TORONTO -- The documentary -- long seen as the domain
of old beatniks and carrot-juice-drinking liberals -- found a pair
of unlikely champions at the Toronto Film Festival, with two works
on the topic of global corporatization basking in critical praise
and drawing surprisingly strong popular favor.
"The Corporation" is a 2½-hour doc on the proliferation of what
is perhaps the world's most dominant institution. "The Yes Men,"
co-directed by "American Movie" helmer Chris Smith, focuses on a
comedic guerrilla media battle against globalism.
Heading into the fest, even sales agents at Cinetic Media, didn't
expect the films to garner more than modest interest, and then only
among the liberal literati.
Instead, "The Corporation" world premiere drew a capacity crowd
at the Varsity Theater.
And when a doc about privatization and globalization gets a
standing ovation, attention must be paid: Auds voted it second
runner-up in the People's Choice competition, behind another doc,
Ron Mann's "Go Further," which chronicles the efforts of thesp Woody
Harrelson and other activists to promote organic living, and Takeshi
Kitano's samurai saga "Zatoichi."
"The Corporation" was directed by Mark Achbar ("Manufacturing
Consent") and Jennifer Abbott. Making the pic in the brand-obsessed
21st century was "like making a film about the church during the
1600s," said Achbar.
With reality TV continuing to dominate network TV programming,
Achbar said, "Movie theaters have become sort of alternative news
channels" that tap into "a deep sense of unease about the
corporation."
Similar in theme if not in tone, "The Yes Men" chronicles
precisely executed spoofs played upon the World Trade Organization
by a group of impostors.
Smith, along with co-directors Sarah Price and Dan Ollman, show
these "Yes Men" posing as WTO reps on air and at meetings:
Mistakenly invited to a Finnish conference, they unveil a new kind
of manager's leisure suit -- one that inflates an enormous golden
phallus with a built-in TV camera "to monitor sweatshops."
The Toronto audience was reduced to peals of laughter, and the
film now has numerous offers pending for distribution
deals.
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