Our Brand Is Crisis (a review)
08.01.2006Technorati tags: Bolivia politics
Finally saw a screening of the documentary Our Brand Is Crisis. It's a documentary about the 2002 presidential campaign of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada (aka Goni). The film is worth watching if you're interested in Bolivian contemporary Bolivian politics, even though the film is clearly not about Goni or Bolivia, but about the campaign team run by James Carville (a Democratic campaign strategist). So the film tells us much about how the consultants interact w/ their Bolivian clients (Goni & his MNR team); it doesn't tell us much about Bolivian electoral politics.
Let me explain. For example, the film doesn't explain what the parties are very well. You get a sense of what the MNR stands for only implicitly, a little about MAS, and much less about NFR. MIR, ADN, UCS, and MIP (significant parties in the election) aren't even mentioned. So while you get a sense of where Goni sits in an American spectrum, you get little sense of who stands to his right or his left, and by how far they're separated. There is also no mention of the fact that the 2002 ticket is a joint MNR-MBL ticket.
Likewise, you get to learn that Goni jumped slighly in the polls (or, rather, the neopopulist Manfred was brought down significantly) through a carefully orchestrated campaign strategy. But while Goni was ahead in the polls (w/ just over 22% of the vote), you don't get to see how this plays out in post-election politics. That is, an American audience (who the film is clearly aimed for) is used to the idea of first-past-the-post elections. So the assumption must viewers will walk away from is that Goni became president because he won the most votes. Wrong. He became president because he was able to cobble together a coalition (w/ ADN, MIR, and UCS).
What this means, is that there's little sense of what (if any) discussions the consultants had about whether to cut losses in some places (say, La Paz, where Goni couldn't possible do well) in order to concentrate on his "base" (say, Santa Cruz & the eastern departments). I know the consults are aware of these things, since they work in other non-US systems (many of which use some sort of proportional representation or other non-FPTP system).
Little things like that are noticeable if you're looking for a film about Bolivian politics. But. It must be stressed. The film is not about Bolivia, it's barely about Goni. Both are treated, ironically, as if they're simply items that are affected by the actions of foreign, US-based consultants. It's ironic, because you get the feeling that the producers of Our Brand Is Crisis suggest that such a callous attitude by idealistic Americans — who're accused of exporting "their" vision of democracy & the democratic process — doesn't let the Bolivians speak for themselves. Ironic, because the film's greatest weakness, is that it also doesn't let the Bolivians speak for themselves. It's too narrowly focused on the decisions made by Carville's gang, and only then on third parties (Goni in particular, Bolivia more generally).
But if you're looking for a behind-the-scenes look at a campaign process. It's a great film. Though if you watch The West Wing, it's probably nothing you haven't seen before.
Posted by Miguel at 02:21 PM
Comments
You are absolutely right, the documentary is not really about Bolivia or Goni. In an interview with Rachel Boynton she said her interest in making the doucmentary is about the "other" type of "democracy for export" that US consultants carry on: "I wanted to make clear that this is a story that does not happen just in Bolivia but all over the world," said Rachel Boynton, 32, who directed and wrote the film after becoming intrigued by the American role in foreign campaigns. "I'm much more interested about the consultants as a symbol for us, as a symbol for America and American assumptions. I chose the subjects because I wanted to explore America's relationship with the rest of the world." See in: http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0E15F73A5A0C758EDDAB0894DE404482
What is particularly interesting in this documentary is how "democracy for export US-style," can fail dramatically - as it has/is doing in Iraq as well as in other countries, BOLIVIA-. Moreover, the "speed up" democractic process through elections and the "leadership" push when not understood in its context, is another confirmation of the US inability to play a game while not realizing that other coutries' realities/politics/culture are playing the game with different rules and assumptions.
Posted by: Ani at September 14, 2006 05:38 PM
Post a comment