Speaking of globalization

I just picked up the movie Edukators when I was at the video store this weekend and watched part of it on the train this evening and finished watching the rest of it tonight. I found it very compelling and highly recommend it to anyone feeling reservations about the moral state of our consumer society.

[Please note that Eliel has a a bias that he seems to share with Elizabeth: any film whose soundtrack makes good use of Jeff Buckley's version of the Leonard Cohen song Hallelujah from the album Grace gets instant quality points in their book. --Ed].

It's a well crafted story about 3 German generation-Xer's muddling their way through their version of ennui. Looking for something to gravitate to, they all take part in anti-sweatshop protests and the two young men (Jan and Peter) form their own private band that takes to performing random acts of vandalism to "upset the rich". Shenanigans ensue when (while Peter's away) Jan brings Jules into the fold and they get caught by the owner of one of the homes they have targeted. In a fit of panic, they end up kidnapping the man and driving off into the hills (looks like the German Alps to me, but I could be wrong) and holing up with him there. [There is a much better written review of this film available here --Ed.]

That plot twist lets the film delve deeper into the real issues behind the kind of pro-worker, anti-bourgeois "days in the life of Jules at work" scenes that fill up the first half of the film. It's a rare director capable of giving voice to the captains of industry side of this equation without resorting to making them into cardboard cut-outs. The director here is able to show that in many ways, this very wealthy man feels just as trapped in his life as his working-class captors.

Even then, director Hans Weingartner is willing to not let things be so simple. Asked why he just doesn't give up all his material goods if he feels that maintaining the lifestyle he has is keeping him in a place he doesn't want to be, he almost throws away a telling line "Because I could only do it once". A line that to me sums up the way that idealistic people find themselves taking fewer and fewer actions for change as they get older--the nagging feeling that each action one would take would only last a brief minute, and then what?

It's a paralyzing feeling.

And it is why admire what Cat Mazza is doing with MicroRevolt.Org. Her act of social conscience is not simply to hand out pamphlets explaining the evils of sweatshops like Jans, Jules, and Peter do, but to instead provide others with the mechanisms to create their own personal statements. Like minded people can then take direct actions themselves (by creating their own clothing and accessories) that do more to create dialogues about where the clothes on our backs actually come from than any pamphlet or parade ever could. [Eliel would have mentioned the fishing and pedagogy cliche here, but it's probably not necessary--Ed.]