Saturday, June 30, 2007
LSF Review: Sicko
Ok dear readers, it isn’t often you hear me gush. But please, please go see this film. It sounds strange but it is a great use of your time and may just reward you in ways you don’t have a clue about while reading this. If you feel at all like I do, that you read, you volunteer and march, you donate and you vote and wonder what else you should do, this film will illuminate you on how you are still at the mercy of the corporate culture that dominates us so. It also thankfully gives us another lesson in how populism is all but dead in America on any kind of scale and needs to be revived if we are to move forward in any measureable way.
Health care has not been at the forefront of my mind although it’s something I think about and read about but after seeing this documentary I realized that I have been shoving it below the surface because it has been so troubling to me. I like to think I live an actualized life but like all of us I fool myself sometimes. Sicko showed me just how I’ve been fooling myself and I am so thankful for it.
The healthcare system in the US is an atrocity. We know it is bad but Moore shows us just how horrendous it is. He does it in two ways: by showing the facts and hearing the stories of Americans on one hand and showing us where it is done correctly. The combination of these things is incredibly powerful and the packed audience I saw it with responded wholeheartedly. Sicko covers a huge amount of territory, both factually and globally and the film is edited beautifully to guide you through a wealth of information. One minute you are hearing stories at Ground Zero and the next minute you are in London listening to a brilliant Englishman give you a history lesson that correlates wonderfully with everything that has come before it. Kudos to Michael Moore for his most mature film yet.
With all this praise must come a bit of criticism and I have to even qualify that. There is a section in Cuba that I thought could have been done better, as he is obviously given extraordinary access via Castro to Cuba’s people and infrastructure. That is given because Castro knows the film will be critical of the US. It is fine that this is done but it should have been qualified, if we are going to see what must have been some propaganda, then we should have been reminded of it in the narration or by a question asked. That said the Cuba portion of the film was the only point where tears were running down my face by its conclusion. It is that kind of film.
It is difficult to express how important this film is at this juncture of American history without giving away too much information. You have to take my word for it because you need to discover it for yourself but this film blew my mind because it is so incredibly empowering in a way few films are. Moore gives you so much information but also teaches you in the most extraordinary way. I’d love to hear your comments after you see it. By all means, get yourself to a theater and do it ASAP, you won’t regret it.