By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Ich Bin Ein Greenwald: Chaos, Spin Ensue as 'Wal-Mart' Doc Four-Walls Berlin
You have to hand it to red-assed documentary maven Robert Greenwald, whose Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price has grown from its humble, shit-stirring New York roots to being an international cause publicité at the Berlin Film Festival. The rancor between Greenwald (right) and his retailing nemesis (first explored on The Reeler last fall) appears to have gotten hyperbolically worse as the doc snags one European distribution deal after another; now the director alleges that when Wal-Mart reps are not attempting to record the film on their cell phones, they are running around Berlin attempting to put the fear of God into helpless foreign distribs:
“We have experienced some scared theatrical distributors,” Greenwald insisted after a Wal-Mart screening here. “They are afraid that their other movies will be pulled from the (retailer’s) shelves if they distribute my film.”
Wal-Mart spokesman Olan James countered in an interview: “To say that we’d retaliate against a distributor for carrying this film is simply preposterous. … (W)e’re confident that the public will be able to spot the glaring inaccuracies throughout the … film.” …
Lightning Entertainment’s Richard Guardian said initially eager buyers from Brazil, Japan and Mexico, where Wal-Mart is a growing retail force, said they were worried that buying the film could have negative commercial repercussions for their DVD distribution business. …
“The response here at the Berlinale has been unbelievable,” Guardian said. “The film addresses global issues, and people are fascinated with the U.S. society and culture.”
It is nice to see all involved challenging the common economic stereotypes you might derive from this story: America as prolific exporter of fear; Wal-Mart as evil empire; desperate international trade partners cowering with indecision; so on and so forth. Then there is Greenwald, who has found his PR power stroke at exactly the right time against a Wal-Mart monolith that probably could not care less about DVD distributors in countries like Mexico, where the checks assuring future development cleared years ago. But I guess it is fun to watch them fight, if staged grudge matches fought in the Hollywood Reporter are your idea of “fun.” You sick freak.