For its next film, the Vernon Film Society has chosen Inside Job, nominated for 10 awards including a 2011 Academy Award for Best Documentary.
The film provides a straightforward and easy-to-understand analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, which at a cost of more than $20 trillion, caused millions of people to lose their jobs and homes in the worst recession since the Great Depression, nearly resulting in a global financial collapse.
Through exhaustive research and extensive interviews with key financial insiders, politicians, journalists, and academics, director Charles Ferguson traces the rise of a deregulated industry which has corrupted politics, regulation, and academia.
Narrated by Matt Damon, Inside Job starts not on Wall Street but in Iceland, a nation whose problems turn out to be the world’s in miniature.
How did this tiny country, with a gross national product of $13 billion, end up with bank losses of $100 billion?
The movie explains well how housing bubbles, insurance scams, unsecured mortgages, lobbyists, and the acquiescence of corrupt economists and blind politicians have worked together to create this worldwide mess.
In the end, you don’t need to fully understand what derivatives and sub-prime mortgages are all about. It’s enough to know that the overpaid head honchos at Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs got away with it and now they’re in charge of everything.
It’s frightening to read the resumes of today’s movers and shakers: they all seem to be former employees of Goldman Sachs.
Will anything change?
One of the more eye-opening interviews is with a Wall Street madam, who said Wall Street operated in a climate of unlimited sex and cocaine for valued clients and traders. She and her employees didn’t understand how some traders could even function on the trading floor after most nights.
As Ken Eisner of The Georgia Straight said, “After watching Charles Ferguson’s powerhouse documentary about the global economic crisis, you will more than understand what went down — you will be thunderstruck and boiling with rage… It’s enough to make you want to keep your money in a mattress.”
Inside Job screens at the Vernon Town Cinema Monday, Feb. 7 at 5:15 and 7:45 p.m. Tickets are $7, available at the theatre and the Bean Scene one week prior to the film. Doors open at 4:15 p.m.
