L'encerclement

There are texts that with time become indispensable. One such is “La pensée unique”, published by Ignacio Ramonet in “Le Monde diplomatique” in January 1995. It is the basic inspiration behind Richard Brouillette’s film. The title of this film-saga, which is expressionist in its musical punctuation and at the same time Calvinist and anti-spectacular in black and white, is programmatic: L'ENCERCLEMENT - LA DEMOCRATIE DANS LES RETS DU NEOLIBERALISME. The filmmaker, who spent twelve years making the film, and who is also its producer, script writer, montage specialist and translator, has put together a fresco of thirteen specialists from areas relating to capitalist and neo-liberal phenomena and their avatars. It is an erudite performance of articulacy and active intelligence.
Richard Brouillette’s commitment is to make this learning accessible. The narrative is organised into two parts and ten chapters; the texts, which lead to particular transitions, and Eric Morin’s powerful music punctuate the unfolding of the montage, which has been put together like tiles. Each intervention comments upon and critiques the previous one and develops what has already been set out in terms of concepts and reflections.The filmmaker assembles thought and fragments of knowledge, piece by piece. Archives are integrated at certain moments, anchoring clarified phenomena in layers of time. These phenomena cannot be reduced to the current world crisis, which Richard Brouillette could not have anticipated and which, in a magnificent gift from reality to the film, corroborates the validity of his approach. Rather than allowing ENCERLEMENT to become partisan, he intelligently leaves it to brilliant defenders and opponents of the neo-liberal system of values to speak, carrying spectators along with them on an inspiring journey: that giving oneself the means to understand traces the possibly revolutionary path of one’s emancipation.
Jean Perret, Visions du Réel Nyon 2009

With: Normand Baillargeon, Susan George, Omar Aktouf, Oncle Bernard (Bernard Maris), Michel Chossudovsky, François Denord, François Brune, Martin Masse, Jean-Luc Migué, Filip Palda, Donald J. Boudreaux