Secret City

There are some films that make you angry because they tell you things you didn't know and make you feel that you've been cheated - this is one of them.

I'd heard of the Corporation of London but only in street signs. To find out that they're a centre for tax avoidance, they have people in Parliament and their role in causing the financial crisis made me furious and eager to find out more.

The film has a really useful historical contextualisation for the first part, using a wide range of interesting interviewees whilst weaving in a tour of the city and plenty of really good archive footage. It leave you in no doubt as to where the City's power is derived from historically.

The human-interest angle is explained by "victims" of the Corporation whose attempts simply to be democratic were thwarted as well as by reflections of Vicars (yes, really - some of the most interesting characters in the film), workers and of course the human impact of the current crisis.

There were one or two problems with camera focus on occasion but then if it's true (as I heard at a Q&A) that it was done with no money at all, I can forgive them that as it fits with the aesthetics of radical documentary anyway. The music is sufficiently haunting to stay with you for a few days, which is a great effect.

It's a really complex film in many respects, which means I had to watch it more than once to really understand but I'd recommend it really highly to anyone who wants to really understand what's going on in the world and why!