Capital In The Twenty-First Century Movie Review

Based on the book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” written by famous French Economist Thomas Piketty, This documentary will blow your mind as it explores the concept of inequality and how the financial system has evolved over the centuries. The director of the documentary is filmmaker Justin Pemberton and the screenplay is by Justin Pemberton, Matthew Picketty, and Thomas Picketty. With the team of experts including Gillian Tett (US Managing Editor, Financial Times), Prof. Kate Williams (Historian, University of Reading), Paul Mason (Journalist, Author ‘Post Capital’), and Rana Foroohar (Global Economist Analyst), the director takes us on the journey and glides us through the mountains of the dilemma of society.

Plot

This documentary opens a portal to analyze the inequality and the system involved around it and shows us how it widens the gap between rich and poor. From Asia to Europe to America, how capitalism evolved from the “Industrial Revolution” to the 21^st century. Narrator and experts in the documentary provides viewers, the detailed explanations of the few established theories and conspiracies throughout the documentary, to tell us the secret that big business and capitalist don’t want us to know.

Star Performances

This documentary is a visual adaption of Thomas Piketty’s book; hence he is the star performer of the documentary. The editing and direction team did a fabulous job, in bringing the words of the author onto the screen.

Analysis

Thomas Piketty raises the question of the role of the monetary system. How it only provides the population of the 0.1 % of rich people and raises inequality as the people in the dire level of financial hierarchy belong to the 70% of the population. The author uses different analogies to show the viewer how a society based on financial bias treats its people. This documentary also questions the role of the government in curbing the concentration of money at the top tier of the citizenry. It also sheds light on the conversation of, how the governments of countries support capitalism and big business.

This documentary also focuses on the surge of storm, inside the people, who faces oppression in the hierarchy of the society, and how they are taking the matters into their own hands and protesting to the government, in the demand of justice. As documentary escalates towards the end it advocates for some solutions, like globally coordinated effort to tax the wealth and to increase the taxation cap of the rich people and big corporations.

What’s There?

• The direction and screenplay of the documentary have done an excellent job in visually appealing to the audience.
• The beautiful cinematography and use of historical footage, keeps viewers on the edge.
• It had done a great job linking the facts with pop culture symbolism.

What’s Not There?

• Despite being a well-constructed documentary, it doesn’t go to the necessary depth of the subject.
• As it doesn’t follow the book entirely, there are some sections that are not adept in the documentary.
• Capital in the twenty-first century shows only one-sided opinion of the subject as it doesn’t include the perspective of capitalism.

Verdict

The whole documentary is an eye-opening experience. It keeps viewers hooked, and makes them question the capitalistic form of society. Throughout the documentary it educates the audience about the inequality.

There are some economic terms may make your head spin but despite it, documentary provides the exciting insight of evolution of the financial system for 300 years. Capital in the twenty-first century asks you a question, whether capitalism will be our downfall and will take us back to the history, where it all had started, or we still can dream of an utopian society where inequality does not exist. This documentary uses the pop culture phrase “How the system is rigged” to showcase the failure and rusting structure of society.