Saw this documentary at the Movies That Matter 2021 festival, usually in The Hague but now 100% online. It demonstrates the truth in the festival title, as the stories behind this movie really matter, despite the first quarter feeling a bit caleidescopic with a series of short fragments, seemingly not connected with each other. But soon we arrived at two pièces de résistance, one about UK/Margaret Thatcher and one about South Africa/Nelson Mandela, both telling consistent stories about hidden influences on behaviour of the masses and more particular the outcomes of elections.
After Vance Packard's 1960-ies bestseller The Hidden Persuaders, we already should know the truth of the following quote from this movie "Understanding individual's behaviour is very tricky but understanding group behaviour is very simple because of certain criteria that are perfectly measurable. (...) We moved advertising and marketing out of an art form into a science." We deemed that relatively innocent at the time, and (of course) it did not work on ourselves, seeing right through such tactics. But is it so small scale and harmless?? A more ominous statement, also heard in this movie, is the quote "Now it becomes a controlled democracy, maybe available to the highest bidder."
Those two important parts of the movie are followed by more anecdotical stories about Iraq and other political changes around the world. It becomes caleidescopic again, and it is not easy to follow everything and decide about its merits. I assume all statements are properly researched and documented, but still, it is a lot to digest when it is even half true. In passing, we learned that Russia and particularly the KGB is 30 years ahead on us about influencing in the broadest sense of the word, which includes steering the elections in other countries in the direction they prefer. The modern word "influencer" in terms of Facebook and Instagram pales in comparison.
All in all, this movie showcases several recent political developments, putting some important influencers in the spotlight. That said, it could have gained some more power and effectiveness by constraining itself to fewer cases. At the end you feel exhausted, being force fed with so many talking heads and overloads of name dropping.
