Life and Debt (2001)
90 %
Reviews Counted: 42 Fresh: 38 Rotten:4 Average Rating: 7.3/10
Runtime: 86 mins
Synopsis: LIFE AND DEBT is a searing documentary from director Stephanie Black that examines the ways that policies of the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.), the World Bank, and other aid organizations have changed the Jamaican economy over the past 25 years. The films shows how Jamaica's... [More]
Genre: Education/General Interest
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Reviews
Powerfully illustrates what globalization has been doing to underdeveloped countries around the world.
Comment
08/20/07
Top Critic
This case study of globalization's effects on Jamaica is a timely, never dull piece of agitprop that comes off as a cross between Godard's social protest docs and The Harder They Come.
08/20/07
Top Critic
Stephanie Black puts into context the differences between the Jamaica seen by tourists and the country inhabited by its oppressed people.
10/05/06
Talking heads are intercut to synthesise theory and practice, but as an economic diatribe this is a bit patronising and not wholly persuasive.
06/24/06
As documentaries about economics go, this one is way, way up at the top.
02/25/04
Try to imagine the most boring lecture you've ever sat through, and you might have a vague conception of what it's like watching Life and Debt.
08/01/03
Here is a documentary that should be mandatory viewing for anyone interested in globalisation that, war or no war, remains one of the most contentious issues of our times.
03/25/03
Puts a human face — many human faces — on the debt crisis and the effects of open trade on a Third World country.
03/11/03
A powerful, intelligently-assembled documentary from American director Stephanie Black, which explores the devastating impact of globalisation upon the Caribbean island of Jamaica.
03/04/03
As an expose of such international carpetbagging, Life + Debt is brilliant stuff.
02/26/03
However attractive the axe to grind, the haphazard lacework of narration, filmed television screen, disconnected scenes and endless headshots do not make for cinema, documentary or otherwise.
12/08/02
A must-see for everyone who wants to understand the human cost of globalization.
10/21/02
It is provocative and highly resonant, and informative without being dry or terminally academic.
10/10/02
An eye-opener and a primer on why the IMF and the World Bank are not to be trusted by emerging third-world countries.
03/10/02
Black's tactics are heavy-handed, but her ability to efficiently organize the complex material at hand and capture telling imagery makes Life and Debt an equally elegant and vitriolic diatribe.
03/03/02
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An engaging and informative documentary, 9.5/10
by: dikjosef 4/6
by: dikjosef 4/6
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