The Take - a story of hope film review by Geoff Olson
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April Jan. 10,26th, 2005‘04
November April 4 & 8, 18,15, 200422 2:002:00 -4:00pm 4:00pm
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NOVEMBER 2004
n Joseph Heller’s World War II novel rather than top-down, with each fac- to be the villains in the piece by implicaCatch-22, a business-minded mess tory working out its own idiosyncratic tion, but it’s never quite clear how things cook, Milo Minderbinder, flies to problems. (Some go with equal pay for all became so bad for the factory workers Malta to purchase fresh eggs. Milo’s workers, some don’t.) Not surprisingly, and other Argentines. A lack of historical background leaves the film eggs cost him 7 cents each, feeling a little short on conbut he charges the squadtext. rons 5 cents each, inexpliHere’s some context for The cably making a profit in Take. Writing in the New York the process. He constructs Times in 2001, MIT econoa “syndicate” throughout mist Paul Krugman stated that the Mediterranean, through “everyone around the world” which he buys and sells regardedtheArgentineandebt goods, mostly foodstuffs. crisis as having“Washington’s Somehow, the mess cook fingerprints all over it.” The holds high positions in govArgentine peso was tied to ernment: mayor of Palermo, the US dollar back in the assistant governor general early nineties, supposedly of Malta, vice-shah of Oran, as a means to reign in ramcaliph of Baghdad, imam pant inflation. For a while it of Damascus, and sheik of worked. Yet at the high point Araby. of fiscal implosion, according The fiscal absurdities of to York university professor of Heller’s novel foreshadowed political science Leo Panitch, the postwar paradoxes of Argentinian workers celebrate their occupation the size of Argentina’s debt global finance. The Take, a stirring documentary by husband and the factory owners are opposed to the was 45 to 50 percent relative to GNP, with wife team Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein, workers “expropriating” their ghostlike rates of interest 40 times what a US treaaddresses one of the more ruinous chap- properties and running them as coop- sury bill earns. Over the space ters in this absurd history and what hap- eratives. The forof a few ruinpens when people fight back. But the mer workers, for ous years at NFB/CBC co-production is not a downer; their part, refuse the turn of the it’s a bittersweet story of hope that is still to stand by and millennium, without a fairy-tale finish. As this is being see their former Argentina went written, the Latin American protagonists workplacesbeing stripped down through leaders in the film are still struggling on. likesomepeople Several years ago, the Argentine econo- for scrap. Armed go through Bic my began a downward spiral from which only with slingpens,seekingone it has yet to recover. The Forja auto- shots against the capable of writplant, the Zanon ceramics factory and police, the working legislation the Brukken garment factory are three ers stand guard without ringing companies profiled in the film. All were at the plants. up the IMF for abandoned, like hundreds of others, by Freddy and his ink refills. their owners. All three became success colleagues go to Following the stories of sorts as the workers reclaimed court to try to lendingagencies’ them and went back to work without win recognition prescriptions management or unions. The Movement for their movein particular the of Recovered Companies, as it’s called, ment,whichputs Workers talk about their lives IMF’s innocuspread across Argentina with the motto pesos back in the “Occupy, Resist, Produce.”The Take puts a pockets of people otherwise condemned ous-sounding “technical memorandum of understanding” in 2000 - Argentina human face on the struggle, moving from to the street. We get to see the oily Carlos Menem, increased taxes on businesses, cut its the lunchroom to the dining room, and the for- budget, sliced civil service salaries and profiling the mer presi- reduced pensions - all during a recession. principles dent who Says Panitch: “Every dollar lent went out and the lesser first pre- in interest payments; every cent went to players. The sided over Wall Street and offshore banks.” reluctant, Argentina’s In a completely unsustainable situabeatingheart economic tion with rioting in the streets, and bled of resistance f r e e f a l l , dry by billions of dollars flying out of the in the film attempting country to service the debt, the nation is a fellow a n o t h e r defaulted on its payments. Argentina’s identified as stab at re- economy minister, Jorge Remes Lenicov, Freddy from e l e c t i o n then announced the devaluation of the the Forja (the man peso, ending a decade-long policy which autoplant, with the saw the country’s currency being on the who discovorange tan same one-to-one level with the US dollar. ers toward Director Avi Lewis in Argentina compares To staunch the flow of capital, the govthe end of the film that he isn’t just reclaiming his job; himself to Jesus Christ in one speech). ernment instituted a bank deposit freeze We witness an unsuccessful attempt in December of 2001. Unable to recover he’s part of a historical movement. TheMovementofRecoveredCompanies to get some shadowy figures from the their money from dead bank machines, isn’t the same as workers “seizing the International Monetary Fund to talk on millions of Argentineans went postal. means of production.” It’s bottom-up, camera. The bank’s reps are made out continued on page 14
