In touching on a wide variety of economic, social, and topical matters, from the U.S. If you grant the film its slanted perspective at the outset, however, 99% works well as its own state-of-the-union address. Even when, toward the end, various Occupy protesters admit the movement faces an uncertain future, the filmmakers are nevertheless inclined to end on a note of optimism, surging Philip Glass music and all. Such potentially dialectical moments, though, are usually not elaborated enough to puncture the feeling of hagiographic back-patting that the film exudes more often than not. Occasionally, the filmmakers are canny enough to include dissenting voices: Author/activist Naomi Wolf pointedly contradicts an Occupy Wall Street organizer who, just a scene before, expressed contentment that the movement had fulfilled its mission of “changing the discourse” Wolf, on the other hand, doesn’t believe that that’s enough to consider it a success. Such an approach fits the utopian vision of an equal society that the movement tried to demonstrate with their occupation-one in which everyone tried to work together for a greater good and no one was discriminated against on the basis of income level or class.īecause of the inside-baseball nature of the enterprise, 99% doesn’t always escape a propagandistic feeling, however relatively nuanced. Borrowing a page from the collective approach of the 1967 anti-Vietnam War film Far from Vietnam, directors Audrey Ewell, Aaron Aites, Lucian Read, and Nina Krstic culled footage on the ground taken by Occupy Wall Street protesters, civilians, and journalists during the months the movement was at its peak, mixing it together with talking-head interviews. 99%” rhetoric to articulate the deeper societal dissatisfaction motivating the protesters.Ĭoming almost a year after a mass of people pitched tents and occupied Zuccotti Park in New York City’s Financial District, 99% also plays as something of a nostalgia trip-a feeling enhanced by the means by which this film was made. 99%: The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film, then, could be seen as a wide-ranging statement of purpose, going behind the demonstrations and “1% vs. The Occupy Wall Street protests that gripped the public consciousness last fall for a few months was unusual among such movements in that it was centered not around a specific threat or action, but around an idea-and even then, that idea was possibly too broad to be able to make for a sustainable cause.
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