I watched some documentaries this weekend, and thought I’d share two of them.
The first one I watched was Inside Job (2010). This is a documentary about how a big part of the world ended up in a financial crisis. My husband holds a master in Finance, but my knowledge in that department is thoroughly lacking. I’m trying to familiarize myself with some of the terminology, though, and this documentary is great for that. The film and its thought process are easy to follow, and it’s told – mostly through interviews and narrated by Matt Damon – in such a way that is captivating even to a lay person like myself. Watching this documentary, I learned how the financial world has changed the past fifty to sixty years and how those changes have made the current financial crisis possible. I now know what CDO, CDS, and leverage mean. I also know that the United States government has appointed, time and time again, some dubious figures to take on some pretty hefty tasks. Finally, I’ve come to the disillusioning conclusion that academics can be bought, and that the smartest of men aren’t necessarily the best of men.
The second documentary I’m going to tell you about is Catfish (2010). This one tells the story of a New York based photographer, Yaniv “Nev” Schulman, who one day receives a painting of one of his photographs through mail. It appears to have been painted by a nine year old girl called Abby. They start having a correspondence through e-mail and later Facebook. He sends her photographs and she paints pictures of them. His brother Ariel together with Henry Joost start making a documentary on the relationships Nev builds with Abby, her mother Angela, and her half sister Megan through the Internet. I’m not going to spoil the ending, but I will tell you that there has been some debate regarding the authenticity of the documentary. I say that even without the authenticity, it delivers its message loud and clear. Have a look!
"It was THIS big, I tell ya!"
*The picture is a combination of this picture from The Guardian, and this picture from Lindy Fishing Tackle.