks, but do I want to get to know the cow and the whole process before it is on my plate? If you are not ignoring things and act like an ostrich, then you should be willing to ask this question.

The movie tells you the story through the voices of people on top and on bottom of a globalized market, blended in to a composition of pictures that mostly speak by themselves anyway. This is a movie where the slogan 'Let your money work for you' gets a literal meaning. But is it really working for 'you'?

Wagenhofer has done it again. This one is better than all of Michael Moore's films combined because it leaves the audience feeling informed, but not manipulated. The prevailing thought after seeing this film is "what can I do to make it better?" This documentary combines interviews with key people directly involved in strong-arming governments, hiding the owners of trusts whose money has damaged millions of lives, enslaved people in India and Africa and supported laws that allow financial institutions (in London, for example) to operate unregulated in order to maximize profits for a few as they they destroy the lives of many, with outstanding camera work and very clever use of visual and auditory iconography throughout. Just watch it!

Frankly, I wasn't too hot about Wagenhofer's previous documentary "We Feed The World", which dealt with the food industry. Now, he's tackling the much harder to "photograph" financial system, and he pins it right down. Wagenhofer documents some egregious examples of the global financial system going haywire, and he nails down the right cases. Those gargantuan, deserted Spanish golf course castles will stay in your mind. So will the sheer, pharaonean poverty of cotton pickers and granite maimers (for a better word) in Burkina Faso.

Film is always thick on emotion, thin on information. This documentary offers a few mental stepping stones. Tomorrow I'm going to look up some of the points mentioned in this film. That's about all you can ask from a good documentary.

I found this documentary quite good even it touches or addresses only the symptoms of the monetary system.

For sure it demonstrates a true state of how things go in the world and the dangerous mind sets some people have develop. They went through a dramatic value shift and they want more and more to control without any consideration to humans and nature. I live in a third world country and see for sure the parallel occurrences.

Most people do not confront them sufficiently with the monetary system, especially if they benefit greatly from it like North Americans and Europeans do. It always comes as a surprise to see such a movie coming from those camps.

People aren't aware that money isn't created by Governments; it comes from private banks. Worse! They do not understand that all money is dept money and don't see the direct relationship between wealth and dept creation. Most people aren't even aware of the destructive dynamics of interests and compound interests. They are very important topics to be understood and addresses, especially the consequences they have. They have been hidden and declared taboo topics for the public and this for generations.