Butler's Cinema Scene

Michael Moore

“WHERE TO INVADE NEXT” My rating: A-

110 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Where to Invade Next” may be the most insidious, subversive movie of Michael Moore’s career.

Here’s why it’s so sneaky.  It doesn’t insult anyone.

Instead it is (outwardly, anyway) unrelentingly upbeat, focusing on ways to make life better for Americans — all Americans.

Of course, ever the prankster, Moore takes as his modus operandi an “invasion” (complete with large American flag that rarely leaves his hands) of various foreign countries. The idea is to liberate from these cultures ideas for better living.

Call it saber-rattling in the name of peace.

The upshot of this is that even Michael Moore haters may find themselves nodding in agreement as “Where to Invade Next” progresses. For despite Moore’s trademark snarkiness (here tamped down to a gentle gee-whiziness), “Where to Invade Next” is a borderline profound experience.

Traveling to Italy, Moore hangs with the owners of the Ducati motorcycle company, where employees take long lunch hours and get at least four weeks of vacation. The company’s CEO stuns the visiting Yank by stating matter of factly that “There is no clash between the profit of the company and the well being of the people.”

Meanwhile a young Italian couple who “adopt” Moore are amazed that in America vacations are not mandated by law. Nor is paid maternity leave for new moms. They rethink their dream of a life in the good old U.S.A.

Michael Moore, sharing Brie in a French elementary school lunchroom

Moore descends upon a French elementary school to discover that lunch is considered a class, a full hour in which children learn to eat in a civilized fashion and appreciate good food.  No French fries, here.  Instead the kids get four courses (served at the table on china) that include appetizer, entree, cheese (a dozen choices) and dessert.

The visiting American offers to share his Coke with the children at his table. They look at him like he’s a drug peddler.

Then it’s off to Finland, home of the most educated people on Earth. The key to their success:  No homework, and only 20 hours of class a week.

“They should have more time to be kids,” says the minister of education.  Apparently you can learn a lot more in a stress-free environment.

In Slovenia Moore hangs with American students who have traveled across the sea to get their college educations.  Make that their FREE college educations. Student debt is unheard of here.

In Germany Moore learn that the law requires that 50 percent of the membership of corporate boards must be workers. Also, it is illegal for a company to contact employees on vacation. Or, without the employees’ permission, to send them an email after working hours.

In Norway Moore visits a prison (among the inmates are rapists and murderers) that looks alike an upscale summer camp. No barbed wire.  The only locks are on individual bedroom doors to give prisoners their privacy. The idea is rehabilitation, not revenge.  Four guards oversee the activities of 115 inmates.

And in Iceland Moore examines a society in which women hold half the seats of corporate boards and parliament. When the world economy tanked in 2008, the only Icelandic bank to remain solvent was run by women.

Women, we are told, don’t invest in what they don’t understand. Men, on the other hand, are so wrapped up in macho risk taking that they’re easy marks.

Anyway, in the wake of the banking meltdown the male CEOs who contributed to the mess went to prison. In America the only Wall Streeter to see the inside of jail was some poor schmuck with an Islamic name.

Perhaps the film’s most potent moment takes place in a German elementary school classroom where students learning about the Holocaust are told to pretend that they’re about to be taken away by the Nazis. They must assemble a “fleeing suitcase,”  with each child contributing a belonging he or she would grab if they knew they would never again return to their homes.

The moral, according to Moore, is that “If you acknowledge your dark side and make amends, you can free yourself to be a better people.”  Hmmm.  Could there be a lesson here for a country in which citizens  refuse to contemplate their history of slavery and of genocide against indigenous peoples?

Like I said, “Where to Invade Next” doesn’t overtly criticize anybody. But it is nevertheless a slap in the face of American exceptionalism, the bedrock belief that the American system is the best the world has to offer.

The message is inescapable. We Americans are living in a greed-based, dick-waving society that is moving backwards, not forward.

Makes you want to weep.

| Robert W. Butler