Naomi Klein’s book No Logo is required reading for anyone who wants to understand the corporate driven world in which we live (and serve as serfs). Her new book looks promising and disturbing; Shock Doctrine explores how Milton Friedman’s concepts of economic shock therapy – using natural and manmade catastrophes and society’s stunned response to them as a way to push through policies that benefit the rich – has been recreating our world since 9/11, and how it has been used over the last fifty years.
Klein sent a copy of the book Alfonso Cuaron, hoping to get a blurb for the cover (she thought Children of Men explored issues similar to the book). Instead she ended up getting a short film, which is now playing at the Toronto Film Festival. Like most of you, I couldn’t be there this week, but Klein has put the film online so that everyone can see it. It’s a fantastic six minutes and change, put together by Cuaron and his son Jonas, which will remind you that film can be gripping and educating and cause outrage in equal measures. Why is agitprop a bad word anyway?
Watch the film below or click here to visit the Shock Doctrine website to download it in Quicktime.