The Take

The collapse of Argentina's peso in 2001 threw millions out of work and plunged what had been one of Latin America's most prosperous countries in the 1990s into the kind of economic depression not seen in the United States since the 1930s. Four years later thousands of ruined businesses remain closed. In a handful of cases, though, workers occupied and reopened shut factories, health clinics, and schools as employee-owned and operated- cooperatives.

How Argentine workers did this is a terrific story. Unfortunately, "The Take", a film directed and narrated by anti-globalization activists Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis raises more questions than it answers.

According to Klein and Lewis, Argentine workers now run more than 200 companies employing 15,000 people. To explain how this happened, the movie documents a campaign by unemployed machinists to put a casting parts plant back in business. Along the way, we see examples of other successful cooperatives, including a shop of seamstresses, a ceramic tile manufacturer, and a tractor factory.

The new worker owners featured in "The Take" are earnest and enthusiastic. They are especially moving when describing the effects of years of unemployment and how their lives have improved for the better after returning to work. No one, though, tells us basic facts about these companies, such as whether wages and benefits have gone up or down under cooperatives, how the worker-owned companies pay for their raw materials, who buys their products, and if they make a profit. These are not idle points, as any owner – Argentine worker or multinational plutocrat -- knows.

How does the "The Take" fill up its time? In between interviews with cooperative members about the glories of worker control we get lectures about the lack of differences among candidates in the 2003 Argentine presidential election, the pointlessness of voting, and the failings of the International Monetary Fund. We're also treated to a long slow motion sequence of a street riot in Buenos Aires – complete with Mercedes Sosa soundtrack -- that depicts heroic workers and the equally heroic Klein and Lewis calling each other on their cell phones.

There's a good documentary to be made about what has happened to Argentina's economy and its workers. Klein and Lewis, however, take the easy way out and give us slogans and mushy analysis that leave the audience skeptical and suspicious.

4/10

I saw this on television (CBC) yesterday night and thought it was a good documentary. I had heard of the film and its topic before and was deeply intrigued. Having also read Klein's "No Logo", you could say I had more interest in this than most. Lewis and Klein move swiftly in telling their tale of Argentinian workers' plight for dignity and labour. A balanced interplay of rhetoric that appeals to the intellect and the emotions will win over many of the viewers. The length is such that the film does not become boring or drawn-out and good editing judgment focuses on relevant segments. Regardless of their take on these events in Argentina, I think everyone has something to learn from this film. A project like this gives me faith in our country's National Film Board ... also thanks to CBC Newsworld for not fearing to air this several times (even though late at night).

The Take is one of the most informative economic and political documentaries currently available. The issues Ms. Klein and her colleagues chronicle, are of extreme importance for anyone seeking to gain a factual understanding of today's most pressing economic and political issues. Argentina had been a poster child for the globalization and neoliberal economic policies promoted by the U.S., the World Bank, and the IMF. While these policies are still being widely hailed by the mainstream media as the wave of the future, their truly destructive nature is actually understood by very few. This film allows the viewer to witness the catastrophic economic and political challenges that brought Argentina to it's knees, and the inspired solution implemented by Argentinian workers, as they rallied from the depths of economic and political despair, to redeem themselves from the clutches of corrupt politicians, and global financiers.

This movie helps progressive people address one of the main criticisms of the right and capitalists: what would you do differently if capitalism and globalization is so bad?

Argentina was a country where public utilities had been sold off and money fled the country. Factories were left empty, owing millions of dollars in taxes to various levels of government. The workers thought: we don't have jobs, so we can't buy things for our families. There are no jobs, because people aren't buying things for their families. So they broke the cycle, and with government approval (eventually) occupied the factories and just started producing items for themselves and their neighbors. The co-operative/collectivist movement in Argentina flourished.

The movie shows it was far from easy, and there are many hurdles left to overcome for this country and its people. But it's a hopeful message that if you buy locally, use locally produced services and products produced "locally", you create a viable economic cycle that enriches everybody. You may not have $40 microwaves produced someplace else on the other side of the world, but instead you get a quality product produced by your neighbour, that doesn't require the expense and waste of trans-global shipment. Then, the makers of cheap microwaves will be forced to pay their workers more in order to create a local/national market for their products, rather than using slave labour and shipping the products overseas to the "first world".

Okay, I'm off my soap box. Well done movie with real emotion and appeal.

No one is more rad-chic than Naomi Klein, with her cool war-resister parents, alternative doctor father and militant feminist mother. She crossed Canada at 16 years old campaigning against nuclear power and wrote a hit book attacking globalisation in her 20s.

Now she has made a feel-good movie out of the economic catastrophe that hit Argentina, by following the weary campaign of unemployed steel workers to join a couple of hundred other factory occupations and take control of their abandoned steel works.

Klein and spouse Avi Lewis were in Argentina for some six months, with a crew of 16 and a budget of about C$1m, so we could certainly expect results. Whether this resounding endorsement of worker co-ops (slogan: Fire The Boss) is quite what the NFB had in mind is not clear.

At a couple of points, I felt the film ruined Argentina offered was about the repulsive imp Carlos Menem and the murderous bourgeois traitors he represented. Who is going to purge those secret policemen who rubbed out some 30,000 lefties? When are those generals going to face a court? Why was Menem not in prison instead of running for president? But the survival tactics of the workers on the ground was a more humane story, and that is to Klein's credit.