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Life and Debt (2001) More at IMDbPro »

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Overview

User Rating:
7.5/10   474 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Up 37% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Writers:
Jamaica Kincaid (narration)
Jamaica Kincaid (novel)
Contact:
View company contact information for Life and Debt on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
28 February 2003 (UK) more
Genre:
Plot:
Documentary look at the effects of globalization on Jamaican industry and agriculture. | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
Awards:
1 win more
User Comments:
Read it and weep, globalization supporters. more (19 total)

Cast

  (Credited cast)
Belinda Becker ... Narrator (voice)
Buju Banton ... Himself - Singer
Horst Köhler ... Himself - Director, International Monetary Fund (archive footage) (as Horst Kohler)
Michael Manley ... Himself - Former Prime Minister of Jamaica
Stanley Fischer ... Himself - Deputy Director International Monetary Fund
Michael Witter ... Himself - Professor of Economics, University of West Indies (as Dr. Michael Witter)
David Coore ... Himself - Former Minister of Finance, Jamaica

Bill Clinton ... Himself - President of the United States (archive footage)
Jean-Bertrand Aristide ... Himself - President, Haiti
Yami Bolo ... Himself - Singer
rest of cast listed alphabetically:

Kathy Owen ... News Anchor
Jerry J. Rawlings ... Himself - Former President, Ghana (archive footage) (as Jerry Rawlings)
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Additional Details

Runtime:
80 min
Country:
Language:
Aspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Certification:
Filming Locations:

Fun Stuff

Soundtrack:
Circumstances more

FAQ

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13 out of 17 people found the following comment useful.
Read it and weep, globalization supporters., 17 October 2001
10/10
Author: James B. from madison, wi.

This is a really tragic and shattering film. I saw it a few days ago in New York at a lower East side cinema. It is a very honest and yet artistically distinguished portrait of the demise of a Caribbean nation - Jamaica. Interspersed with the cold, hard facts of how the international community has loaned the country money at predatory interest rates, and then dumped products on Jamaica's undeveloped markets, thus destroying native industries, are scenes of tourists enjoying Jamaica's bounties, oblivious to the nature of the natives' distress.

The woman who made this film narrates it herself, and she wrote a book on the subject before she made this film. So her credentials for knowledge about the subject are very strong. She employs a few cinematic flourishes, such as the blurred-edge-of-screen effect when she shows poor Jamaicans digging about in a garbage dump. The soundtrack is replete with great reggae songs, including the potent and topical title track.

Basically, this film is more important in its 90 minutes than about a hundred typically vapid Hollywood productions stacked back to back. This film teaches you something about the world - about the exploitation of the weak, about the myth of the "helping" nature of the IMF and the World Bank, and about the everyday lives of desperately poor third world people. All proponents of "globalization" should see this film, and then be required to defend their views to the people who have been victimized by globalization's cruel and relentless march. Similarly, everyone who works for the major media in the US should see this, and should be ashamed of themselves for defending the policies that have contributed to the downfall of a proud and beautiful people such as those of Jamaica. And silence is the major defense employed on behalf of such policies.

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