The Yes Men

The Yes Men is a brilliant and hilarious documentary by the filmmakers of American Movie. I checked it out at last year's Toronto film festival.

The film centres around a small group of anti-globalization activists who went around the world posing as WTO representatives at major industry conferences. Their appalling presentations were often met with applause by world business leaders.

The only problem is that the documentarians mentioned they did not have promission to shoot what they were filming and thus are having a difficult time getting the rights to the images from the conferences they were at. It would be a real shame if The Yes Men was not allowed to be released in theatres.

The Yes Men is a documentary about a group of anti-economic liberalization activists who have made a unique habit of impersonating the WTO and other right-wing organizations (including the George W. Bush presidential campaign) in talks and national media spots. They try to get noticed by the overblown repugnance of the right-wing plans they suggest for the world's poor. If Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" was a satirical short story about the rich literally devouring the impoverished, these guys are the long running Broadway adaptation.

Despite the release of the movie and many high profile performances, they still have not been properly outed, which is good for their continued success since still nobody recognizes them, but part of their aim is to get people who would normally listen to the WTO talk start thinking about globalization and its human consequences in the third world (poverty, hunger, pollution, disease, increased political and domestic violence, environmental destruction, and so on).

Since it's a documentary normally I wouldn't be lauding performances, but in this case, these guys do perform for their audience, and they are absolutely wonderful. They propose such things as recycling human waste to be made into McDonald's hamburgers to be sold in the third world. To see them advocating the employment of sweatshop workers because it's more humane than slavery and MUCH more cost effective (since "involuntarily relocated workers" require room and board at American rates and in the third world you can employ dozens for the same price and you don't have to look after their health or recoup the costs of transporting them overseas if they "escape"), while nobody listening bats an eye, is hilarious (if horrifying). They take the best of Michael Moore, The Corporation, and Supersize Me and sneak it in under the noses of the world's economic and academic elite at conferences on globalization.

I was lucky because the filming ended in 2002, but the proprietors of the theater where I saw it downloaded their latest prank off webcast, which featured a Yes Man impersonating a spokesman for Dow Chemicals speaking on the Bhopal massacre, which was easily equal to anything else they'd pulled off, and played it at the end of the movie.

This shows how some of the bizarre scripts written by well meaning but now largely irrelevant organisations have been become so muddled that many of the audience don't realize the joke is on them. With a few notable exceptions the America we see on our daily news has had an irony bypass already and forget satire so it is great to learn that the artform is not lost by the Yes Men.

NZ's very own former PM and trade minister most famous for "lamb burgers" and (sincerely convinced WTOer) Mike Moore gets a photo shot early in the film when a WTO site is shown. He is followed closely by the other Mike Moore who is much better known but wasn't really needed in the film.

The remote workers viewing device (phallus) had our festival audience in apoplexy and deserves to be shown widely especially the animated sections.

On the whole though it was refreshing to think that a few clever protests with careful thought and some talented execution can create ripples on the pond so wide that millions of people have now seen the echoes in a media format somewhere near them.

In a world where individual action often seems puny it was great to see it is still possible to be funny and absolutely relevant and tactical without being boring.

After the birth of Fahrenheit 9/11 and other Michael Moore creations, there has been a plethora of politically driven documentaries entering the media culture. More and more films are being created to showcase either the ingenuity of the activists, or to uncover some unknown corruption in the system that we were not familiar with. It is a chance to be educated about the world surrounding us and the honesty of evil. In one of the most recent documentary releases, The Yes Men, we have the opportunity to both see the ingenuity of the activists and slightly uncover some corruption in the world. While The Yes Men is a very active film giving us these nervous moments of tension as two men pretend to be someone that they are not, the words and final moments that they are trying to convey do not always seem to come full circle. It felt as if they had this huge "ta-da" at the end of their crafty moment, but nobody seemed to care. Everyone agreed and went about their normal business. I guess that was the point that these activists were trying to show, but somehow I felt like it was all a part of some lackluster performance instead of this "in-your-face, this is wrong with our country" moment.

Our two main characters that we follow throughout the course of the film, Mike Bonanno and Dr. Andreas Bichlbauer (as if these are their real names), seem like they have such a grasp on their knowledge of the issues that they would want a bigger change to happen at the end of their "moment of glory" instead of just walking away as if they were just another cog in the machine. For example, their first speech overseas about the WTO and this phallic device that will help supervisors maintain their workers was a punch in the face, but like my reaction to the situation, nobody seemed to care. I think, in this case, it hurt the film. I wanted feedback from the audience about this bold move by the WTO and see outrage in their eyes, but instead nobody seemed to care. The same can be said about the last conference they attend where they officially close the WTO. That is a huge statement, and yet again … nobody seemed to care. Sure, there were people afterwords talking about how happy they were, but the excitement or emotion was just not present. I wanted, and honestly needed, something that showed that these activists were making riffs in the corporate eyes of the world, not just filling a time slot.

The only time that they did not get such a passive response was when they spoke during a college class about the food solution in third world countries. Here, we did see the emotion and the anger at what they suggested, albeit was a bit more graphic and disturbing, but there was an outburst at the idea. The only trouble is that I have been to conferences before, and most of the time you are there because your business has forced you to be there, so you will believe anything that is said until the day is over just to get through. In college, you pay for your schooling so independent thought really is encouraged and is shown in this film. I do not think that this college scene did the justice that it deserved and really didn't seem to mesh with the rest of the film. I think these guys wanted to get some raw emotion reactions from anyone, and they found it here. I think they were trying to overcompensate for what their other conferences were missing. Sadly, it felt more like a jumbled mess instead of a valued point.

Overall, I was somewhat impressed with some of the aspects of this film, while not impressed with others. I thought the fact that these two "nobodys" could get into these conferences without a lick of accreditation or background check. Especially after the world's security tightened after 9/11. I think that was the aspect that shocked me the most. The rest of the film was interesting to watch, it just never felt like it was edited together correctly or that there was this big "ooooohhhhhh……ahhhhhhhhh" sort of moments. Like the audiences at the conferences, I sat back and watched without really seeing the outcome of their work. I would have liked to know more about these guys and the changes they made to our global community. I would have liked to see at least one curmudgeon old man getting angry about what these two radicals thought, but nothing. Just plain agreement and wipe the slate clean. I felt the Yes Men focused to deeply on the development of each situation without having any sort of strong follow-up with the results. That hurt this film deeply. Perhaps I have grown accustomed to the "shock-umentary" style of film-making that is being released more and more, but I just never felt passionate about these guys. They were doing good work, but will it be remembered for years to come? I am not 100% sold on it yet.

Grade: *** out of *****

Imagine- you are a formidable investor, sitting on a Mahogany chair in your chambers and listening to the proposition of two young entrepreneurs to mass market a suit that looks like a star trek outfit with a tv-extension that is located in a very specific area of the body that IMDB reviewers tend to replace its name with signs like : *#@@$%. What would you do? Ask them politely to leave? Call security? Refer them to a Doctor?

Well, if you're one of the economic elite and those two young guys were representatives of the WTO, you would probably clap enthusiastically or, if you're a movie buff that realizes that what he watches really happened, you'd clinch your abdomen so it won't burst from laughing.

As it turns out, what ended as probably the most effective campaign against globalization, started with two guys that had plenty of spare time and very little or no will to grow up. They started an anti-bush site and it got enough resonance to encourage them to design yet another satirical site. This time, about the WTO, an organization that is considered by many (present company EXCLUDED) to be a ruthless organization that its only cause is to weaken developing countries by making them the sweatshop for wealthy corporations.

The "problem" (it turned out to be its greatest virtue) of that site was that it resembled in appearance to the WTO site. As a result, many sent inquiries regarding the WTO to the duo who, up until than, dealt with slightly minor economical dilemmas such as how many pizza toppings to order.

From then on, the sky was the limit. One of the site owners was requested to debate in a CNBC program as a representative of the WTO in favor of the globalization where he stated, with impressive eloquence, deliberately idiotic arguments in favor of the globalization.

The next two years were spent by the duo for making a crusade (which looked like it was taken out of a Monty Python movie) promoting ridiculous notions (like the idea I mentioned in the beginning of this review) to distinguished members of the business community. The Funny/Tragic (depends on the outlook) was that in most places, they had received accolades for their "initiatives" simply because they were mistaken for WTO representatives.

The movie accompanies those two crusaders lobbying against the WTO by impersonating to be its avid supporters and "exposing" its absurdity. I put parenthesis in -exposing because, as its greatest objectors, the duo never raises legitimate arguments in favor of the globalization and deliberately mocks the WTO by proposing horrific solutions to world problems on the WTO's behalf.

That issue is a very disturbing issue because even if I did support their views, I would find it unnerving to be an advocate of a slanderous attack- disguised as satire- disguised as pro WTO activity.

I choose not to debate the issue because the movie creators made the same choice. This movie's perspective is the premise that Globalization is bad and once this point is clear, the movie can switch to lighter note and becomes a light documentary that was funnier than any fictional Hollywood film I've seen in years.

Maybe I should approach this review on a lighter note and instead of dealing with the ethical aspect of the duo's actions, I can just tell you that this film will be fun even if you're not used to see documentary films on the silver screen and as an anarchistic comedy that REALLY HAPPENED, this film is well worth leaving your kids at your parents' house for 80 minutes or so. As long as you don't make a foolish mistake such as taking anything in this film, seriously.

9 out of 10 in my FilmOmeter.