Berlin

The Yes Men Fix the World

 (Documentary -- U.S.-France)

The Yes Men's MO owes much to Michael Moore's stunts for "The Awful Truth" and "TV Nation," a little bit to novelist/essayist Jonathan Swift, and even more to class clown-style practical jokery. Their basic schtick is to set up fake websites and the like that supposedly rep large, nefarious corporations like Dow Chemical and Halliburton, and then wait for invitations from gullible conference organizers and news organizations to roll in. Once they have an audience, front men Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonnano suit up and pretend to be executives keen to unveil bizarre new products or strategies (like making fuel out of dead people for Exxon) that take the corporation's ruthless underlying logic to an extreme level.

Here, pic shows the Yes Men pulling off arguably their biggest coup by having Bichlbaum pose as a Dow Chemical spokesman, an almost-plausibly named flack called "Jude Finisterra." On live television, he promises Dow will accept full responsibility for the deaths of thousands of Indians affected by the chemical leak at Union Carbide's (now a Dow subsidiary) factory in Bhopal 20 years ago, and pay appropriate compensation. The stunt prompts short-lived tears of joy in India, torpedoes Dow's share price for a few days, and creates a media storm. Staged-looking footage shot in India shows Bhopal residents laughing off the joke as it allows them to keep their plight in the public eye.

Pic's biggest laughs are generated not from the Yes Men's gags themselves but from the cutaway shots of audience members looking on with barely disguised shock or, even more disturbingly, unruffled acceptance. Editing by April Merl maintains comic momentum adroitly, while use of old cartoons enhances merriment. Use of HD gear means pic would probably look better on TV than the bigscreen, although this is sure to be a draw at further left-leaning festivals. (In Berlin, pic's first public screening was mobbed.)

For the record, no director of photography credit appears onscreen. Instead, some 50 names are listed as camera people in pic's end credits.

Camera (color, HD, digital projection); editor, April Merl; animation, Patrick Lichty; music, Neel Murgai, Noisola; sound, John Bucher. Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (Panorama Documentary), Feb. 6, 2009. (Also in Sundance film festival.) Running time: 96 MIN.