What the film ably shows is how a band of Washington consultants can contribute to bloodshed and near societal collapse in a Third World nation whose politics can't be reduced to the same Beltway template now being exported around the world.
Our Brand Is Crisis (2005)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:38
Fresh:35
Rotten:3
Average Rating:7.3/10
Theatrical Release:Mar 1, 2006 Limited
Synopsis: Rachel Boynton's excellent, probing documentary goes behind-the-scenes to show the manipulation and orchestration that is involved in big-time political campaigning. OUR BRAND IS CRISIS follows... Rachel Boynton's excellent, probing documentary goes behind-the-scenes to show the manipulation and orchestration that is involved in big-time political campaigning. OUR BRAND IS CRISIS follows members of the consulting firm of Greenberg Carville Shrum to Bolivia, where they have been hired to help controversial candidate Gonzalo "Goni" Sanchez de Lozada reclaim the presidency. With only a few weeks left before the election, consultants Jeremy Rosner, Stan Greenberg, and James Carville work their magic, softening Goni's liberal image and shaping his message to appeal to the masses. In his typically audacious fashion, Carville delivers some of the film's most unforgettable quips. Meanwhile, the unemployment situation is threatening to spark a full-fledged national riot, raising the stakes even higher. Boynton's film is edited at a brisk, taut pace, adding drama to the already tense proceedings. An insightful after-the-fact interview with Rosner provides even greater context for the horrific situation that unfolded a year later and which, in fact, opens the film with a bang. Enlightening, engaging, and thought provoking, OUR BRAND IS CRISIS is a vital, profound work of nonfiction cinema. [More]
Starring: Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada
Starring: Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada
Director: Rachel Boynton
Director: Rachel Boynton
Producer: Rachel Boynton
Studio: Koch Lorber Films
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Release:
Sep 5, 2006
Reviews for Our Brand Is Crisis
If the fascinating, if disconcerting Our Brand Is Crisis teaches us one thing, it's that consultants, handlers, lawyers, and middlemen can always find a job.
It's a galling and provocative experience to viewers of any political persuasion, and a reminder to the left of how easily idealism can run amok.
Boynton's film explores the inescapable link between American democracy and capitalism and why what seems to work for us can be so disastrous elsewhere.
Among other things, Our Brand Is Crisis is about the failure of good intentions -- a potent American theme at the moment.
Only a naïf would be surprised by Our Brand Is Crisis, but only a nihilist would not be alarmed by the endless reverberations of Boynton’s case study—and by its suggestion of a systemic separation of modern politics and the national good.
What's suspenseful -- and so troubling - is seeing exactly how far the 'progressives' of GCS are willing to go to put a decidedly unpopular candidate back in office, regardless of what it will mean for the future of the country and for Bolivian democracy.
What's eye-opening, as well as depressing, is that the film reveals how even the politics of a nation's life and death can now be reduced to a technocratic shell game.
Our Brand is Crisis looks to remind well-meaning people like Carville and Rosner to put the humanity in brand marketing.
Exotic location notwithstanding, Rachel Boynton's riveting political documentary Our Brand Is Crisis is a sequel to the Clinton-era campaign vérité, The War Room.
Rachel Boynton's momentous documentary chronicles the election-strategizing process in scrupulous detail.
Boynton's main concerns are the exportation of American image advisers to other countries, and the notion that this faith in marketing is inherent in America's democratic ideology.
Without ever getting strident or sanctimonious, the film vividly demonstrates the potential hazards of trying to export American-style democracy overseas.
This unlikely pairing of relentless U.S. pollsters and a Bolivian election is a fascinating glimpse of the Americanized marketing of international politics (and vice versa).
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