Rating: ****
In November 2010, the American political
movement known as The Tea Party suddenly became a political force the likes of
which had not been scene since an Illinois attorney
and politician became the first Republican President in 1860. With a seeming
political mandate, many of these politicians, many of whom elected to state
governorships, began promoting an economic agenda that attacked unions and the
poor. But in Wisconsin, the process came to a screeching halt when teachers,
police officers, health workers and students begin protesting at, occupying if
you will, the state capital in Madison.
As fortune would have it, director Aime
Williams was there to capture it all on video, and combining her own footage
with news clips, You Tube videos, and an eventual second camera operator, she’s
created We Are Wisconsin, a kind of war movie chronicling what happens
when the people wake up to the fact that their democracy’s being taken out from
right underneath them.
Yes, it’s true, this film will resonate
with the “Fight the Power” crowd more than any passive observer, or apolitical
cynic, but there is a visceral and immediate kind of power to Williams' film; a
mixture of Michael Moore’s fight for the little guy gusto with the intimacy and
outrage of the work of Michael Winterbottom. Williams also mixes
after the fact observations and interviews with her first person footage, both
of which paint a more simple and serene picture of the protests than was portrayed
by the media at the time. And as the Occupy movement seems to be gearing up for
a spring campaign, there’s a fair bit of foreshadowing here too.
But what was most interesting to me was
that laying aside the fact of the issues, there’s almost an apolitical feeling
to We Are Wisconsin. The majority of people recognized that what
Governor Scott Walker was doing, eliminating collective bargaining amongst
state employees and the way he was able to work around it in the end despite
the outrage, galvanized the people in a way not scene since Vietnam.
The small victories of these Wisconsinites are inspiring, as they prove that
the old adage about not being able to fight city hall isn’t always the case.
