Breaking Social
Fredrik Gertten’s documentary on kleptocracy and the injustices it wreaks is deeply felt but disorganised.
Image courtesy of Tull Stories.
by MANSEL STIMPSON
Despite the extreme oddity of its title, the 2011 documentary Big Boys Gone Bananas!* was a very effective and serious film. It dealt with free speech as it recorded how a food corporation tried to ban a documentary exposé that claimed to show a failure of duty towards Nicaraguan plantation workers who had suffered from their use of pesticides. Both the film that they sought to ban and this portrayal of how they went about it were the work of the Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten. He is a well-established documentarian (he was born in 1956) but until now the only work of his that I had seen had been that 2011 documentary. Breaking Social is absolutely in line with the social nature of his films and their frequent emphasis on kleptocracy, environmental issues, exploitation and the importance of human rights. It naturally follows that what he wants to say in this latest work of his is to be applauded. But it does not mean that Breaking Social is in it itself a distinguished documentary and, whereas Big Boys Gone Bananas!* had a clear and captivating focus, this piece tackles a much wider range but has failed to find a structure that makes it all come together tellingly.
Breaking Social brings to our notice various injustices in several settings around the world. In Malta Matthew Caruana Galizia tells us how his mother, an investigative journalist, was murdered in 2017 after seeking to expose corruption. In Chile’s Valle Choara its people have no control over their land as mining companies transform the area for profit. Elsewhere in that country environmental issues encourage artists to become activists often with younger people leading the way. In West Virginia fracking lies waste to the land in an area of great natural beauty. In New York City Peter S. Goodman, a correspondent for the New York Times, declares "if you are not angry, you are just not paying attention": he is referencing the number of homeless in the city which has increased hugely (those who lose their jobs all too easily find themselves in that condition) while the fact that Park Avenue is all about wealth management emphasises these extremes. More generally around America one finds workers in need of union protection but who have difficulty in finding that (despite Amazon having a labour union, the film has harsh things to say about the way in which they treat their workers).
As is apparent from the above, Breaking Social has much to say that needs saying, but the way in which it is done leaves a great deal to be desired. Chile, the US and Malta may be the main focus but instead of taking each in turn the film repeatedly cuts back-and-forth between them in a manner that feels haphazard. It does rather oddly choose to give special space to two people thus seeking to make them anchors. One is the American journalist Sarah Chayes who is seen early on and then again and again later. The other is the historian Rutger Bregman who is Dutch which means that footage from the Netherlands is also included. He too recurs and both are given the opportunity to develop their theories. Chayes who can sound a bit like a lecturer talks of how surprised she was to realise that the kind of corruption which she had encountered in Afghanistan (so much part of the system there that it spreads up the line to the very top) is now duplicated in America (her surprise is not that it exists in the USA, but that the fit is so close). Bregman meanwhile seems to relish theories which challenge expectations. In our dangerous world he still maintains that human beings are not basically selfish and believes that through developing increased cooperation it is not the fittest who survive but the friendliest. He regards trust as a vital feature of life and, seeing the act of blinking as expressive of trust, welcomes the fact that it is virtually unknown in any species save the human.
In theory putting the spotlight on these two might be expected to give a certain unity to the film and indeed their outlook points to common elements behind the range of issues reported on here. But too often we cut back to them as they briefly interrupt other footage that is developing and, while Bregman generally talks to camera, Chayes is more likely to be heard in voice-over while we are invited to watch images of her everyday life (making coffee for instance!). In point of fact while Goodman and the strategic communication specialist Sven Hughes make rather longer contributions, there are also many others involved too and it is an irritating habit that we often see them before they are identified thus causing them to emerge initially as anonymous people in an uncertain location.
A rather odd touch of stylisation brings in some slow motion dancing at the start and again at the end, but what makes Breaking Social so disappointing is that the interweaving of the various threads lessens their individual impact. There are times too when one is uncertain as to just when particular events are happening and there is a weird attempt to end on a positive note when in Chile Valentina Miranda becomes an elected member of the Constitutional Convention with admirable aims: a jubilant air is built up but it is then unexpectedly interrupted and put into question by talk of constitutional changes that are needed and by referencing the fact that women can still suddenly disappear.
Because of the things that it says Breaking Social is certainly not unwelcome, but one is left with the impression that it really needed a total rethink regarding the best way to shape the material effectively. In part it is doubtless seeking to pinpoint the fact that the power of the wealthy lies behind so many of the issues raised. "We can't afford the rich" as Rutger Bregman puts it. However, anybody who has read Anne Applebaum's brilliant book Autocracy, Inc. might well conclude that film is not the best medium to put across views of this kind, especially when the absence of a sound structure undermines the impact.
Featuring Rutger Bregman, Sarah Chayes, Jennifer Craig, Matthew Caruana Galizia, Ivanna Olivares Miranda, Valentina Miranda, Sven Hughes, Peter S. Goodman, Chris Smalls, Joanna Demarco.
Dir Fredrik Gertten, Pro Fredrik Gertten and Margarete Jangård, Ph Janice D’Avila, Ed Benjamin Binderup, Anders Bewarp and Sascha Fülscher, Music Florencia Di Concilio.
WG Film/SVT/Film i Skåne/VPRO/NRK/RTS/YLE-Tull Stories.
93 mins. Sweden/Netherlands/Norway/Switzerland/Finland. 2023. UK Rel: 6 March 2026. Cert. 15.
