PLOT: Since the reintroduction of "democracy" in 1983, Argentina's resource economy has been plundered and sold off to major corporations and U.S. interests by crooked politicians, leaving a once-prosperous country destitute.

There is such a thing as being too close to a story. Activist Argentine filmmaker Fernando E. Solanas is so close to the story of his country's plundering that he took six bullets for it.

Solanas -- who was the victim of a political assassination attempt in 1991 -- seethes with a kind of quiet, numbing anger as he narrates Social Genocide, an exacting litany of acts of political corruption and larceny writ as large as the pampas. He uses words like "traitor" and "atrocity" and calls the country's crippling foreign debt a "bastard child" of corrupt presidents.

I understand the rancor, but it's unnecessary. The facts are shocking in and of themselves. In fact, Solanas' head of steam tends to detract from the message and makes one appreciate just how good Michael Moore is at what he does. Withering sarcasm and mordant humour would amount to a welcome change-up in the movie's delivery. And say what you will about Moore, compared to Solanas, he is scrupulously objective.

As a filmmaker, Solanas is too static. Social Genocide uses stock footage of Argentine riots (including a massive one in 2001 that saw the resignation of president Fernando de la Rua) sandwiched between talking heads (pretty much all of them leftist cronies of the filmmaker) and strange shots of empty hallways.

Considering the charges levelled at past Argentine presidents and their administrations, particularly Raul Alfonsin and the Trudeau-like Carlos Menem, it's striking that there is no one to speak, however hollowly, for the accused. That makes Social Genocide a nearly two-hour polemic, which is not the same as saying it's not true. I'd just really like to know what the International Monetary Fund could say in defence of free-market interests buying a prosperous country's common-weal at fire sale prices, leaving its people destitute. And is "foreign debt" that is incurred by such a crime really a legal debt at all?

Social Genocide should be of particular interest to Canadians. Like Canada, Argentina's is a resource economy. It's a parliamentary democracy. And as some would have us do, it sought the embrace of multinationals, to "be more like the Americans." In reality, this meant politicians, most of them ostensibly leftist, negotiating the sale of resources once elected and skimming for themselves. Of the country's current $170-billion debt, the movie estimates $10 billion ended up in the pockets of politicians.

Menem is the movie's villain-of-choice, a neo-Peronist populist who began the plunder almost at once. All style, he is shown hobnobbing with the Rolling Stones and being queried by a bimbo TV interviewer about his "sexiness."

Meanwhile, there are a few effective filmic moments -- including a farmer who dips into his gas-polluted well (the national energy companies were among the first to be privatized) takes out a cup of "water" and sets it on fire, and a children's hospital where 80% of the patients are admitted with malnourishment.

But there's no attempt to explain why a reformer like Menem could abruptly turn evil. Nor is there an answer to the question of how such corruption could be rewarded with re-election.

Or is that a rhetorical question?

(This film is rated PG)
More Movie Reviews