You've Been Trumped

You've Been Trumped is a movie that, hopefully will go down in history as one of the great environmental documentaries, alongside Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. manages to not only be an upsetting, interesting, and engaging documentary, made by a first time film maker, but a brilliantly made film as well. Not to mention the fact that it is often laugh out loud funny and features a sound track to rival many Tarantino films.

The greatest accomplishment of You've Been Trumped, however, is that it is pretty much guaranteed to make you hate Donald Trump even more than you already do. It paints him as more than just a profiteering industrialist looking to make a quick buck at the expense of the environment. It also manages to include moments of his blatantly lying to reporters, as well as a subtle moment of him totally objectifying women for the sake of money. It should say something that this little documentary that has only been to a couple film festivals so far has provoked a huge reaction from Trump himself. He has made statements calling the film makers frauds and refusing to see the film because its "boring".

The basic story of You've Been Trumped is that Donald Trump set out to build "The World's Greatest Golf Course" and picked out as the location a Scottish beach. The thing is that this particular beach has sand dunes that are essentially the British equivalent of a National Monument. Despite this, he was given government approval to destroy the dunes. At this point, he thought he had won. The British and Scottish governments had given him carte blanche. The one thing he hadn't counted on was the resistance of a few local farmers, who's families had owned their land for generations, against the development. The film charts their fight to protect their land from essentially being bulldozed by Trump.

The film is brilliant not just for the way it charts the destruction that Trump does, both against the environment, and against the people, but because it is so well made. For one thing it looks gorgeous. Of course part of that comes naturally when you are shooting in some of the most gorgeous country on earth, but considering the budget and experience of those involved, its amazing how good You've Been Trumped looks. Even other than in the cinematography, the film is very well made. Even during the slower moments in terms of the plot, the film always feels interesting thanks to the great direction and editing.

You've Been Trumped is one of the best documentaries in years, and hopefully it will go on to win further recognition. It has only been to a few film festivals so far, but it has already won a few awards. It is emotionally potent, as well as being politically strong enough to inspire people to action. It is put together better than documentaries with twice the budget. Hopefully it will go on to have a great run and make enough of a splash to do some serious damage to Trump's Monopoly.

This documentary is a classic expose of the decay of humanity in the compost of capitalism. This is a grotesque example of corporate bullying and institutionalized hegemony.

When Mr. Trump decides to desecrate the natural flora and fauna of Aberdeen, Ireland and uproot the lives of people settled there, he must face resistance from the good people of Aberdeen who won't give up without a fight. This documentary reminds one of the ancient tale of David and Goliath or perhaps a recurring event in history where a free and oppressed people have risen against tyranny.

This documentary gets us to reflect on the state of the society we live in, most importantly on what we have allowed society to become. It causes us to consider the harsh truth that maybe imperialism is not dead after all, just evolved. And it reiterates the need to let them know, for all time that we are, and will remain the 99%.

Donald Trump is an internationally famed entrepreneur who is also a very successful businessman. His vast business empire has made him a billionaire in his native United States and he wants to build a golf resort. He wants to build it on a site of special scientific interest on the Aberdeenshire coast (Scotland). This documentary plots his total disregard for the environment and the local residents in his efforts to achieve his goal. He is not alone in this; despite the local council turning down planning permission on environmental grounds the Scottish Parliament overturned the decision. Trumps claims that what he's doing will preserve this fragile environment appear (at best) misled as we see the systematic destruction of the dunes and the harassment of local residents.

All this is seen primarily through the eyes of the few local residents that border the resort. He even uses the police to harass the team making this documentary. There is also testimony from environmental groups and even an economist; all indicating that this is a bad thing. It all seems very unbalanced until the end where we learn that neither Trump nor his representatives, the Grampian Police or the Scottish Government wanted to contribute to this film.

I love the way its shot with hand-held cameras and even amateur footage from one of the residents slipped in. There is also some vintage film showing how life was on the coast in days gone by and quite a lot of news footage. The biggest triumph for me though was the use of footage from Bill Forsythe's film 'Local Hero'. Anthony Baxter cleverly draws parallels between the (fictitious) situation in the film and the situation facing the residents around the site. A real eye-opener into how big business is conducted these days and it's not pretty. Mr Trump does not come out of this well and, on the evidence shown, deservedly so.

SteelMonster's verdict: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

My score: 8.4/10

You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.

This is an incredible story of how an egomaniac scumbag trampled all over people who had no way to fight back.

What's worse, he was actively aided and abetted by the entire Scottish government, from the local politicians and local police all the way to the highest levels who knew full well that Trump was cheating and stealing over and over.

Both he and the Scottish Government officials are sickening.

NO lawyer stepped forward,NO politician had any attack of conscience, NO ONE of any influence at all stepped forward to help.

Everyone was bought and paid for. You should not miss this movie.

Not being a great fan of the documentary feature I was rather ambivalent about this David and Goliath tale. However, after its screening at the Shetland Film Festival UK film critic Mark Kermode recommended it partly as righteous exposition of the power of money over local communities and also as a real life twist on the Local Hero (1983) story - a feelgood film from Scottish film maker Bill Forsyth. Clips of Forsyth's movie are included in You've Been Trumped to underpin the message and Forsyth watched the film at the Shetland Film Festival giving his full support to the documentary maker, Anthony Baxter.

What we get is a film that not only angered me because of the insidious support of the UK and Scottish governments for this outrageous project but the bullying and illegal activities of the local policeforce, who should be charged with assault, illegal arrest and detention of the film maker. We are aware of the arrogance, lying and bullying of Trump who uses his money to get what ever he wants with impunity, but for the small people - the local constabulary, to be in on this is beyond reproach.

The treatment of the local farmers and residents by Trump is astoundingly arrogant and without precedent. This is a foreign national riding roughshod over a local community, with the support of local, and national governments, and it is the colour of his money and promise of jobs that it was clear wouldn't appear that sold it to the politicians.

Baxter's film making is quietly confident as he shows us Trump's lies and his vitriol towards the local people. Trump treats Baxter, as he does the local people, with contempt, yet Baxter shows the local residents as people, initially confused by what's happening to their homes, evolving into a mutually supportive network.

Baxter's ending evokes moments from Forsyth's film, and reminds us that perhaps there will be a happy ending. It would be nice to think that a film as powerful as this can make a difference, but I feel that unfortunately there are many Americans like Trump who see the UK as just another country to be colonised by their big money regardless of the wishes of local communities.