Invisible Hands

Many children around the world live lives of hopelessness, despair and hard labor.

(2018) Documentary (First Run) Kailash Satyarthi, Ben Skinner, Siddharth Kara, Anas Arameyaw Anas, Mark Barenberg, Nicholas Kristof, Christian Frutigar, Kwaku Afriyie, Satrio Jaya, Margaret Worth, Geoffrey Crothall, Justin Flores, James Jones, Thomas Arcury, Comfort Aklugu, Sumedha Kailash, Isabel Chang. Directed by Shraysi Tandon

 

When we think of child labor and slavery, we tend to think of them as problems in the distant past. Slavery was eradicated, after all, in virtually every civilized nation on Earth. As for child labor, well, we took care of that at the beginning of the 20^th century. Those are both heinous practices that are very much a part of our past but not of our present. I suppose you could be forgiven for thinking that.

But if you did think that, you’d be wrong. Child labor is a global issue, affecting products you consume on a daily basis. Well maybe in the Third World, you might think, but not here in the United States. Yes, here in the United States. A loophole in the existing child labor laws allows the agricultural business to employ children. These children are often exposed to pesticides and other chemicals without any sort of protection, do backbreaking work in the fields, and occasionally die from nicotine poisoning in the tobacco fields of North Carolina, absorbing the nicotine from the plant through their skin because their employers won’t provide them with gloves. If they did, they’d have to admit they were employing minors and a lot of agribusiness is uncomfortable doing that. Smoking isn’t just deadly to smokers as it turns out.

This well-researched documentary goes around the world to find children working in a variety of often dangerous jobs with many of them literally slave labor. They mine cobalt for lithium batteries in Africa and mica for make-up (to make it sparkly) in India. They harvest palm fruit in Indonesia for palm oil (used as a preservative in nearly everything we eat) as well as cocoa in Ghana. They work in factories in China assembling cell phones and weave rugs, make jewelry and embroider in India. Chances are much of what you are wearing right now if it was made outside the United States probably had a kid involved in making it at some point.

Same goes with everything you eat. Nearly all the chocolate devoured in this country comes from plantations that utilize child labor and the supply which comes from Ghana is almost always forced labor. Children are paid less if they are paid at all and they are more likely to be docile and less willing to stand up for themselves than adults. Children don’t form labor unions. Often they are beaten when they don’t meet quotas. They rarely get any sort of schooling, being forced to drop out so that they can work. Those that aren’t working as slaves generally do so because their families are starving and the income is needed to survive. All of this in the name of globalization and corporate profit.

For the most part the documentary is set up as most documentaries are – plenty of talking head interviews, footage both archival and current and graphics showing statistics and numbers. In that sense, Invisible Hands isn’t terribly innovative, although we get to go along on a child trafficking sting near the end which if those who were arrested are convicted could lead to ten years in prison or more.

There are organizations that monitor what’s going on with child labor and slave labor (two of the founders of one are some of the more articulate interviews here) and there’s even a Nobel laureate who goes beyond the courtroom to literally rescue kids from sweatshops in India. Kailash Satyarthi has been beaten and seen colleagues murdered in his crusade to rescue children – during the course of the film we see his team attacked by a mob and barely escaping with their lives.

The willful ignorance of big multinational corporations is also examined. Only Nestle was brave enough to send a representative (Frutigar) who is unaware that children are being exploited for their product – which is ironically aimed at children. Much of the problem is that nobody monitors the supply chain; subcontractors often take shortcuts when taking on contracts, leading to using kids as labor in order to maximize profit. It’s a sick, depressing cycle that revolves endlessly and given the pro-business bent of our current administration, one that is unlikely to be addressed anytime soon.

But there is hope. Rescued kids in India by the group Satyarthi runs are brought to Ashrams where they can slowly become whole again. They are generally reunited with their parents unless it is thought that they would be at risk of being sold again. There are those standing up for kids around the world. We can do it too by insisting that those who make the products we consume be responsible and monitor their supply chains in order to make sure that there are no violations of international and local labor laws. Companies like Pantene, Samsung, Nestle, Hershey, Sony, Cadbury, Maybelline, Kraft, Estee Lauder, Unilever, Kellogg’s, Microsoft and a variety of clothing lines should feel an economic response to make them better corporate citizens rather than just paying lip service. Generally a kick in the wallet is all they’ll ever respond to.

This is a vitally important documentary that should be seen by as wide an audience as possible. Although veteran documentary viewers may grouse a bit at how the information is presented, there is no argument that the information is compelling. Anyone who loves their children will be affected by the sight of miserable children separated from their families toiling in harsh and often dangerous conditions. It’s enough to break even a heart of stone.

REASONS TO GO: The filmmakers did their due diligence. Some of the footage is absolutely horrifying.
REASONS TO STAY: The layout is essentially standard documentary 101.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some violence as well as disturbing thematic material.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the first feature film for Tandon who began her career as a television journalist.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 11/25/18: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Stolen Childhoods
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
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The Big Short

Christian Bale is overwhelmed by script submissions.

(2015) True Life Drama (Paramount) Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, Marisa Tomei, Rafe Spall, Hamish Linklater, Jeremy Strong, Adepero Oduye, Jeffry Griffin, Finn Wittrock, John Magaro, Selena Gomez, Anthony Bourdain, Melissa Leo, Karen Gillan, Margot Robbie, Stanley Wong, Rajeev Jacob, Vanessa Cloke, Leslie Castay. Directed by Adam McKay

The financial meltdown of 2008 was the worst economic event since the Great Depression. Millions lost their jobs and their homes. The repercussions of that event continue to be felt, but many don’t understand how it happened – and how it could happen again.

Dr. Michael Burry (Bale) is a one-eyed manager of a small hedge fund in San Jose, California who discovers that securities based on mortgages – once thought to be nearly recession-proof as the going wisdom is that most people pay their mortgages on time – are actually filled with mortgages that are much riskier, with balloon payments that will commence in 2007 that the homeowners will never be able to pay and create an economic meltdown. He wants to essentially bet against these securities as he knows they are doomed to fail; such securities don’t exist so he goes to Wall Street to places like Goldman Sachs to have them create those securities. He is nearly laughed out of the building but they are happy to take his money – in fact, nearly all of his fund’s cash which doesn’t sit too well with some of the investors.

Mark Baum (Carell) is also a hedge fund manager based at Morgan Stanley who has an anger management issue (Baum, not Morgan Stanley). His team discovers from investment banker Jared Vennett (Gosling) – who also serves as the film’s narrator – that these securities exist and that there’s a good chance that investing in these securities will result in runaway wealth. Baum, who has a hate on for the industry he works in, after talking to a number of bankers and securities industry insiders, becomes certain that Vennett is on to something and risks a good deal of his fund’s capital to buy these securities.

Two ambitious young Colorado-based hedge fund managers – Charlie Geller (Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Wittrock) also discover these securities through happenstance but their fund is too small and too unknown to be able to get a seat at the table to bid on securities like that. They enlist Ben Rickert (Pitt), a disillusioned former Wall Street titan who has become something of a paranoid recluse, out of the game until Geller and Shipley manage to reel him back in.

All of these players discover first-hand the venal stupidity of the banking industry whose blindness led to the near-collapse of the world economy; the corruption and absolute greed that was behind that blindness staggered even these members of the same financial industry.

Based on a nonfiction book by Michael Lewis, the film takes some real-life people involved in the market (Burry) as well as creates fictional ones – some out of whole cloth and some based on others (Baum, based on real-life hedge fund manager Steve Eisman), McKay does a credible job in taking some fairly esoteric financial market concepts like CDOs and credit default swaps.

He has gathered an eclectic but solid cast that brings to life the arrogance and testosterone-infused world of finance. It is definitely a boys club with an aggressive attitude with an absolute focus on money. Carell gives Baum a moral compass – maybe more of one than the other characters in the film – but also an angry streak that comes from a family tragedy. In many ways, Baum is the most compelling character in the movie because while all of the characters have an agenda, Baum’s is more than just making money.

I also like Bale as the real-life Dr. Burry, who prefers to be barefoot, rarely wears a suit and tie, and blasts metal in his office when he’s stressing out. His characters is a little bit more complex than the others and we don’t really get a decent grasp on him, which something tells me is true of the real guy. Pitt brings a little bit of New Age gravitas here as well.

McKay is known for his comedies and there is a kind of black humor here. His tongue is often planted firmly in cheek as he uses various celebrities in incongruous situations to explain various things in the script (like a naked Margo Robbie in a bathtub explaining the subprime mortgage market, or singer Serena Gomez in a casino talking about CDOs) and we are told that certain things actually happened but more interestingly, that some things actually didn’t as depicted in the film. You have to give him points for honesty.

I imagine your political outlook will drive how much you enjoy the film to a certain extent; those who are fairly left-wing in nature and distrustful of industry will no doubt find this film much more to their liking than those who are right-wing and who might look at this as tarring an entire industry with the same brush because of the actions of a relative few. The Big Short takes the point of view that the stupidity, shortsightedness and corruption was industry-wide and implies to a large extent that the culture of the financial industry of the bro-tastic almighty dollar have a big hand in driving that corruption.

The Big Short does a credible job of explaining a fairly complicated and often confusing situation that brought the economy to its knees, and warns that many of the same factors remain in place that may yet again take the economy down for another plunge. It reminds us that despite the blatant fraud that took place, only one person – and he relatively low on the totem pole – ever was tried and jailed for his role in an event that created so much human misery. This is an outstanding movie that may disturb some because the “heroes” of the story made enormous profits from that misery (a fact pointed out by Pitt’s Ben Rickert) and that the tone overall is somewhat snarky. I found that the tone made the events somewhat easier to bear and while I don’t condone profiting from the pain of others, I can say that at least none of the protagonists broke any laws, which is a fairly low bar for cinematic heroism but given the industry depicted here, probably about as high a bar as can be expected.

REASONS TO GO: Really explains some of the very confusing information about the 2008 crisis well. Extremely solid performances from the cast. Occasionally funny.
REASONS TO STAY: A very dry subject matter.
FAMILY VALUES: Plenty of profanity, some nudity and sexuality.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the first film directed by Adam McKay in which Will Ferrell doesn’t star.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/10/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 87% positive reviews. Metacritic: 81/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Margin Call
FINAL RATING: 8.5/10
NEXT: Point Break (2015)