The Emperor's New Clothes

Sometimes life is simply not fair. Bad luck can visit us all.

What this film lays bare is that you can work hard all your life, try to stack the chips in your favour by doing that, and yet simply be screwed over by the wealthy powerful who gorge themselves on their wealth and power. It's not just a case of the have-nots being jealous of the haves. It's a case of the haves not being even remotely benign or even grateful to those who work hard all their lives to maintain the wealth creating machines. It's done by smoke and mirrors. The film shows British politicians using key words and phrases to convince voters that they are on their side, understand their daily grind and to convince them that they are their people. It also blows away the notion that the rich are 'wealth creators' as if there would be no wealth, happiness or even jobs in our society if it wasn't for Amazon or Google and the like. The post war period was one of cooperation and relative 'happiness' when CEO salaries were more in line with workers salaries and the taxpayer didn't need to subsidise corporations by subsidising low wages for example or by bailing out failed banks and financial institutions.

The film shows that we clearly live in a society where the wealthy are in control and, by lobbying, donating to, and employing MPs they can make laws that suit them.

One big message from the film is that collective action can work, as a starting point. See the film to see that in practice.

Thank you Russel, you weird combination of knowledgeable man and cheeky child. Keep it up.

After watching this documentary, the children were impressed so I asked them to reach for their mobile phones and google "how many phones are in the world". They know no other phones than mobile phones and no better source than Wikipedia. Probably, neither do you.

Wikipedia told them that there are approximately over 6,800,000,000 mobile phones in use for a global population of 7,012,000,000. They also delighted themselves by looking up the breakdown by country etc. Please also do so yourself.

Thirty, forty years ago no one could have thought that by today each person would have their own private phone line, much less in their pocket, and to boot, not just a phone but a computer.

Yet the poor are getting poorer, we are told.

I wonder what this documentary would have been like if instead of wealth, Russell Brand had had knowledge or commonsense. We will never find out.

Labelled as a film regarding the growing disparity between economic classes, Michael Winterbottom's The Emperor's New Clothes is an effective documentary balancing political and economic investigation with Russell Brand's palpably galvanic and marmite personality.

The film combines interviews with Brand himself, along with politicians and bankers. Brand begins by summating that much of what will be explored in the documentary won't be instantaneously enlightening, a far stretch from the explosively impactful manner as last year's masterful Citizen Four. Despite this, where I do believe the film achieves success is in its exposing of issues and its raising of awareness towards certain issues. As aforementioned, much of Brand's insight is foreseeable to those of a certain age. However; the teenage and young adult audience, much of what is explored could be thought-provoking, and is presented in a straightforward and confronting style which appears purposeful yet remains focused throughout. This, taken in combination with Brand's personality, does make what initially appears challenging subjective matter abundantly more digestible.

What is problematic is that the film at times felt like a flaccid attempt of a brief Russell Brand biopic. For the majority of the film Brand's presence is handled adeptly, yet I find at times the focus on his unabashed comedic set pieces (pleading at the top of his voice to bystanders to give up corrupt bankers and his Michael Moore-ish attempt of breaking and entering a bank) turned the focus from suggested gargantuan corruptness into a love letter to Brand's eccentricity. For fans of Brand, it's nothing particularly abhorrent, but for those on the other side of the fence, this shift will do little to convince them to change their tune.

The Pros:

1) This is a very well made documentary in true Brand style - no holds barred presentation of the facts.

2) Winterbottom, Brand and their team should be congratulated for capturing a true reflection of current financial inequality and hardship in Britain (and to some extent, globally).

3) Easy to watch and relate to. Hard not to agree with everything Brand says, with compelling evidence of banking system corruption, government secret deals and corporate tax avoidance.

I particularly enjoyed the scenes with the kids at the school and thought the analogy about sharing toys equally was powerful.

Cons: Other than the obvious points: 1) that many of the figures presented could be argued for accuracy

2) the timing of the release to coincide with a British election is a bit suspicious.

3) very little if not zero critique of any Labour policies, therefore makes it clear where Brand's political party allegiance lies, which is fine, but it appears to be concealed.

4) Whilst the subject matter is painfully true and this film should be seen by everyone - it is very light on any form of prescription or a "what to do next" or "what can you do now". Obviously the team have decided not to take that route - but it seems a missed opportunity if someone sits through 90 minutes, agrees with it and then goes back to watching Eastenders afterwards. Even a "Subscribe to the Trews" link would have been better than nothing... youtube.com/user/russellbrand

Conclusion

Russell, thanks for putting yourself on the line to speak for the gross inequalities that exist in Britain. Regardless of what your motives might be - you are doing a great service to the human race.

This film should be shown free and played on loop in the hope that Occupy or whatever organisation comes next - can be more widely mobilised in order to be successful.

He's bringing up some really good points about the lawlessness of the city when it comes to financial crimes committed by the banks.

One thing he keep's blaming it on is a 'free market' This is just simply not true, we don't have a free market by any stretch of the imagination.

We live in an oligarchy with the rich being above the law.

Don't be fooled, more power to government is not the answer.

There's been many attempts to blame it on capitalism, since Marx. This has never and will never lead to a revolution that will do the common people any good whatsoever.